I would sit next to any of them for any length of time. They pose zero threat to anyone.

This is for two reasons: 1. Generally, violent crimes are done by very young and poor people. By the time they get out of prison, they aren't very young any more. If they have a good job, they aren't poor either. 2. If a prison lets someone in an educational program, you know the system considers them safe. The system buckets inmates; behavioral offenses are harshly penalized; everyone in a classroom is an angel, and they won't stop being an angel on the outside.

1. If everyone says that they will no longer want to work with such a person, especially rich people, who can enforce that want, that person will end up working with poor people. The rich people are making a classist argument.

2. Worse, if that person, cannot even get bad jobs, they will be forced to commit more crimes in order to live. Now, the first crime might have been because they were a bad person, but the second crime is on the people who refuse to work with them.

3. What are other possibilities?

You get out of this conundrum by making prison about rehabilitation. Ensuring that people who come out are changed people who are not inclined to commit more crimes. Then you treat them like normal people. And hopefully, that world, while not perfect, will be better than this world.

I think my revised opinion is that if you intentionally murder someone without a damn good reason, you should spend life in prison. This can include second degree murder, which is often not life in prison in the US (And also happens to line up with the OP scenario).

A lot of conversation needs to happen on this, and we need to constantly reevaluate our positions.

We can't make the punishment the same, or he would just murder her, yet I don't think such a person should every be let out.

Murder is the "easiest" crime to use to make my arguments. And even then I have to specify stuff like "intentional without a damn good reason".

Luckily many places around the world solve it differently so we can look at those systems and observe.

Do you believe people can change? Or perhaps more generally, what do you think the purpose of a prison should be when considering rehabilitation vs punishment?

Why was Tom in a wheelchair? Tom killed his wife years earlier in a crime of passion after catching her with another man in their bed. He grabbed a gun, shot both people. She died. Tom walked out and the lover came behind him and shot him in the back.

Tom went to prison for a very violent crime. I raked leafs for him as a kid, and so did my kids. I wouldn't have had second thoughts of asking him to keep an eye on the kids for a while if needed. Tom was a member of our community who had a very violent past that all the adults knew about and were accepting of.

Alternatively, there are folks who have sterling records that I would not let my kids do chores for.

I'd guess pretty much everyone you sit next to currently is capable of committing a serious, violent crime under the right (wrong) circumstances.

What is scary is those who enjoy violence and causing harm. My grandma worked in the next cube over from a guy for years. "Nicest guy ever." He spent his weekends cutting people into parts and mailing the the parts around.

If you consider circumstances where society would generally consider violence justified then maybe.

Historically even in combat only a small percentage of people would intentionally shoot to kill.

I would not feel comfortable sitting next to someone who was substantially more capable of committing a serious, violent crime (which might indeed have been murder if she did 13 years) than an average member of the population and I would expect an employer to take my welfare and safety into account.

The question is whether someone who did do that and went to prison for it is so much more likely to commit such a crime than average. I don't know the answer to that but I don't think it's outrageous to think the answer is "no".

I work with a guy who did some time, but I'm not sure what for. Probably drug-related, if I had to guess, but I've never asked. He's a model employee, as long as you include a snarky wit in your model. And I feel perfectly comfortable around him.

There are people around who DO creep me out, but that's not even slightly correlated, in my little sample, with the people who've been to prison.

Have you never been violent, not even once? With anyone? Were you old enough to be tried as an adult under the right circumstances? Even the slightest physical conflict is only a dice roll away from turning into a horrific accident that does lasting damage.

And what is your alternative? Keep offenders in the system forever? Do we believe in the "Correction" of "Correctional Facilities" or not? Forgiveness? Rehabilitation? Redemption?

At some point you have to stop passing the buck to someone else to let people back into society, otherwise you're just being a predestinationalist by your deeds.

> Would you expect your employer to inform you of their record?

No, I would find that offensive. Similarly I wouldn't want to know about their military record, substance habits, childhood, credit score, or the last mean thing their spouse said to them. That's all personal.

A couple of bad decisions made as a teen and you’ll see yourself involved in violent events at a young age.

Sure, a violent crime is worse than some bone-headed mistake made at a college party, or whatever your worst moment is. But how much have you grown up since then? Would you do it again? Or are you older and wiser? Well, they are probably older and wiser, too.

I mean, I'm not sure how relevant "knowing" anything is, but age is an incredibly strong predictor of criminality. Gender is another one. The majority of crime, and the overwhelming majority violent crime, is committed by young men. One factor that likely contributes to this reliable statistical phenomenon is that the prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for decision-making, self-control, emotional self-regulation, and other aspects of executive function, doesn't fully develop until around 25 years of age. For one example of how executive function relates to criminal behavior, look into the connection between ADHD (a disorder linked to deficiencies in the prefrontal cortex) and crime.

I agree that most people haven't killed anyone, but I also don't think that there's any reason for any of us to assume that 'we' would have behaved any differently when placed in the circumstances of those who have.

People are well justified in their claims not being comfortable, but convicted people getting a second chance is a must though.

Additionally, there are countless contracts that require you specifically not have anyone with criminal convictions, and require full background checks to be awarded the contracts, even more so if it was a violent felony.

Those are two very serious liabilities to a company, I understand that people deserve a second chance, but do you put your company at risk to give it to them?

If states were to specify some rules around when a 'Negligent Hiring' liability suit could be pursued against a business, business owners would be more willing to hire and provide chances. If the state is liable should something happen, the burden on the state then becomes to proactively rehabilitate felons who meet the set of conditions such that their future litigation costs are reduced.

To me, that is a much better alignment of incentives though not perfect.

Rehabilitation, is the most important aspect for a person who has been in prison to be able to return to society. Storing people in a hellish place does not fix them, it only punishes them, with out counseling and education, how is a person who is released in anyway more prepared than when they went in?

I agree the current system makes it damn near impossible for someone with a conviction to get a second chance. That issue should be address at the corrections level, and the services provided after conviction.

But most companies do not have the resources, education, or ability to help rehabilitate someone, so should we blindly hire on hope that this person won't cause harm to the people a company is responsible for, should the company forgo the opportunities that require your staff not have convictions, that is just an unrealistic expectation.

Think about it like this, say there was a piece of equipment that had malfunctioned and caused serious injury to someone, and your company then wanted to bring that piece of equipment into your office, knowing that there is a 44% chance that it will malfunction in someway again, and there is a 25% chance that the malfunction would cause serious harm to someone, would you be comfortable with that choice, if that malfunction happened do you think the company would and should be liable for this?

There are too many situations, where trying to make this right for someone with a record would have too many of my employees face situations I don't think they should have to in a work place. with 1 in 5 women being the victim of sexual assault or rape, how could I ask any of them to work side by side with someone who was convicted of it, I can't insure their safety, and I don't feel it just to put them in that situation. Same with someone who has been the victim of any violent crime.

I think it boils down to person choice I suppose, and for me, I won't put the people I am responsible for at risk, not the company that I helped built. If that makes me a bad person, I think I can live with that.

As long as it wasn't "murdered coworker over TABS vs SPACES argument".

Although, I guess it would depend on their stance?

Edit: The downvotes that this comment is currently receiving actually illustrate the problems outlined in this thread. If you disagree with the idea that people can change, you will never hire someone with a criminal record, and you will perpetuate the problem. The unemployment rate among felons in the US less than 2 years after release is 31.6% [1]. The unemployment rate at the peak of the Great Depression was 24.9% [2]. It is always the Great Depression for the felon population, because of the incorrect belief that people can’t change. Among any population with unemployment this high, there will be a drastically higher crime rate.

[1] https://www.esrcheck.com/wordpress/2018/07/16/report-finds-o...

[2] https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckjones/2020/05/19/3-reasons...

Please indicate the page where the data supports your statement.

If you want a more summarized article you can find one here https://www.ussc.gov/research/research-reports/recidivism-am...

I originally posted the pew one as I feel the chance of biased against offenders is lower from their research, but this article does a better job of summarizing, as well as offering their full report.

After looking over the data again, it seems that nearly half will commit another crime but only 28.4% will be a violent one.

with these adjusted numbers, it still is inaccurate to say "...Chances are she would be less likely to engage in violence than the people you currently sit next to,..."

But there is data on people doing under 5 years, and if you compared to that you would likely be right, but don't have the data to prove it.

There is also a further sub division of felony based on a class code which determines sentencing.

Regardless, it is very rare for someone doing that little time to do so in a state of federal prison, and most studies on this data are based on the department of prisons data, which is why it's not typically included.

Many felons get probation after serving time, this is the only term I've heard felony probation applied to, what are you referencing to mean?

In the United States, where the felony/misdemeanor distinction is still widely applied, the federal government defines a felony as a crime punishable by death or imprisonment in excess of one year. If punishable by exactly one year or less, it is classified as a misdemeanor. The classification is based upon a crime's potential sentence, so a crime remains classified as a felony even if a defendant receives a sentence of less than a year of incarceration.

Also, no, I wasn’t referring to post-release supervision (which is usually referred to as parole or supervised release). Many hundreds of thousands of people every year receive a sentence of probation for felonies, primarily because countless “tough on crime” measures have increased maximum sentences for minor crimes, which automatically turned them into felonies where they used to be misdemeanors.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Felony

100% this. Going to prison is a traumatic experience, and would be even in a country that had a real commitment to safe rehabilitation. In the US, it's all too often multiple traumatic experiences one after the other. Nonetheless, I think former felons absolutely deserve every chance to reintegrate. I just worry about their psychological safety when things get tense and others get combative. This is just one more reason why more people in tech need to grow the hell up and treat people around them with basic respect.

Like a lot of people in IT ? Not necessarily anti-social but you need to be asocial to some degree to want to spend 8+ hours in front of a screen talking to a computer. It's usually easy to pick out programmers from general population.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-social_behaviour

You’d feel more comfortable working with the actual criminal than the innocent person who spent 13 years in prison?

It's fine. Most criminals are fine most the time.

What's your alternative? If you go to jail it's just for life because creampuffs can't handle sitting near someone who did something bad? Why is society comfortable with white colar criminals working when they cause more damage (both to the companies and to society as a whole)?

It has to start somewhere. Like...giving them a good paying job in a thriving industry. You're contradicting yourself and you only wrote 3 sentences. You've being shown the proof of how we can rehabilitate and then going "but IDK, doesn't seem good enough..."

However, when you do rehabilitate, even violent offenders can lead mostly normal lives as is the case here.

I agree, it has to start somewhere, but because our current system acts as a self fulfilling prophecy, it’s going to be very hard to enact change, though I’m all for it.

TBH, my answer to that is "I don't know." It has never come up, so I haven't given it a lot of thought.

But it is a legitimate question, IMO, and I don't see why you're being downvoted for simply raising the question. I gave you an upvote to help offset that, FWIW.

That would be 100% of people who isn't either a baby or has somehow no way to move arms and legs enough to wield a knife, gun, poison, etc. It is not a question of capability but the situations you are put in and live through. Otherwise you are saying criminality is in the genes.

I do it several times a week (pre-covid, now it's just a couple).

I've had a relatively easy life, all things considered. I've never been truly desperate. I've never wondered where my next meal will come from. I never made any major mistakes, like messing around with drugs or alcohol.

I'm not planning on committing any violent crimes, ever. But I could. You should beware.

Context is of course key, but a blanket statement of "hiring someone who spent 13 years in prison for a serious, violent crime is a good thing" seems wild to me, which is the vibe on this thread.

Because you’re asking a safety/comfort question, but it’s dependent on the answers to the above.

I truly can't believe that HN thinks this is some offensive opinion.

Murder is considered one of the worst offenses in any society. But this person was already punished by society, and seen fit by the law to return to it. So what could explain your continue (and very understandable) discomfort? Is it because you believe that the penal system did not properly make this person safe to return to society? Is it because that once someone has committed such a terrible crime that they are inevitably going to be able to do so again, because they have the psychological profile to do it? Such a person is more likely to slip into violence? Finally, does it mean that such a person is forever marked as fundamentally dangerous and unworthy of reintegration?

After the visceral recoil that is an instinct that preserves safety, you have to examine why you are so opposed to working with someone who has committed such a crime. Because we claim to live in a free society that gives people the liberty to pull themselves up from the bootstraps no matter their circumstances, yet discriminates against those who have done the time. Because we claim this society is built upon Christian and post-Christian Enlightenment principles, yet we reject the power of redemption and modern methods of recovery. It's fine to have such an opinion, but you have to justify it, because it's an example of how our society operates.

I absolutely don't believe the penal system makes people safe after they serve their time.

> Is it because that once someone has committed such a terrible crime that they are inevitably going to be able to do so again, because they have the psychological profile to do it?

If a person killed someone without a damn good reason, why would I think they wouldn't do it again?

> Finally, does it mean that such a person is forever marked as fundamentally dangerous and unworthy of reintegration?

Correct. And maybe I'm caught up on the murder aspect. Murder isn't a small little crime. It takes a certain type of person to be able to intentionally murder someone. And maybe most of this thread can be summarized by: I think if you intentionally murder someone without a damn good reason you should spend life in prison. Right now, second degree murder can include that and often is not life in prison.

> I absolutely don't believe the penal system makes people safe after they serve their time.

Fair, and understandable.

> If a person killed someone without a damn good reason, why would I think they wouldn't do it again?

Why would you think they would do it again? Given that someone spent over a decade in prison, shouldn't it have deterred them from killing again?

You'd have to actually look into recidivism rates to see how this works out in reality, unless you believe that for psychological and moral philosophical reasons that such a person who's committed murder is both willing and likely to do so again.

> I think if you intentionally murder someone without a damn good reason you should spend life in prison. Right now, second degree murder can include that and often is not life in prison.

Okay, so your personal standard is that murder does not have to be premeditated to deserve life in prison. That's fair. But I think that goes beyond discomfort with working with such a person who has been through the prison system; that's believing that such a person shouldn't be out of the prison system at all.

I understand your reluctance, but the alternatives to "let the released felon work" are not great.

We should be concerned about creating the best society for everyone. That means sometimes we need to suppress our immediate/unconscious reactions.

Are you going to keep them in prison forever? Are you going to let them out, to be jobless?

If they are still dangerous after serving their time, then they should be held in prison longer.

The person doesn't leave prison ready to productively reenter society, they leave prison indoctrinated into prison culture.

If you made a programming error at work, and instead of someone spending time to teach you how you ended up making that mistake, and working to give you the knowledge and tools to not make it again. But instead made you stand in a corner for a fixed duration of time, it would be illogical to assume you would be a better programmer after standing in the corner, its the same with the US prison system.

Society decides that their crimes earns them X years of punishment. After they've done their X years, there should be no need to punish them more. I sympathize with the victims of the convict's crimes which depending on the crime, no value of X would suffice. But we are all human, and sometimes showing a shred of compassion is what motivates the real reform.

In the same vein, anyone could be rehabilitated.

Many systems disagree with this and have sentencing systems which allow a true life sentence. Sometimes this is due to a mental health aspect.