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Inmates Program Logistics App For Prison
schweini writes "Inmates in an Oklahoma prison developed software that attempts to streamline the prison's food logistics. A state representative found out, and he's trying to get every other prison in Oklahoma to use it, too. According to the Washington Post, 'The program tracks inmates as they proceed through food lines, to make sure they don’t go through the lines twice... It can help the prison track how popular a particular meal is, so purchasers know how much food to buy in the future. And it can track tools an inmate checks out to perform their jobs.' The program also tracks supply shipments into the system, and it showed that food supplier Sysco had been charging different prices for the same food depending on which facility it was going to. Another state representative was impressed, but realized the need for oversight: 'If they build on what they’ve done here, they actually have to script it out. If you have inmates writing code, there has to be a continual auditing process. Food in prison is a commodity. It’s currency.'"
Since the code needs to be audited anyways, it'd be a great chance for an instructor to introduce code reviews and/or pull requests. And maybe during that process, help enlighten other curious inmates as to how the system and programming works.
-- Jim
Your website could be better. Getting weekly feedback is a good starting point.
How can food in prison be a commodity? Are the prisoners not fed enough?
Is this a real question?
In prison, real currency is not allowed. However, humans are inherently commercial creatures, and consequently a system of barter results in the absence of any kind of hard currency upon which to base trade. What is needed is something with intrinsic value but which is also universally valued by most (if not all) of a population. Food is perfect for this: let's say you want something from another inmate. You may pass on eating a meal, instead giving it to the other guy in exchange for the thing you want. But, if you can go through the line twice, you can have your cake and eat it too.
For your security, this post has been encrypted with ROT-13, twice.
At least they're learning a skill that will be useful after they get out of prison. No wait ... that was before they shipped all the jobs offshore. I'll bet being a car thief pays better than flipping burgers, so maybe these guys ought to teach economics.
Got it in one.
The prison system hopes to convince inmates to integrate harmoniously with society once they are let out by teaching them that society is a heartless bastard and their sworn enemy. Then it creates the necessary conditions for a thriving black market so they won't go into the drug trade.
Maybe you should talk to a therapist until this sick desire to hurt people goes away.
What is needed is something with intrinsic value but which is also universally valued by most (if not all) of a population. Food is perfect for this: let's say you want something from another inmate.
Nota Bene: Food in prison can also be considered a raw material - bread for instance can be turned into alcohol with the right know-how, or fruits fermented for the same purpose.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
If everyone can have as much food as they like, the demand does not exceed the supply, and food would be valueless as a currency.
Not true. Last time I was in jail (Santa Clara County Jail), we could have as much bread and peanut butter as we wanted. Everything else was limited. So nobody went hungry, but the good stuff (meat/desserts) was still used as currency.
The system continued to be used by various prisons in the state (not all but most of them). Then the decree came on high that the state IT management corp (headed by northropp grumman) would write a new system. Guess what? It still contains code written by him.
We have both since been released, and guess what. It is hard to get a job. So I started my own web design (mostly template wordpress and drupal), and pc repair/consulting business. It has been slowly and hard, but now I am contracting to one of the bigger (but still small) repair firms in town and I am doing okay.
My friend is in a different part of the state and doing pretty well too. We are both lucky that even without internet access, we had and for a while at least, maintained jobs as classroom aides or other computer related jobs and were able to keep our brains relatively up to date with that and trade magazines/books for the decade +/- we were incarcerated.
As we become more and more connected, this becomes less possible. How can you teach an inmate office or photoshop when it requires a live internet connection? Or basic internet literacy for that matter? When an inmate has been inside for 10-25 years and has no clue how to even turn on a PC or tablet, much less send an email, how is he even supposed to apply for more than a day labor or dishwashing position upon his release?
For many it is easier to mooch, steal, or deal than reintegrate, and the educational prospects inside prison are severely hobbled for many reasons. Sure, most of the people who are there did some bad things, some terrible. Some change, some do not. If a person has the true desire to better himself and does not have or is denied the resources, then it is not much better than modern day slavery, and when you look at 'prison industry' it pretty much is.
Now the question is, who is surprised that there is an ex-con on /. ? I was here before too, but under a different name.
Silence is a state of mime.
trading and exploitation, where the strong exploit the weak.
Trading does not imply exploitation. In fact, it implies the opposite: two willing traders. I am a vegetarian, so I when I was in jail, I was happy to trade away the meat, but not the dessert (I love sweet stuff). Several other inmates offered to do my toilet cleaning duty in exchange for the meat. I declined, because I don't actually mind cleaning toilets (as long as I can take a shower when I am done). So I mostly exchanged food for votes on the TV channel. I built up enough votes to watch the PBS Newshour every Friday (when Brooks and Shields do the analysis of the week's news). Sometimes I even had enough votes to watch Gwen Ifill on Washington Week. It was in a county jail, not a "real" prison, and Santa Clara is not a typical county, but I never saw "the strong exploit the weak". Mostly they were a great bunch of guys, and we all cooperated to keep the area clean and running smooth. It was also a great way to improve my conversational Spanish. The food trading was an open and fair process. Nobody was coerced, and nobody ever went hungry.