Need advice or assistance for son who is in prison

https://mathoverflow.net/questions/382003/need-advice-or-assistance-for-son-who-is-in-prison-his-interest-is-scattering-t

by mathgenius • 5 years ago

174 200 5 years ago

mathoverflow.net

crb0022• 5 years ago

https://www.amazon.com/Category-Theory-Context-Aurora-Origin... was a Godsend when I was in solitary. Fuck jpay - send letters by post.

crb0022• 5 years ago

To the person who deleted their question, yes most institutions prefer you ship straight from Amazon. Make sure the inmate has the book pre-approved to prevent SNAFUs.

Fjolsvith• 5 years ago

And don't order used books. Only new books. Used will get rejected.

aaomidi10• 5 years ago

This is so depressing. I really hate our punitive justice system.

Punishing people for 15 years doesn't change drunk driving. If they were *thinking* before driving drunk, or contemplating the consequences, they wouldn't be driving drunk.

Edit: I think this puts it far better than I can: http://www.cscsb.org/restorative_justice/retribution_vs_rest...

influx• 5 years ago

What would you rather do if someone drives drunk and kills two teenagers?

aaomidi10• 5 years ago

I don't know, I just don't see the point of essentially killing another person.

Is the point revenge? To make sure this doesn't happen again? Is justice = revenge? Questions...

Like I guess my point is someone who is driving drunk is already not thinking logically. You could execute drunk drivers and the rate of new drunk drivers wouldn't change.

erdaniels• 5 years ago

edit: this was a comment on what I would do but getting downvoted trying to have a conversation about this is demotivating

stickfigure2• 5 years ago

I don't think anyone is suggesting that the guy should just be allowed to sleep it off.

But 15 years? Wouldn't 5 years get the point across?

runarberg• 5 years ago

idk. I’m sure there are better methods of preventing drunk driving then punishing people after the fact. Measures include:

* Better party hour transport availability

* Better driver awareness, education, and propaganda

* More enforcement of drunk suspects before an accident

* Police cooperation with bars, i.e. tattle-tail programs

Moving to America I’m astonished how much drunk driving goes unpunished here. In rural areas there people often go a few dozen km to the next bar, and there is no alternative to get home except to drive. When there is enforcement it seems like it is only over the top punishment. Bartenders seem to be fine with people having a few beers and driving home (as long as they are not “too drunk”).

I think America is failing spectacularly in preventing drunk driving, and I think the main reason is that this over reliance of punitive measures that simply don’t work.

throwaway8943452• 5 years ago

To be clear, he was sentenced to 15 years because he killed two kids.

gogopuppygogo• 5 years ago

Not to mention the armed robbery after the drunk driving occurred...

I think the punishment system we almost hilariously call a justice system needs a lot of help but this seems like a young man who was a real danger to society. A lost decade should take the wind out of his dangerously murderous antics.

abnry4• 5 years ago

What do you think about how members of the last US executive administration should be treated? Should people give them jobs?

Most people are in favor of punitive justice, but for the "right" wrongs.

aaomidi10• 5 years ago

Personally I'd want them to not have executive jobs where they have influence over peoples lives. Not as a punishment, but as an actual deterrent.

However I'd personally prefer to root out why right-wing extremism is on the rise. I had this discussion a few days ago about what should be done about the capitol terrorists, and I don't think they should face severe jail/policing.

I know of a few leftist circles that also banned any mention of FBI tiplines etc, because those individuals were just a symptom of a problem. And punishing the symptom does nothing to the disease.

mhh__6• 5 years ago

My own philosophy is that we should be prepared to come down like a hammer on the crimes that require premeditation, dedication, and intellect to execute.

If someone gets caught up in the wrong crowd at a young age, they need help not punishment - even the process of receiving that help can be sufficiently emasculating as to be punishment in itself (arguably).

If, for instance, the you-know-which Trump pardons hadn't happened, then they absolutely deserved to be punished. Similarly, tax offences at scale and (say) trying to overrule a result in Georgia...

If it weren't for my existing beliefs about the death penalty, I almost believe in capital punishment for treason - specifically espionage. Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanssen are unbelievably lucky to be alive.

nogridbag• 5 years ago

I have no opinion on the length of the sentence, but reading the linked news article does change my opinion on this:

"While he's on bond, he commits a strong-arm robbery down in Monroe stealing a fifth of whiskey"

ilammy• 5 years ago

or contemplating the consequences

What those consequences be if the society does not punish people for that? (where “punishment” isn’t necessarily prison time)

You can’t bring back dead people to life, unfortunately. For some other crimes you can be fined, make amendments in other ways, having your license revoked, etc. But not for manslaughter. For this crime any punishment is exerted only as a message to other people: don’t kill people or else those bad things will happen to you.

mhh__6• 5 years ago

What those consequences be if the society does not punish people for that?

Given the state of most prisons in the west (Especially in the US), we are often sending people to effectively rot and even if they get out they might as well be dead they're so stunted.

Indeed, you can't bring dead people back to life. Judicial systems should not be based off of the emotions of people affected by crimes - it's not a nice thing to say but it just empirically doesn't work.

For this crime any punishment is exerted only as a message to other people: don’t kill people or else those bad things will happen to you.

Not only is deterrent-policy usually very expensive both directly and in the aforementioned tendency to shit out people who go straight back into crime, I'm not aware of any studies that manage to disprove their null.

https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/deterrence

In the extreme "capital punishment means those without capital get the punishment.".

throwawayboise3• 5 years ago

Knowing that you killed two innocent young people would certainly be a huge consequence for most people, one that they would never get over. I think by comparison some jail time would be almost inconsequential. If the former isn't a deterrent, I don't see how the latter would be, psychopaths excepted perhaps.

koolba• 5 years ago

If there weren’t stiff penalties for drunk driving it’d be rampant. The fear of being locked away for 20 years most definitely acts as a preventative measure.

alphabettsy2• 5 years ago

It is rampant.

1.4 million DUI arrests in 2010 and that’s just the people who got caught.

https://www.bts.gov/archive/publications/by_the_numbers/drun...

hu32• 5 years ago

You'd think very differently if those two kids were yours.

That family is done. There wont be a single day in their lives that they wont suffer.

If these crimes were handled lightly, they would occur more often.

aaomidi10• 5 years ago

Of course I would. There's a reason we don't want mob justice. And there's a reason families aren't really involved in prosecution.

dragonwriter2• 5 years ago

Punishing people for 15 years doesn’t change drunk driving.

It absolutely prevents the particular actor from driving drunk for the period of actual incarceration. It may even make it more likely that they will think before doing it again, even if they did not think the first time; and if you argue that the people who would do it once aren’t rationally deterrable even by adverse experience, that makes long-duration incapacitation such as by incarceration even more critical.

mbrodersen4• 5 years ago

So how many people will somebody have to kill before you consider them dangerous enough to lock up? Also, do you realise that some people are too damaged/dangerous/psychopathic to ever be “fixed” enough to live in society?

nickysielicki• 5 years ago

Sad story of why he's in prison: https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2015/06/man_sentenced_1...

"While he's on bond, he commits a strong-arm robbery down in Monroe stealing a fifth of whiskey," Bredell said, adding that authorities in Monroe eventually dropped those charges because the Washtenaw County case took precedence.

Alcohol has ruined a lot of lives.

noncoml• 5 years ago

Reminded me of the movie Another Earth. If you haven't seen it, I recommend it

whiddershins4• 5 years ago

‘Alcohol has ruined a lot of lives’

True. True fact.

You don’t know that this is that.

anonytrary• 5 years ago

I think it is fair to assume that someone who goes as far as to commit a strong-arm robbery for a fifth of liquor probably has an extremely toxic relationship with alcohol.

reificator• 5 years ago

> ‘Alcohol has ruined a lot of lives’
True. True fact.
You don’t know that this is that.

I don't think it's that far of a stretch given

> he commits a strong-arm robbery down in Monroe stealing a fifth of whiskey

troupe2• 5 years ago

Given how many lives it ruins, I'm amazed at how easily accessible it is. I'm not trying to say we should bring back prohibition or something like that. I just find it fascinating how much socialization is build around drinking something that can have this type of potential.

kamaal3• 5 years ago

Its hard to ban these things. Make the access to a banned thing too hard and then you get smuggling and contraband, make it easy and then its a joke. The right way to go about banning these things is to put them just outside the reach of ordinary person's living wage.

The think should be accessible, but its supply reduced and price a little high so that people begin to measure the pay off between buying and the pleasure they get from it.

These things happen with Sugar too. The amount of lives ruined by easy access to a addictive thing like sugar is just unbelievable.

SteveGerencser• 5 years ago

I don't recall where I heard this, if it was a serious suggestion or a comedian, but the idea was simple. When a person reaches legal drinking age they get a drinking card allowing them to drink and buy alcohol. Not use their driver's license.

Do something illegal that involves alcohol, lose your drinking license for x years to forever. Get caught selling/serving alcohol to someone without a card, that's a 'crime' now.

Additionally, since you are not removing their driver's license as punishment, they can still do things like go to work, take care of kids/family and so on. they just can't drink legally. Obviously lots of issues and ideas, but that is the basic idea.

sillysaurusx6• 5 years ago

Sometimes I try to imagine life without prisons. It seems an inexorable part of the human condition: where society exists, punishment exists. It's a bit like trying to imagine all the foods we're missing out on by them not existing; it's easy to imagine a world without tomatoes, for example, and if you invert that thinking, you end up with all the foods we might have enjoyed if they evolved.

Is there any society with no judicial system? Or is it an absolute requirement of any group of people over, say, 10,000?

viraptor• 5 years ago

It seems like an extreme different from the current one. From the post: "In short, without direct access to the internet or fellow researchers [...]" - that seems like a really stupid limitation for someone who wants to be productive. Many countries could start with prisons which are not pure punishment. We even have "open prisons" in a few places.

Once we stop over-punishing, it could be easier to imagine plan for what no-prison world would look like.

nilkn• 5 years ago

It's interesting to consider that if we provided inmates with computers and a solid internet connection, they could potentially find remote work in the new virtual world and have a full-time job.

whiddershins4• 5 years ago

Earlier societies found it more cost effective to exile or kill people. But the least socially damaging option was to fine people, thereby lowering their social status.

Because lives were so important to the survival of the group, you couldn’t casually discard one.

So someone who murdered someone might pay a severe fine which would lower their social status to the point where they couldn’t have a family etc.

But yes, buying your way out of punishment was normal.

Should we go back to that, you think?

analog31• 5 years ago

While on a family trip to Iceland, I read a translation of Njal's Saga. Granted, you have to read it in light of the fact that it wasn't written down until a long time after the events happened.

But it describes Iceland's ancient legal system in some detail. If you killed someone, you could be sued, tried, and fined. The fine went to the victim's family. What it looks like happened in practice was that the victim's family wasn't really satisfied that justice was done, and would conduct a revenge killing. Then the money would pass back to the other family again. The practical effect was that the entire saga is like a decades long blood feud, mediated by the court system.

Of course it was fascinating to read, especially since we were visiting places described in the saga, such as Thingvellier, where they met to conduct government and trials.

They had another system, where if you were utterly uncontrollable, they could vote you off the island by making you an outlaw, meaning that anybody could kill you without repercussion.

troupe2• 5 years ago

I'm not sure how well this would work unless you also remove social programs designed to raise the standard of living.

benjohnson• 5 years ago

We have to have a justice system - to protect the guilty.

If someone killed one of my children in the way that this man killed, I would kill him for retribution.

A justice system protects him from my wrath. And protects me from the wrath of his father once he learns his son is dead.

systemvoltage3• 5 years ago

To add to your points - it puts a framework where both parties can engage in judicial review and present their case / defense.

Judicial system is amazing. What we need to do is to make it more precise by reducing false negatives and false positives.

Just because of a few failures of the justice system (the stories of failures you read in the news) does not justify getting rid of the entire system.

watwut3• 5 years ago

Revenge killings like that are not as frequent at all, even in cases where perpetrator walks free. Maybe you would do it, but majority of people simply don't.

Revenge killing is good movie plot, but not really the reality of western culture nor was for it reality in past.

manigandham• 5 years ago

Every society has a judicial system. They're all different, with some being very primitive with eye-for-an-eye violence while others have centuries of political procedures and massive infrastructure. They can also be layered, as the society within a prison has its own justice system.

ardit33• 5 years ago

It existed... in Europe was the 'Vendeta' system... this was in the Balkans (Albania), and parts of Italy.

You steal a sheep, I get something in return. You kill someone, you die... or someone else from your family is going to pay for it...

In some other places it was protecting your honor by duel, ettc... Pirates were hanged, together with members of the ship that mutinied. In some places people were exiled/shunned from the community

etc. etc.

As, you see, it was an eye for an eye, where death was a common punishment, then it was financial retribution, or banishment/exile

As you see, a world without prisons was a harsh one. If you were a weak person, without a large family, you were toast.

bobby_bob• 5 years ago

The "generally understood" purpose of prison is for:

retribution, incapacitation, deterrence and rehabilitation

The US skews a more towards the retributive (i.e. "just punishment") than other jurisdictions. For example, the federal sentencing guidelines explicitly prohibit reduced sentences in order to facilitate rehabilitation (except drug and alcohol rehabilitation programs).

It's easy enough to imagine a society where prison has a significantly less retribution focused, instead focusing on how a criminal can be rehabilitated (education opportunities, community corrections orders e.t.c). Popular example being some Nordic prisons.

fian• 5 years ago

Not aware of a society without a judicial system.

About 1% of the population could be considered psycho paths.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4059069/

So there is a high probability of anti-social behaviour well below 10,000 people.

belorn2• 5 years ago

There are widely different judicial systems, and many that differ from the method used in the US.

Prison and forced hospitalization can in some places be very similar with the goal being rehabilitation. The purpose is to establish when the person is safe to be released, and to build a program towards that goal. Norway and Sweden is often cited as using those methods heavily, with Sweden getting both praise and criticism because of the fact that sentences can be undetermined in length. A person is released when they are deemed safe, which is a bit subjective. For youths specifically, the punishment is even called youth rehabilitation, even if its located in a prison building.

In contrast here we got a 15 years old kid that got a minimum 12 year sentence. The similarity with a hospital is almost zero. Its questionable if the legal system care if the kid got better or worse from their time spent there.

During the 80s and 90s, Norway used an interesting old approach to youth rehabilitation. Put them on a old sailing boat and put it out to sea for a several months. A kind of floating prison since escape was basically impossible, and the risk of drugs being smuggled in was pretty low. On the boat they could either sit in their room if they wish, or learn team work by helping the crew run the boat. It is difficult to compare that to a regular prison, even if a lot of the aspects of prison is there.

mbrodersen4• 5 years ago

Without the threat of punishment, society would collapse. There are people out there who enjoy killing, torturing, raping and destroying other people. You would need to be heavily armed to go anywhere without risking your life. Without basic trust in each other (enforced by the threat of punishment) society doesn’t work.

sebmellen12• 5 years ago

It's tragic to see bright young people in prison like this. Travis (the son in this post) is 25. To be in prison since 19 years old, with the earliest release date in 2027 (latest in 2045)... Goodness. This sort of time in jail is what you get for murder in parts of Europe [1].

Anyway, sorry if it's off-topic. Very inspiring what he's up to.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_imprisonment_in_the_Nethe...

Due to the strict nature of the sentence, most "common" murders result in a sentence of around 12 to 30 years.

EDIT: If you downvoted me I would appreciate knowing why. What is it that I wrote?

whiddershins4• 5 years ago

Think, for a moment.

Let’s all think.

Are we saying it is tragic for smart and young people to be in prison but not older or less intelligent people?

I’m not messing with you or being snarky. I felt your sentiment keenly and then wonder what exactly I’m agreeing with.

sebmellen12• 5 years ago

I'm sorry if it comes off as dismissing the plight of others, that certainly wasn't my intention.

I think being sentenced so heavily in one's youth is arguably more tragic because there's an argument to be made that adolescence is a different developmental period [0]. Perhaps sentencing should take this into account (e.g. a different sentencing bracket until ~24?). Also, there's another argument to be made that younger people have had less time to sort themselves out, and a longer time to redeem themselves or make something of themselves (which I think we see here, not to say an elderly person couldn't do that).

With regards to less intelligent people who are imprisoned, I would even say their plight is maybe even more tragic. Less intelligent people probably have faced many more hardships in life and/or had a harder time mounting a strong legal defence (though intelligent people are more likely to abuse drugs [1]).

I suppose this struck me in particular because it's a strong condemnation of the stereotype that prisoners are "certain kinds" of people. The contrast is what made it stand out. Maybe it can serve as an example for those who believe you only end up in prison if you are one of those "certain kinds" of people.

Again, it wasn't a calculated sentiment, it just struck me how absurd getting sentenced to up to 30 years of imprisonment is, especially as a 19 year-old who probably could've ended up at a top university if not for life circumstances.

I also think our justice and prison system is fundamentally flawed and should be reworked, especially for non-violent crimes (which this borders on the edge of).

[0] https://bigthink.com/mind-brain/adult-brain

[1] https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-scientific-funda...

solumos• 5 years ago

Yes, "equal protection" is a myth.

cm2012• 5 years ago

A good rule of thumb for how people categorize levels of tragedy is how much "potential" is being wasted.

gmadsen4• 5 years ago

without trying to seem lacking in empathy it is exactly that. I mourn for the loss of contribution to science and math.

picnicill2• 5 years ago

I think it's more a case of some commenters on HN having more empathy with a person who they assume is like them (young, intelligent, privileged) then the people this drunk driver killed.

threatofrain• 5 years ago

The more bright and young someone is, the more we're inclined to give them another chance. Is this surprising? Is there a society where this is not true? Germany?

paulcole• 5 years ago

He killed 2 people.

https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2015/06/man_sentenced_1...

sebmellen12• 5 years ago

Yes, I know, but murder is a very different sentence from manslaughter. This was obviously his fault, and I feel terrible for the 2 people who were killed, but it wasn't premeditated or even intentional.

Intent plays a big part in sentencing, so I think there is an important place for understanding and rehabilitation. This situation is tragic all around.

kevin_thibedeau• 5 years ago

Ethan Couch (affluenza teen) killed four people and is walking free.

oars• 5 years ago

https://www.mlive.com/news/ann-arbor/2015/06/man_sentenced_1...

Alcohol is the worst drug in the world.

screamingninja4• 5 years ago

Goodness. This sort of time in jail is what you get for murder in parts of Europe

Murder as opposed to what?

sebmellen12• 5 years ago

You mean in this case?

In this case I believe it's murder vs manslaughter [0]. Otherwise, I believe his MDOC page would reflect a murder charge [1]. Murder and manslaughter are quite notably different in their intent and premeditation [2]. If you accidentally (or half-accidentally) kill someone, that's very different from killing them on purpose.

[0] https://www.findlaw.com/dui/charges/dui-manslaughter-and-dui...

[1] https://mdocweb.state.mi.us/OTIS2/otis2profile.aspx?mdocNumb...

[2]: [1]: https://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/homicide-murder-mans...

astura3• 5 years ago

This sort of time in jail is what you get for murder in parts of Europe

Uhhhhhhhh... You know he killed multiple people, right?

sebmellen12• 5 years ago

As I've mentioned in numerous other comments, there is a well-recognized and codified difference between manslaughter and murder [0].

He was also not charged with murder, but with "Operating While Intoxicated Causing Death" [1], which I believe is a manslaughter charge.

[0] https://quinnanlaw.com/criminal-defense/murder-vs-manslaught...

[1] https://mdocweb.state.mi.us/OTIS2/otis2profile.aspx?mdocNumb...

3131s4• 5 years ago

This guy killed two teenagers with his car, because he was wasted. I'm not going to shed any tears for this guy when people have gotten similar sentences for small amounts of certain drugs.

A 12 year sentence is nothing in America, but hopefully his treatment in prison is humane and he has all the access possible to resources for education, health, and eventual contribution to society. It won't be though, of course, since the US prison system has fostered a brutal environment that causes recidivism, mostly arising out of American hatred of the poor and of dark-skinned people.

randyrand• 5 years ago

Even in the USA, voluntary manslaughter (murder) can bring about much less prison time.

This man got 6 years for murdering and dismembering his wife's father, at the direction of his wife, while the wife got 1 year for her role. https://www.sfchronicle.com/crime/article/No-prison-time-for...

sixmonths5• 5 years ago

A person below asked, "Why is this clearly extremely intelligent individual in prison?" (The comment is dead.)

My father has several degrees, including a doctorate. He is highly intelligent, has an incredible work ethic and is a very kind and considerate person.

He went to prison for 6 months for a minor financial crime, something that was very out of character for him. The judge did not wish to send him to prison (she said that in court) but the prosecutor insisted that the prosecution would appeal any non-custodial sentence. So the judge gave him the minimum 6 months. That custodial sentence ruined my father's life, made him basically unemployable, despite his brilliance and integrity, and ruined my family's life too. Now my parents live in poverty and I have $23 in my bank account, with rent due tomorrow. I expect to be homeless by next week. Not a great situation for somebody with clinical depression.

Intelligent, good people can and do end up in prison and it can ruin lives (and not just the person behind bars, but also the people who love them). Good people do sometimes make terrible mistakes. My experience of this taught me so much. The really hard way.

For anyone who has a family member in prison, or has a similar story to mine, I feel for you.

3131s4• 5 years ago

Everyone deserves to be helped out of poverty, but cases like yours show that the deck is just too stacked even against some of our brightest people. Despite being from a more stable set of circumstances and I can barely manage to get by at times (including now), if that helps. It's tragic that the very best things on this planet are being destroyed as we speak, including people like you and your father.

crenstrope3• 5 years ago

The father stacked the deck against himself and his family through his criminality. This has nothing to do with being a bright person (though, one that clearly wasn't bright enough to consider the consequences from committing this crime, and like, not do it).

the_arun• 5 years ago

Very sorry to hear your story. Human curiosity - How do you earn your living?

handedness• 5 years ago

Add payment info to your profile and I'll chip in.

sixmonths5• 5 years ago

Thank you but I didn't expect my comment to be voted up this highly and I don't want to take any focus away from the OP's difficult situation.

kamaal3• 5 years ago

>The judge did not wish to send him to prison (she said that in court) but the prosecutor insisted that the prosecution would appeal any non-custodial sentence.

Prosecution optimizing for a kill count is another problem in this system. In case of minor victim less offenses some thing like community services, fines and warnings should be the maximum punishment.

When you punish some one for life for a minor offense, then you are basically telling them they are better off trying their hand at a full time criminal career. Now every one suffers.

crenstrope3• 5 years ago

Though, do bear in mind you're reading the clearly biased account of the person's son or daughter, who seems to be in denial that their father did anything much wrong in the first place.

If the father worked in finance (which seems somewhat implied here) and got imprisoned for committing a financial crime, it seems reasonable for that to be an ongoing stain on his professional reputation.

phnofive2• 5 years ago

I’d think the felony conviction has a lot more to do with employability, to say nothing of professional consequences for breaching trust (i.e., there are exceptions to asking about criminal history with respect to breaching fiduciary duty).

I am still sympathetic to your position, but I can’t see why a judge would be sympathetic to your father.

nexthash• 5 years ago

You do not know if it was a felony. I doubt it would be, due to the low minimum sentence. Also, how hard is it to see a judge's sympathy for the commenters father? He made a mistake once, and the prosecution wanted to stick it to him. The unfairness of having to jail somebody for whom prison is an out-of-proportional punishment is more than enough to make a judge sympathetic to his plight.

picnicill2• 5 years ago

This comes across as a plea for affluenza.

Your father is responsible for ruining his life and making yours more difficult, not the prosecutor.

If he hadn't committed the crime, he wouldn't be imprisoned.

By your own description of events, there's not much brilliance, integrity, or goodness on display from him here.

flashgordon• 5 years ago

So let us say it was totally the fathers fault. Shouldn't the fact that he served his sentence and "paid good dues" mean that still be the end of it (btw this should apply to any body having issues off their dues).

szatkus• 5 years ago

What is it about American companies doing background check? I only saw banks requiring it here.

IG_Semmelweiss3• 5 years ago

this is to minimize the risk of internal fraud, inventory loss, potential staff issues, etc.

Its not all grim - There are some counterbalances that saavy employers can leverage. I believe some states , such as NJ, will reward employers that hire ex-felons. These amounts are quite large.

Of course, not all employers want to take the time to do an assesment of a potential hire with a criminal background.

ip26• 5 years ago

Cheap insurance.

Threeve303• 5 years ago

You can have a clear background, never be charged with a crime, and still lose your job. Happens with increasing frequency.

siliconvict3• 5 years ago

I also went to prison and have a felony conviction.

My suggestion to your father is to work for smaller firms or move to a state where background checks are shunned like California.

I did not have a single background check my entire duration living in San Francisco.

siliconvict3• 5 years ago

Tacking onto this, once your father's reputation is big enough even a felony conviction won't stop him from being hired at top places.

I've had offers at Google/Apple. I've worked for the Federal Avation Administration. I've been on a leadership team who's raised from A16Z. I've been through IPOs. I've gotten jobs in London and Tokyo.

Sure, it's extra paperwork when you have to explain that you're a felon, but once he's got a reputation, companies will foot the legal bill for him to join.

sillysaurusx6• 5 years ago

Regarding your clinical depression, I strongly urge you to (with the guidance of a doctor) begin taking Prozac. It changed my life.

You can find a clinic that will take you for $50 or so. It's not the cheapest of options, but it's the single most impactful choice you can make in your situation. If you adhere to your schedule, and if your brain chemistry matches my own (which it might not), you'll start to be "evened out" after 30 days.

You have to take the pill every single day though, without exception. I almost didn't realize the Prozac was effective at all, because the first time I tried it, I was inconsistent.

People seem to hate this advice and reply aggressively each time I give it, but the moment I see "clinical depression" I will continue to give it. If the doctor notices any problems, they will take care of it.

abiogenesis2• 5 years ago

Strongly urging the OP to see a doctor could be a better option instead of recommending a specific medication.

sixmonths5• 5 years ago

Thank you. I am already taking Prozac. I began taking it quite recently, and I think it is helping, a little bit.

xwolfi2• 5 years ago

This person was in jail for killing two teenagers while drunk in his car, something that can happen to anybody, regardless of intelligence, and yield more than 6 months (12 to 30 years in his case).

For your dad, yeah that was a disaster and a sign that there's no small crime sadly.

But as for your situation, it has nothing to do with it (maybe you didn't intend to sound like your dad's mistake created your inability to have more than 23$ in your account).

It so happen that there's a massive amount of people who live in relative difficulty and are not homeless. Wake up and move on. I live my life knowing the baseline is coffee maker at macdonalds, and I'm fine with it. They can recruit people like your dad, no one has a life right to be rich and successful and it's fine to fall down and start again. My dad is rich enough, has a doctorate and a small business, and I spent my entire teenage years decoupling from my parents to be fully independent and ready to weather any storm. Sometimes it means finding girlfriends to share rent, having a weekend job, moving to a smaller city where university is less prestigious but nearly free, etc. When I realised taxes would take most of a meager salary in France with barely any tangible benefit, I burnt half my life savings (3 years of full time job at 2000 euros per month) emigrating to a tax-free jurisdiction...

When did this event happen to you ? When you were too young to be already split from them ? I really hope you wake up, find a stupid job, cut all debt that are not legally mandatory, and bounce back. There's no dirty job, nothing is beneath you and being independent is the only objective you should have. Having this attitude, btw, is 90% of whatever job interview you'll have to do.

anemoiac• 5 years ago

How do you know the OP’s situation has nothing to do with their dad’s predicament? Do you realize that social mobility differs tremendously across nations? In many societies, it is not nearly as easy to escape poverty as you seem to imply. Your “baseline” might be making coffee at McDonald’s, and presumably not homeless , but not everyone is as fortunate as you. For all you know, the OP has been living their life in exact accordance with your instructions up to this point.

74d-fe6-2c6• 5 years ago

Good people do sometimes make terrible mistakes.

Seems like it's not the mistake itself was terrible, more the way society treats people for mistakes is terrible.

xtiansimon• 5 years ago

Hmmm. How society treats people who have made mistakes? How people are treated for mistakes seems to rely on how likable a person is to begin with and how egregious the offense. So, I don’t see that critique of social forgiveness going far in broad terms.

It is a fact, however, that mistakes have consequences the costs of which can be far reaching—financially, socially, for many years to come.

Like any great fall the question is how quickly you can accept change and move forward. Even harder is to accept yourself as society has weighed your ...contributions. (Ie. corruption)

The problem then becomes, of course, how can you rebuild when your resources are also diminished (financial, mentoring, clear thinking, network).

But a really charismatic person who is just fun to be around, they’ll bounce back.

sjg007• 5 years ago

Does your dad have the option to get the felony reduced to a misdemeanor post conviction after completing all the terms of probation or get it expunged etc... ?

I'm not sure what the process is for the state you live in.

IG_Semmelweiss3• 5 years ago

this case makes me wonder - are there reasons that no govt agency nor NGO has offered computers to jails... with restricted connectivity to only specific domains like Coursera, Edx, etc?

I understand the need to prevent criminal activity via internet access, but that seems like a trivial technical problem... or is it ?

I'd think such an initiative would impact re-incarceration rates, which for the price of a few laptops, seems like a steal (pun intended)

throwawayboise3• 5 years ago

Probably the thinking is that any online platform likely has some roundabout way to be used to communicate with people on the outside. Internal message boards, group chats, help desk, etc. The software would have to be usable completely offline to be acceptable.

naewonawonga2• 5 years ago

Prisons do not actually have rehabilitation as a meaningful incentivized goal.

IG_Semmelweiss3• 5 years ago

Maybe so. But the people paying for the prison certainly do. And they have the purse strings to impose things on their vendors.

The profit motive cuts both ways.

Good money steward, good outcomes. Checked out steward...

siliconvict3• 5 years ago

I also served a prison sentence.

When I was 19, I didn't have a father or mother to send me books, but I managed to barter with other prisoners to get books to come in from the outside.

My primary focus was computer science rather than mathematics, and even though I didn't have a computer to work with, I wrote out all my programs on paper. Learning was slow, very slow.

When I got out, it took me 8 months to get a computer. I couldn't afford to buy one, so I bought it part by part and built one myself, even though I never had done it before.

Fast forward 20 years, I'm a multimillionaire, successful startup founder, and two IPOs deep. I think my success came from the anger I felt in prison. Nothing could be worse than serving time, I told myself, and it made me very ambitious because of it.

Reading Travis' letter and seeing his DOC number at the bottom of it made me feel all those painful, frustrated moments I had while serving time.

Best of luck to Travis. I will be contacting his father and sending what is allowed.

alex_young• 5 years ago

It’s unfortunate that so many here are advocating for harsh prison sentences for some perceived deterrent value.

The US has the highest total number of people in prison, as well as the highest per capita rate [0], and yet we still have high rates of crimes we throw people in jail for decades for.

Clearly this system isn’t having any deterrent impact, and it is having a huge cost to both the lives directly deprived of freedom and to the families around them.

[0] http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/spl/hi/uk/06/prisons/html/nn2...

alphabettsy2• 5 years ago

You’re right, but when referring to harsh prison sentences I think most people mean the fact the non-violent offenses like drug related ones can get you significant time.

There are crimes of desperation and crimes of selfishness, most people I think have less tolerance for one than the other.

julianmarq4• 5 years ago

I read the question and answers and felt a little cheerful at the idea of someone turning his life around and even thought to myself that maybe the system works sometimes.

Then I came back here and read a few of the comments, particularly those by the new throwaway accounts (except for the top one). I shouldn't have read the comments, particularly those by the new throwaway accounts (and not because they might have changed my mind about the question and answers; they didn't, far from it).

rtyujkx4• 5 years ago

He killed two kids, you know.

julianmarq4• 5 years ago

I commented how I already read the comments (particularly those by the green usernames) and they didn't change my mind about that particular situation; I don't understand what is going to be accomplished by yet another comment simply repeating that.

Yes, he killed two people, and he's doing the time while clearly taking the process of rehabilitation very seriously. That's the whole point of prison, or at least it's what it was supposed to be.

Need advice or assistance for son who is in prison

Related Stories