Working on databases from prison

https://turso.tech/blog/working-on-databases-from-prison

by dvektor • 1 year ago

849 392 1 year ago

turso.tech

gavinray• 1 year ago

Preston, great to see you made it this far!

We emailed, back when the post about your circumstances was shared here in Nov. 2023. I knew you'd see success.

Huge shoutout to Jessica and UL for all the work they do, and here's to a bright future ahead for you =)

dvektor2• 1 year ago

Thanks Gavin! Really appreciate the support.

voidUpdate2• 1 year ago

I'm glad to hear accounts of people in the prison system who are given the opportunity to do some good. While I am admittedly less sympathetic of dealers, the fact that the author recognises that they were in a bad situation and have been able to make positive progress since being given the opportunity to is really nice to hear

komali23• 1 year ago

I don't know the circumstances of this case, but in many states, e.g. Texas my home state, simply having above an arbitrarily defined amount of a given controlled substance automatically gets you tagged with "intent to sell." An overloaded court system combined with a pay-to-win "justice" system means a lot of people take the charge in their plea deal even if they aren't dealers.

voidUpdate2• 1 year ago

In the part 1 article, the author mentions "making tens of thousands of dollars a week" in relation to drugs, which is why I talked about dealing. Obviously I've got no proof of that or anything, so I'm happy to be proven wrong.

Drug charges are difficult. In my opinion, if you are using drugs personally, I don't really see a problem. If you commit some crime while under the influence which could harm another person, eg driving while drugged, obviously that's a different story, and coercing other people into it isn't great either, but if you're just smoking in your own home, its your body that you're altering. If you're selling to other people, that feels a bit more iffy to me because you're affecting other people with that... though I do realise that preventing the sale is effectively the same as preventing the usage...

BryantD2• 1 year ago

Without judging this guy's current state, he makes it clear in his first blog post that he was a dealer.

"So instead of coming back home broke and apologetic, I ended up pretty deep into this and soon was making tens of thousands of dollars a week, very much unapologetically."

Then, after his first sentence:

"I was left with the difficult choice of either living there and walking to a temp agency with hopes of making $10.50/hour doing manual labor (without an ID or social security card at this point), or getting on a bus to NYC to see some associates, and coming back in a week or so with $15-25k in my pocket and living in comfy luxury hotels until I could rent an apartment... I chose the latter: and obviously, was back in prison after a short 14 months of addiction and misery."

JonKKelly• 1 year ago

That is pretty awesome! I can imagine there are so many others that would benefit from programs like the one you are a part of, congratulations!

manesioz• 1 year ago

God bless you.

chatmasta2• 1 year ago

How does the compensation work? The US prison system has a bit of a nasty reputation when it comes to exploiting prison labor, so I hope those practices aren’t carrying over into these more forward-looking types of initiative… but at the same time, surely Turso isn’t paying full SWE salary?

laufey• 1 year ago

Just curious, why would you expect him to be paid less? I know historically pay is bad for prisoners, but if he's working the same hours and is just as productive as any other employee, shouldn't he be paid the same? I could potentially see paying someone less if they were coming in with much less experience than what's usually hired for in the role, but that doesn't seem to be the case here.

the__alchemist• 1 year ago

I speculate: Supply and demand. He doesn't have many options, so doesn't have leverage in negotiating.

chatmasta2• 1 year ago

Well that’s basically what I’m wondering. Is this a normal employment arrangement - subject to same state payroll tax, labor laws, employee rights, etc - with the additional detail that he resides in prison? Or does the employer need to go through some gateway enforced by the prison with maximum compensation or other restrictions?

But otherwise, in terms of why he’d default to being paid less… yes, what the other commenter said: supply and demand, aka leverage. Turso could choose to be a good citizen and pay him the same as any other employee, but that’s subject to all the questions I posed above, regarding the structural requirements placed on them as the employer.

koakuma-chan5• 1 year ago

I assume he doesn't have to pay rent while in prison and gets free meals, so unless they take some of his income, he might actually be doing pretty good.

wffurr• 1 year ago

The 13th amendment specifically allows slavery of prisoners.

Edit: I don’t mean to imply the author isn’t paid fairly by Turso. A few posts down, the CEO of Turso asserts that they do pay fairly. The OP in this thread might reasonably wonder about this because several states do in fact use prisoners as unpaid slave labor.

TheGrumpyBrit• 1 year ago

You can make the exact same argument about employers paying different rates depending on the country the employee is based in, and for all the same reasons.

Is there a good reason why a developer in Thailand or India should be paid less than their colleague who works on the same team, but is based in the US? Many companies believe so - there's a significant difference in the cost of living between those two employees, and employers believe it is fair to adjust the salary to provide a similar quality of life to both.

Equally, a person incarcerated in New York City doesn't have the same living costs as a person who has to live in New York City, so you could reasonably argue that any "Cost of living premium" that a company offers to NYC based employees doesn't need to apply to a person who doesn't experience those higher costs.

code_for_monkey7• 1 year ago

I guess if you look at pay as solely a result of 'work done' you'd come to this conclusion, and it should work this way, but really its got more to do with the relationship between employer and employee. A person in prison has a very different legal status than someone who doesnt and they do tend to get paid less.

komali23• 1 year ago

but if he's working the same hours and is just as productive as any other employee, shouldn't he be paid the same?

He should, but the median salary of engineers in Taiwan is like, 40,000 USD, vs SF which is 160,000 USD. Or London, if one wants to argue something about English language ability or whatever, is 80,000 USD. Literally half that of SF.

Salaries aren't determined by labor value, they're determined by how well employers can collude in a region to get the lowest possible rate while still being able to hire people. Thus they somewhat tend to correlate with cost of living, but not really, e.g. see London vs SF vs NYC. All correlations are used as excuses, when the core, real, reason always comes down to, employers will pay as little as they can get away with.

This annoyed me enough that I started a co-op about it, and we're doing pretty well. I'm still annoyed though. Apparently glommer, the CEO, pays him "full salary" (market rate?), which makes them a good person, but a bad capitalist. They could easily pay basically a slave wage and leverage this dude's ingrained passion for programming to get huge output for almost nothing - that's what the rest of the industry merrily does.

whywhywhywhy• 1 year ago

but if he's working the same hours and is just as productive as any other employee, shouldn't he be paid the same?

Why would the salaries all bump up to big American city salaries instead of resting somewhere in the lowest range worldwide? If we purely judge work completed.

If you're a remote worker your competition is the world not people in the major city the company is based in.

blks• 1 year ago

Because US constitution forbids slavery except as a punishment. A lot of prisoners doing labour right now are compensated literally pennies.

Ray206• 1 year ago

Because the level of payment almost always depends on the level of competition for a particular person's work. When you're in prison, there's practically no competition for your work. So it's expected that he'll be paid much less.

glommer10• 1 year ago

I am the Turso CEO. We pay him a full salary, just not health care benefits.

david927• 1 year ago

What you're doing is really wonderful.

999900000999• 1 year ago

Your doing the Lord's work.

Even if you just paid him the state minimum wage, it would stop him from having a giant employment gap.

The next step would be background check reform. A DUI record isn't relevant to anything not involving driving.

Excluding a very small handful of SVU level crimes everything should be wiped clean after 5 years or so.

I had an experience with a co worker who would brag about robbing people, selling substances and when he got caught his family money made it go away. He's a CTO at a mid sized tech company now. Had he been poor he'd have a record and be lucky to work as a Walgreens clerk.

Was the biggest "tough on crime" person I've ever met. I think people with means don't understand if you don't have money you can't afford bail.

Can't afford bail you'll just be indefinitely detained without trial for months if not years.

Everything about the criminal justice system is about exploitation. Get house arrest, that's a daily monitoring fee. States like Florida are forcing released inmates to repay the state for the cost of incarceration.

It's past fixing tbh, I'm personally hopping to immigrate to a functional country soon.

bregma2• 1 year ago

Is he paid in dollars or in cigarettes?

gwbennett• 1 year ago

Bravo Zulu!!!

dl9999• 1 year ago

People like you give me hope for the world.

tommica• 1 year ago

How does it exactly work in a scenario like this? Do you just pay to his account, or does it somehow go through the prison system?

UncleEntity2• 1 year ago

/me putting on my Law & Order hat

Why should the taxpayers be burdened by the results of his bad decisions?

/me takes off hat

brettermeier• 1 year ago

Because that's what a social community would do. But where you probably are, such an approach is falsely labeled as “communism” by MAGA anti-social assholes.

jrvieira• 1 year ago

how does the taxpayer benefit from the inexistence of rehabilitation programs?

esseph• 1 year ago

Taxpayers are clearly wasting money on this guy.

Sounds like he gets out in 10 months, and an incredible amount of money gets spent keeping him there.

BlarfMcFlarf3• 1 year ago

Imprisoning someone is also a great harm. That harm should have a cost, so that it is not employed flippantly.

lo_zamoyski5• 1 year ago

The US prison system has a bit of a nasty reputation when it comes to exploiting prison labor

Do you mean for private interest? If so, I would agree that prison labor should only be used for public benefit. And this labor should be part of the sentence.

criddell2• 1 year ago

Setting up an inmate for success after release is a public benefit IMHO.

giztu• 1 year ago

Somewhat relieved to see that this is the drugs prison guy, and not one of the two pedo prison guys who sometimes post on HN with their fake sob stories pretending to be hard done to while concealing their depravity.

In contrast I'm glad to see this guy has been open and honest, owning up to his mistakes and starting to turn his life around and make amends for the harm he's caused others. Well done.

Edit: Please disregard that last paragraph. Just saw the document @bjorkandkd linked.

echelon• 1 year ago

I tried to hire someone with a drug-related felony conviction to work on a Rust project with me. The guy was awesome, and he was super excited about the work we were doing.

Unfortunately, due to the circumstances of our world today, he was understandably too anxious to move from his current job. He worried he'd never be able to find employment as an ex-felon if the runway ran out.

I felt really bad for the guy.

I wish things worked differently.

bastawhiz2• 1 year ago

Please see my nested reply to his comment, which shows that @bjorkandkd is not only making assumptions, but that his allegation is unsupported by even by the document that he linked.

yu3zhou4• 1 year ago

A great read, the first part is also worth reading. I’m happy for you Preston and wishing you all the best

0xbadcafebee• 1 year ago

I quickly outgrew the curriculum, preferring instead to spend ~15+ hours a day on projects and open source contributions.

TIL from 15-20yrs old I was a prisoner

But seriously, programs like these need to be made available to more people, incarcerated or not. There's millions of people in this country who have basically no access to employment. Remote work could not only be a lifeline to those communities, it's advantageous to employers and good for the economy.

code_for_monkey7• 1 year ago

shame were doing a large push to return to the office anyways

stronglikedan• 1 year ago

there's a good reason for that, fortunately or unfortunately. the numbers don't lie

code_for_monkey7• 1 year ago

and hear i am browsing hacknews at work on monday morning, wishing I was still asleep. Really gives you perspective, I hope you get out safe and sound and soon and things work out for you.

timvdalen• 1 year ago

The Changelog recently did a long form interview with this guy: https://changelog.com/news/refactored-in-prison-0X1D

b0a04gl• 1 year ago

what if prison ends up becoming the most distraction-free dev environment. no meetings, no slack pings, no linkedin recruiters, just you, a terminal, and 10 years of uninterrupted focus. kinda terrifying how productive that sounds

mcmcmc2• 1 year ago

No pings, just people who may decide to shiv or rape you

wavemode• 1 year ago

Nobody gets shivved or raped in the kind of low-security prisons where non-violent criminals go.

rawgabbit• 1 year ago

Don’t give our overlords any ideas. Open plan offices are bad enough.

financypants• 1 year ago

Something like prison probably is the most productive environment one could be in. It almost completely eliminates the need for self discipline because it's all enforced.

msgodel• 1 year ago

If you're not dating anyway and don't own your house outright prison with computer access honestly doesn't sound bad at all.

No need to worry about rent, no need to worry about healthcare, no need deal with all this social crap.

ty68536• 1 year ago

When I had a <3 year old demanding child I often thought about how relaxing prison would be, with relatively normal set sleeping, work patterns, and in some prisons guaranteed personal space at night with at worst an adult roomate.

Just the thought of maybe being able to peacefully read a book for 30 minutes, at times I almost wished to be imprisoned...

GuinansEyebrows2• 1 year ago

this is something you can freely achieve for yourself without prison -- no need to speak this evil into existence haha.

ironmagma• 1 year ago

Not rent, just crippling debt: https://apnews.com/article/crime-prisons-lawsuits-connecticu...

koakuma-chan5• 1 year ago

What are disadvantages of living in prison?

yrds96• 1 year ago

Disregarding the lack of anywhere to go, and assuming no enemies within the prison, I see no disadvantages.

wespiser_2018• 1 year ago

You never go on vacation. Your family gets sick. Your friends need your help. You want to travel. You want to go to funerals for people who aren't in your direct family. You want to explore hobbies.

Idk, a few?

const_cast7• 1 year ago

You're essentially designated a human of lesser value, which means nobody really cares about you. If guards harm or sexually assault you, nobody cares. If other prisoners harm or sexually assault you, nobody cares. If you get sick, nobody cares. You will not receive good care in any sense of the word. If you have mental health issues, may God have mercy on your soul.

barbazoo3• 1 year ago

Almost sounds like you haven’t watched season 3 episode 9 of a little documentary called The Office.

h1fra2• 1 year ago

PaaS - Prison as a Service

keybored3• 1 year ago

Terrifying that slinging code for years on end is what one aspires to as a free individual pondering asceticism.

sneak5• 1 year ago

You can have that now on the outside if that’s what you want. Start with one room in your house. Remove everything but a dedicated cheap computer and a table and a bed and a bottle of water. Strictly limit the apps you can use or the sites you can access.

mlissner• 1 year ago

Maine's remote work program is an incredibly promising development to prevent recidivism. The amazing thing about it is that it gives real jobs to prisoners that they can seamlessly continue after they get out of prison. Normally when you get out, it's impossible to get a job, and the clock is ticking. This leads to desperation, which leads to bad behavior.

There is a real risk of exploitation, but if it's properly managed, remote work for prisoners is one of the most hopeful things I've heard about the prison system. It gives people purpose while there and an avenue to success once they're out.

lo_zamoyski5• 1 year ago

This sounds good. It is important that we recognize all of the purposes of punishment instead of overemphasizing one or neglecting the other.

Punishment has three ends: retribution, rehabilitation, and deterrence. It is important that you pay for your crime for the sake of justice; it is charitable and prudent to rehabilitate the criminal, satisfying the corrective end of punishment; and would-be criminals must be given tangible evidence of what awaits them if they choose to indulge an evil temptation, thus acting as a deterrent.

In our systems today, we either neglect correction, leaving people to rot in prison or endanger them with recidivism by throwing them back onto the streets with no correction, or we take an attitude of false compassion toward the perp by failing to inflict adequate justice, incidentally failing the deterrent end in the process.

tomrod• 1 year ago

Rehabilitation is retribution.

So many things can never have full repatriation. The best we can do is have society acknowledge, forcefully, the wrongs done via prison sentencing.

But then many countries go wrong on policy - punitive imprisonment leads to worse individual and social outcomes than a rehabilitation focus.

ty68536• 1 year ago

One of the most baffling elements of the justice system is how little the victim is involved in the justice. 'Society' should not lord the lion's share of the justice decisions over the victims. Quite often the victim would prefer compensation and release over getting fuck all while the perpetrator languages in prison at the tax dollar of the victim.

Much of 'justice' has been usurped from the victim into a jobs campaign for the state.

coredog64• 1 year ago

You're missing a function: Removal. Locking up criminals prevents them committing additional crimes that impact the general public. Data from the last few years shows that there's definitely a Pareto aspect to criminal populations, and absent an ability to rehabilitate, removal is the next best option for society at large.

HappMacDonald2• 1 year ago

Punishment has three ends: retribution, rehabilitation, and deterrence.

One might argue a fourth end as well: removal.

When people talk about "cleaning up the streets" they don't mean causing ruffians to clean up their act, what they refer to is removing the ruffians entirely. To "someplace else". To "Not in my backyard". Out of sight, out of mind as is often said.

For profit prisons may view prisoners as cheap labor or levy bait, but for the voting public who gets no cut of that action the real inducement starts and ends with "make the problem go away". Sweep human beings we do not know how to cohabitate with under a rug.

Retribution may appeal to those directly wronged, or to the minority of sadists in a population. Deterrence is oft admired, but few honestly believe it's really possible given that harsh sentences never seem to cause crime to go to zero (sensationalism-driven media that magnifies every mole-hill notwithstanding) and that repeat offenses outnumber first offenses. Rehabilitation appeals to those with compassion, though nobody has a clear bead on how to actually land that plane with more than the lowest hanging fruit of only-slightly-off-course offenders.

So I think the real elephant in the room is that people want/demand/rely upon removal.

nlitened• 1 year ago

I think there's also a fourth "end" to prison punishment, but I don't know the proper name for it.

It's when you remove the dangerous person from a society for a while, so they can't commit crimes for that while. This is very important part of prison punishment with people with criminal tendencies, and this is why recidivists get longer prison sentences for each subsequent repetition of a similar crime.

Unfortunately we have to admit that some (small) percentage of criminals cannot be rehabilitated, so they must be isolated from society.

rustcleaner6• 1 year ago

"It is important that you pay for your crime for the sake of justice"

Oh dang, there's that pesky religious mechanic again! Why can't we build on pragmatism rather than ensuring the Justice God has enough blood-years drained from criminal-victims? Two crimes don't make a justice!

Irrelevant addendum: I think I will mix atheism and anarchism as they are very compatible concepts, in that they stand in skepticism of essentially the same species of entity with two masks: church and state.

bdangubic• 1 year ago

It is important that you pay for your crime for the sake of justice

damn…

dfxm124• 1 year ago

Do participants get paid a real wage?

glommer10• 1 year ago

Preston was free to negotiate his pay with us, and we pay him a full salary. Just no health care benefits.

antihero• 1 year ago

It's amazing. Absolutely insane that people are incarcerated so long for non-violent drug crimes, though.

Turso also looks really neat for small Payload sites.

CobrastanJorji• 1 year ago

Oh absolutely. Voters always favor harsher punishments or making things worse for those already convicted of crimes. You never get any more votes by pushing for lower punishments for any crime or by doing anything to reduce recidivism. I suspect that a pretty solid litmus test for "politician who is actually trying to make the world a better place" based just on how they vote for lowering recidivism.

tptacek5• 1 year ago

I agree with you. This is a crazy high sentence (15-30). But worth nothing that the fact pattern behind it was also pretty crazy.

badc0ffee6• 1 year ago

"Non-violent drug crimes" brings to mind hippies selling weed or mushrooms. But this guy was selling carfentanil. I'm not saying he's to blame for the opioid crisis turning street people into shambling zombies, clogging emergency services with overdoses, and causing death, but he certainly played a part.

ahahs2• 1 year ago

Say that to the people he killed selling those drugs. This isn't weed, it's highly lethal pills.

trod1234• 1 year ago

One of the biggest problems with the prison system in the US is that prisoners are often saddled with the debt related to or imposed on them by their incarceration which they can't pay back.

The inability to find a job coupled with the crushing interest is what leads to desperation, and then repeat criminal behavior.

There is a real risk of exploitation

Centralized systems always have a risk of corruption when power is concentrated in few people. Those job roles also many times attract the corrupt; and even when you have people who go in with a good moral caliber, the regular dynamics of the interactions may also twist them into being corrupt.

Its a rare person with sufficient moral caliber that can survive such a job (as a guard or other prison staff) unscathed and still be a good person afterwards.

Many avenues of education also do not prepare them appropriately for work in the private sector, and some careers are simply prohibited. For example becoming a chemist or engineer when they have a conviction related to ethics violations in such fields.

larodi• 1 year ago

Wonder if they acquire the skills to break into systems, why would they choose not to do it in this crazy world out there? Particularly if somebody spends long time, or has spent so far.

_DeadFred_• 1 year ago

How do they make sure the prison isn't just employing people already experienced in the field to make the prison money? How do they ensure people are treated fairly (normally prisoners aren't really even allowed sick days, they can't chose not to work overtime if required, etc)? Do they audit to ensure number of sick hours are comparable to non-prison work? Do they ensure prison guards bonus' aren't based on inmate performance (UNICOR does all of the above bad practices resulting in sick people being forced to work overtime in order to get the guards their bonus)?

UNICOR/the Federal system 'strongly encourages' people with CAD experience, etc do the McDonalds remodel contracts, the World Trade Center work, etc. These are people that worked in the industry prior to prison and that are not traditionally been hired back after release, so it's simply being used to make UNICOR money on big contracts based on incarcerated individuals pre-existing training being exploited. In addition having structural CAD work done by people with zero say in their job, their deliverables/quality, their hours, etc seems like a bad idea. I don't know why outside engineers are using this work. The UNICOR McDonalds remodels are probably fine (though you can tell by the current feel of McDonalds that the remodels were literally done by prison inmates), but the UNICOR World Trade Center stuff seems super sketchy.

philjohn2• 1 year ago

Yep - turns out the Nordic countries had it right all along. When you focus on rehabilitation and not just punishment you get lower redicivism rates. Who would have thought it?

gabeio2• 1 year ago

When you focus on rehabilitation and not just punishment

From a book I recently read on the subject they seem not just to focus on rehab and lack of punishment. If there are disputes with others within the facilities the ones in the dispute must sit down and talk through their issues and find a resolution. This helps ingrain proper anger management & helps re-acclimate them to normal society where violence is rarely the best option. And it makes a ton of sense, if they never are taught how to talk out their issues they will go back to how they have handled those issues all along.

hoseja• 1 year ago

Up to a point.

patrec• 1 year ago

Nordic countries have essentially exactly the same 1/3 two year recidivism rate as the US, the one exception being Norway at 1/5, and mostly not for rehabilitation policy reasons.

https://inquisitivebird.xyz/p/the-myth-of-the-nordic-rehabil...

GardenLetter27• 1 year ago

It depends on the crime IMO.

I live in Sweden and now the gangs are recruiting children because they don't get sentenced even for murder (maybe 2 years max).

The other side of prison is keeping the public safe - you also have zero recidivism with the Bukele approach.

skeptrune• 1 year ago

Extremely hopeful that more prison systems adopt work programs like Maine's

johnnyApplePRNG• 1 year ago

Speaking of incarcerated tech gurus... I've been really liking what Sam Bent [0] has been producing lately.

If you're allowed/able to watch YouTube in American prisons, I would definitely check him out!

[0] https://www.youtube.com/@Sam_Bent/videos

keepamovin5• 1 year ago

Reading this, I think it's a crime that this guy is not out on early release. The majority of his sentence was for marijuana, which is now widely decriminalized and in some places legalized.

BizarroLand2• 1 year ago

I agree he should be released but using the mail to transport marijuana across state lines is definitely not legalized or decriminalized anywhere.

keepamovin5• 1 year ago

No but in my mind on principle because it’s legalized and decriminalized, this should not be a 10 year sentence.

bastawhiz2• 1 year ago

I do not believe this is true. Looking at the record, marijuana is one of a few drugs. The specific incident that led to his current sentence is related to a powerful opioid. This is corroborated by Preston's own personal website.

keepamovin5• 1 year ago

Blog post said majority of sentence was for marijuana. Where do you find this other stuff?

I mean it would be sad if he was lying - but i don’t see any of that.

badc0ffee6• 1 year ago

He received a suspended sentence for the marijuana. But then he breached his probation, and there were later charges including one for carfentanil.

keepamovin5• 1 year ago

I recall what I read in his blog post was “majority of sentence was for marijuana”

greglansky4• 1 year ago

He broke his gf's arm as part of a prolonged campaign of domestic violence against her.

sneak5• 1 year ago

This was conveniently omitted from both TFA as well as the linked “how I got here” post.

Where did you learn this?

robinhood• 1 year ago

I’m so glad this is possible. Kudos to Turso for giving this man a new chance. We often criticize people for past bad behavior, but in many cases (not all, of course), they deserve a second chance in life, since most of us can change.

studentik• 1 year ago

In Soviet Union having prisoners do soft labor was called Sharashka. This scales and creates incentives to have more prisoners doing cheap labor.

bargainbin• 1 year ago

The key delineation here is the work is voluntary. I was uneasy reading the article and weighing it up, realised that the author could choose not to work whilst he serves time.

If he was being coerced into labour however, which the for-profit prison undoubtedly makes profit from, it’s simply unacceptable; indentured servitude, slavery, call it what you will, it’s bad for society in every way because it allows the ruling class to steal labour from the working class under the guise of “rehabilitation”.

tiffanyh• 1 year ago

Very interesting.

I have some basic questions if anyone knows:

a. do all inmates get computer & internet access? (or only some, dependent upon the crime you committed)

b. do the inmates have to pay to use the computer & internet? I ask because I hear commissary is prohibitively expensive in prison.

c. how much time per week do inmate get to use the computer with internet access? (and is that time guaranteed they will get)

d. are there job boards specific to helping inmates find remote friendly jobs that are accepting of incarcerated individuals?

msarchet• 1 year ago

There’s a link to a post on his personal blog that explains a lot of this

qingcharles3• 1 year ago

This place is an absolute rarity. Almost zero jails or prisons have any access to the Internet at all. Many of the places I know won't even allow a print-out of any information from the Internet (e.g. Wikipedia, Facebook etc) and won't allow any books about computers for security reasons.

Commissary is generally "gas station" prices in jails and prisons.

Some of the inmates I work with right now have tablets that allow music streaming from a small catalog, but I think it is $3/hour to listen to it.

Obviously the families and friends of the loved are the ones burdened with paying for all of these, unless you can get an in-prison job that pays, e.g. dealing drugs is probably the highest paid, sadly.

kaboomshebang• 1 year ago

Inspirational story. Thanks for sharing :)

h1fra2• 1 year ago

Prison is about rehabilitation, anything else is either slavery or poor politics. Very glad to see this blog post!

qingcharles3• 1 year ago

I've got a lot of experience working with prisoners. I've almost never seen any rehabilitative programs of any value at all. Mostly the programs I see are "learn to mop floors."

I just helped someone to complete a year-long paralegal course and qualification while inside. The Illinois prison system has now banned this since (a) it came with the option of facilities awarding a 6 month reduction in the length of a non-violent sentence, (b) required the facility to allow someone to proctor the final exam.

danscan• 1 year ago

Locked up, locked in!

On a serious note, I think inmates should have 24/7 laptop computer access with (at least) limited sessions of internet connectivity.

qingcharles3• 1 year ago

The place I was at you weren't even allowed a book about computers, lest you might gain enough knowledge to somehow access a facility computer and hack your way to freedom.

They had a computer lab, but it was only for Mavis Beacon. I found the C# compiler that's hidden away in the Windows directory and started teaching programming on the sly. Luckily one of the nuns at the facility took pity on me and bought C# Weekend Crash Course on Amazon (with the CD) and sneaked it through the security checks for me so I'd have a good reference to teach from.

aerostable_slug2• 1 year ago

For those who might be wondering, facilities/counties/states vary a huge amount on what is and isn't allowed.

In California they teach inmates coding, while in other states all computer-related technical books are banned as security risks. Same with basic electrical work — Promising People has an interesting VR program for teaching electrical helper skills, but in some correctional systems that would be considered unacceptably risky. Tablet and similar system operators/vendors have to shape the material available to the inmates to suit the local restrictions.

TechDebtDevin• 1 year ago

Crazy to keep seeing PThorpe from Primes Discord on HNs front page. I hope youre doing alright in there.

treebeard901• 1 year ago

When the Government is so corrupt they can take your ability to work any kind of job away from you without even arresting you for anything, having employment from prison is a real achievement.

josh_carterPDX• 1 year ago

This needs to be a model for other states to follow. Too often, incarcerated people are left with very few real options to have a viable career beyond some sort of physical trade like construction, hospitality, or food service. And while all of those career options are great, they do not often provide a real living wage.

Hopefully, we see more of this throughout the country!

itpragmatik• 1 year ago

Fantastic accomplishment, Preston! Wish you good luck and the very best ahead!

jamesblonde5• 1 year ago

The scary thing is that Maine is considered progressive for prison.

My former (brilliant) student developed schizophrenia and tried to rob a bank with a gun because the voices told him to do it. He got 10 years in jail. I think every EU country would treat him for his condition until he was safe to rejoin society. In the US, he was thrown in the slammer.

https://www.irishtimes.com/news/irishman-jailed-for-10-years...

Aurornis4• 1 year ago

I think every EU country would treat him for his condition until he was safe to rejoin society. In the US, he was thrown in the slammer.

From the article, his parents express frustration at their inability to get him committed for treatment in Ireland. They cite the lack of response there as a key factor in his spiral.

Also, the US facility he was sent to did offer psychiatric treatment and the judge urged him to accept it:

The judge recommended that Clarke serve his sentence at a prison that would give him access to psychiatric treatment and he urged Clarke to accept it.

I understand your objections to the “slammer” but the sentence was actually as lenient as could be, offered the psychiatric treatment he needed, and had an opportunity for him to return to Ireland in a couple years:

Speaking on behalf of the Clarke family, solicitor Eugene O'Kelly said that they were relieved at the relative leniency of the sentence and expressed the hope Clarke could be returned to Ireland "within a year or two" to serve out his sentence.

sealeck2• 1 year ago

Not everyone is capable of reading an article :)

jamesblonde5• 1 year ago

Why do you call it a facility?

Do i need to explain the difference between treatment at a pyschiatric center vs the offer of psychiatric treatment in a prison?

If you think they are somehow equivalent, you are very much mistaken.

You are putting somebody with pyschiatric illness in with hardened criminals. Do they welcome him with open arms?

keybored3• 1 year ago

My former (brilliant) student developed schizophrenia and tried to rob a bank with a gun because the voices told him to do it. He got 10 years in jail. I think every EU country would treat him for his condition until he was safe to rejoin society. In the US, he was thrown in the slammer.

Is the story supposed to be more sympathetic because he was (brilliant)?

jamesblonde5• 1 year ago

Putting brilliant in parentheses indicates that it is parenthetical. That means it’s an aside, an afterthought, or additional information that isn’t essential to the main point of the sentence.

What is your point?

sealeck2• 1 year ago

I think you have rather rose-tinted view of justice in the EU!

croemer5• 1 year ago

Great story, I wish this inspired more prisons around the world to follow suit.

For those who don't want to hit Google, the conviction was for possessing 30g of a synthetic opioid "U-47700". A normal dose is ~1mg, 10mg can be deadly (so this was 30000 trips or killing 3000).

The drug became illegal across the US on November 14, 2016.

"Police said they found the drug in Thorpe’s apartment in Manchester in December 2016" (https://apnews.com/general-news-d68dca63e95946fbb9cc82f38540...)

"Preston Thorpe, age 25, was sentenced by the Hillsborough County Superior Court (Northern District) to 15 to 30 years stand committed in the New Hampshire State Prison for possession of the controlled drug 3,4-dicholo-N-[2-(dimethylamino)-cyclohexyl]-N-methylbenzamide (also known as "U-47700") with the intent to distribute. U-47700 is a synthetic opioid that is classified as a Schedule I drug." (https://www.doj.nh.gov/news-and-media/preston-thorpe-sentenc...)

TulliusCicero• 1 year ago

Wow, 15-30 years seems like an insane amount of time for drug possession. Even if the amount implied dealing, that still seems really high. Don't people typically get less than that for sexual assault or armed robbery?

brabel• 1 year ago

In Northern Europe you get less than that for murder.

zaphar• 1 year ago

I don't know. If you are in posession of enough of a controlled substance to kill 300 people I'm kind of okay with a drastic response. For every Preston Thorpe who turns their life around there 100s of others who will just go out and keep endangering lives like this. I think this is a nuanced topic and 10-30 years is too much for drug possession is entirely lacking the necessary nuance to evaluate. Comparison to other crimes is not particularly useful either without going into the relative harms of each as compared to the harms of the other.

potato37328422• 1 year ago

Unless you do something so heinous it captivates the public or have a bunch of priors the only crimes that reliably will put you away for that kind of time are ones that the government takes specific offense to. Usually that means ignoring their monopoly on violence but seeing as this guy is behind bars for dealing and not murder I'd bet he just got unlucky and happened to sell the dose that some more equal animal or their relative OD'd on.

Aurornis4• 1 year ago

Wow, 15-30 years seems like an insane amount of time for drug possession.

The sentence was for intent to distribute. It's an extremely potent substance. This would be like discovering someone had 30,000 pills. You can't really argue that it was for personal use at that point. They also found him in possession of carfentanil (a more potent version of fentanyl), scales, baggies, and other products. This looks like a very clear case of someone importing high-potency synthetic opioids to redistribute.

High potency synthetic opioids are a high priority target for law enforcement. These are most often cut (diluted) and then sold to buyers expecting some other opioid product. As you might expect, perfectly diluting a 1mg dose of a powder into a 500mg - 1000mg pill form is extremely hard to do and there's a high risk of "hot spots" forming in certain pills (or sections of a powdered product). This results in a lot of serious overdoses.

It's a severe problem right now. Most fentanyl overdoses are from users who thought they were taking some other drug. They might have even "tested" it before, but missed the hot spots.

skeeter20204• 1 year ago

in addition to the other comments, this was also not his first conviction. They get extremely punative.

sexy_seedbox• 1 year ago

In Singapore, it's the death penalty.

jldugger• 1 year ago

Preston's recent interview with the changelog podcast[1] explains that he's been convicted twice. Repeat offenders don't usually get light treatments.

[1] https://changelog.com/podcast/642

IncandescentGas• 1 year ago

Since the top comment seems to be judging the worthiness of this individual to work with databases after prison, for those considering working with or hiring someone with a criminal record, I'd beg you to consider:

You're hiring the person as they are today, long after any punishment, rehabilitation, parold, probation, and personal growth. Not who they were at the time of past actions.

Having your own mini trial, where you sit in judgement over the candidate, from your ignorant position of privilege, using whatever details you can dig up with google may be entertaining for you, but is tells you nothing of what kind of employee they might be. Your mock trial may be especially traumatic to endure for the candidate, because their side of the story is rarely included in any reporting you can dig up. Especially for those unfairly convicted.

With everything going on today, do you really trust our justice system to be fair, especially to someone who is not a wealthy and connected straight white male?

If you're only willing to give people a chance when you judge their offence to be trivial by your own ethics, you're not actually providing second chances for those that need it.

croemer5• 1 year ago

I'm not judging anything at all. What part of my comment makes you think I judge the worthiness? I just decided to share what the crime was since OP left it out.

To make it unambiguous I added a prefix: "Great story, I wish this inspired more prisons around the world to follow suit."

Hamuko4• 1 year ago

Your comment doesn't seem applicable to this scenario since this is not about "work with databases after prison" or "long after any punishment, rehabilitation, parold, probation, and personal growth". Even the title says it: "from prison". This individual is actually still undergoing their punishment, not long after it.

croemer5• 1 year ago

Turns out TFA lies on his blog:

and some marijuana coming from california (the latter of which is what I am currently serving my time for right now). (https://pthorpe92.dev/intro/my-story/)

He's downplaying his crime. It wasn't just Marijuana.

Reasoning5• 1 year ago

Definitely a manipulative framing on his part. He originally was convicted for MDMA and marijuana, was released on probation and then was convicted for synthetic opioids. He's probably serving time right now for the marijuana for breaking his probation but he's not in prison now because of it.

ranger_danger3• 1 year ago

He was picked up for breaking his girlfriend’s arm, a detail that’s missing from his own apologies.

ConanRus• 1 year ago

Prison Architect ITT

ahahs2• 1 year ago

I think this guy went to prison and realized how much easier it is to sit down and work instead of dealing drugs.

jiveturkey• 1 year ago

preferring instead to spend ~15+ hours a day on projects and open source contributions.

This makes it clear it's not just that the prison provides such opportunities, but that inmates are motivated to take advantage of such. Too many fully law abiding folks spend 15+ hours of screen time just doom scrolling.

There's a real lesson here for similar community services. For folks whose upbringing maybe doesn't afford such advantages, if services can be available where students can find reprieve from harsh daily life and be (very) modestly taken care of, I can see value. At a much lesser level, I benefited enormously from school, church, and community services where I could apply myself, things my family could never afford. So, like school lunches but for practical developer education.

pastage• 1 year ago

I have done 90 hours weeks when I was younger, I really hope he manages to get some exercise and down time. It is not healthy to work that much even if it escapism from a worse situation.

einpoklum• 1 year ago

I've spent just under 10 years of my life in Prison (all for non-violent drug crimes.)

(sigh) another victim of the US obsession with sticking as many people as possible in prison. I wish the regime is overthrown somehow and he can get released.

djoldman• 1 year ago

I fear that the distinctly American emphasis on personal independence and deprioritization of root causes has led to our persistent and failed war on drugs.

Unfortunately, many of the laws written and policies enacted presume an idealistic fantasy where humans are much more rationally acting, thoughtful, and informed than they really are.

The clearest example of this is raising statutory penalties from "many years" to "many many years" in prison. What is this supposed to achieve? Do people think that folks out there:

1. know the laws well enough to know how many years they'll get for the crime they're about to commit?

2. (and if knowledgable about penalty changes) think, "oh well I would have done X and risked many years in prison but now that it's many many years, I won't" ?

If huge prison sentences and massive resources spent on crime detection+ enforcement were the answer, America wouldn't have an illegal drug problem.

ElijahLynn• 1 year ago

I definitely cried reading this. Happy tears.

allenrb• 1 year ago

This confirms something I’ve occasionally wondered about. As an adult with a job, a side business, a family, and an ancient house, I can still remember the incredible focus of youth. No responsibilities.

I’m not saying that I envy anyone in prison — it sucks whether you’ve “earned it” or not, but I’ve always wondered how productive a person could be while locked up.

Glad to see him making the most of the opportunity. With care and feeding, he’s got a good shot at getting out and staying out.

sneak5• 1 year ago

It’s amazing to me that society still tolerates the torture of human beings who have engaged in activities that have no victims.

This guy did years in solitary (plainly recognized as torture by all unbiased authorities on the matter) for selling marijuana.

commandersaki• 1 year ago

This is all good and well. Would people be amenable to the same opportunity for say Hans Reiser?

hananova• 1 year ago

Is he ever getting out? I'm not too informed on how long his sentence is.

If the answer is yes, then yes.

wagslane• 1 year ago

I've had the chance to interact with both Preston and Clyde (Preston helped Clyde get going in code as well) - Clyde actually completed like all the backend courses on boot dev and is doing great at unlocked labs.

anyhow, thanks for all you did to help Clyde Preston!!! and thanks to glauber and turso for giving Preston a chance, he's such a a cool guy with such a cool story

fergie• 1 year ago

Theres something nice about the idea of living in a cell and just programming.

yahoozoo• 1 year ago

This reminds me of The Office (US) episode where everyone thinks prison sounds better than working at Dunder Mifflin at which point they’re introduced to “Prison Mike” to be scared straight.

bitbasher• 1 year ago

I heard Hans Reiser is looking for some work behind bars. Talented programmer.

Working on databases from prison

Related Stories