Re:California teaches inmates code; some states ban them fro...
by TallGuyShort on Monday August 21, 2017 @03:41PM
(#15067191)
Well there are 2 points I think you need to understand.
First, in the US at least (which I know isn't the whole world, but this article is specifically about the states) the connection between being an inmate and being a bad person is weak. Many criminals are really only criminals by a technical definition - they're people who were convicted. But many of them were never actually proven beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law - almost all of them (I mean more than 95%) took a plea deal because they had a choice between a trial and a long sentence and a plea and a short sentence). And a ridiculously huge number of them are in there for what are arguably victimless crimes (like marijuana - and we can debate that all day, but you can get a license to sell alcohol but you're a criminal for selling a drug with pretty similar impact - hardly the line between good guy / bad guy). We have about the highest incarceration rate in the world. Something is seriously wrong with our definition of criminal and how to actually reduce crime.
The second thing is that, as I said, the connection between education and a net good is very well proven. Programs that focus on being productive members of society are demonstrably far more effective than programs that just punish and disincentivize the past. Treating someone as though they can't even be trusted to learn basic coding skills because they'll probably hack into stuff is a dead end. And honestly, it's a pretty stupid one. You asked for research, and that research has been done ad-nauseum. It's just that it hasn't been listened to very well. That's probably the reason you were getting downvotes.
First, in the US at least (which I know isn't the whole world, but this article is specifically about the states) the connection between being an inmate and being a bad person is weak. Many criminals are really only criminals by a technical definition - they're people who were convicted. But many of them were never actually proven beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law - almost all of them (I mean more than 95%) took a plea deal because they had a choice between a trial and a long sentence and a plea and a short sentence). And a ridiculously huge number of them are in there for what are arguably victimless crimes (like marijuana - and we can debate that all day, but you can get a license to sell alcohol but you're a criminal for selling a drug with pretty similar impact - hardly the line between good guy / bad guy). We have about the highest incarceration rate in the world. Something is seriously wrong with our definition of criminal and how to actually reduce crime.
The second thing is that, as I said, the connection between education and a net good is very well proven. Programs that focus on being productive members of society are demonstrably far more effective than programs that just punish and disincentivize the past. Treating someone as though they can't even be trusted to learn basic coding skills because they'll probably hack into stuff is a dead end. And honestly, it's a pretty stupid one. You asked for research, and that research has been done ad-nauseum. It's just that it hasn't been listened to very well. That's probably the reason you were getting downvotes.