If he's really interested in tech, one thing he could do is try to get involved with an organization that is religious related, such as making a church website, or helping out with an Access database. This might sound strange since vengance-oriented churches are so popular these days, but the Midwest still has many liberal church organizations into forgiveness and second chances and that sort of thing. In Indiana, I would suggest looking at Quaker oriented organizations, maybe even Earlham College.
And, you're right that churches can be helpful to folks dealing with situations like this. I've become a lot more tolerant of churches and devout religious folks over the past year or so that I've been interested in and working on homelessness issues.
This is a great suggestion.
I think you're spot-on. Revenge and shaming is a part of healing, of course, because it helps the community: 1) vent its frustration at a lawbreaker; 2) send a signal that such actions won't be tolerated. But we've gone from a "healthy amount of revenge" (so to speak) to such extreme punishments that reintegration becomes nearly impossible. To the community, someone who get 18 years for a crime must be a truly irredeemable person, right? To the imprisoned, a society that punishes him so harshly cannot be something that will welcome him back, right?
Prison sentences keep going up because recidivism is high, and the amount of crime in the U.S. is dramatically higher than in other western countries. But I think longer prison sentences make both of those things worse. Recidivism might go down if weren't nearly impossible for felons to re-integrate into society.
To be honest, though, it depends a heavily on what the person's crime was. Do I care that a guy got caught with a pound of weed? No. Do I care that he embezzled from his employer? Definitely. A guy who killed his cheating wife isn't a big concern, but I could never trust a guy who "snapped" and assaulted some random person.
You have no problem keeping company with outed sociopaths?
I would argue that someone who murdered his wife because she cheated on him probably has poor impulse control. All other things being equal, I'd give the job to the person who hasn't taken a life.
That said, I'd also prefer the candidate with equal qualifications and no felony.
If a 'cheating spouse' is the worse you have to deal with you'll have lived a lucky or short life.
Death of loved ones, marriage break ups, losing jobs is life. Get over it. It happens to all of us, this me, me, me mentality that we live in a hollywood movie and just because theses things happen to us it's a world event gets a bit tiring.
Depending on your definition of "snap", this is unsubstantiated opinion, not a fact deserving the assertion you used.
It may be that everyone will "snap" if provoked enough if by "snap" you mean become aggressive, possibly entering into a fight, but even then you'll have to sell me that everyone is susceptible to this.
If you define "snap" as taking of another's life when there is no direct threat to your own (which is usually what we are talking about when discussing the murdering of a spouse), then I think you have a LOT of evidence you need to bring forth.
Unless the "non-felon" is simply smart enough that he hasn't been caught yet.
Because it's damn near impossible to make an honest living with a felony conviction on your record in the current economy. The mentality of "Why should you get the same as honest men like me" is one that has societal costs, but it is a third rail of politics, as no congressman is going to make an argument for lighter sentencing, or easier integration of felons. In reality, all felony sentences are life sentences, and this is something we need to fix.
I think recidivism is high due to ridiculously long sentences, as well as the fact that our prisons are brutal hellholes that leave people much worse off psychologically than when they went in. And of course the fact that no one will give you a job.
People change. Prisons make some folks worse, this is true. But, many people come out of prison with no desire other than to lead an honest life. One of my best friends over the past year or so is a felon; spent several years in prison on a drug-related crime (a serious drug-related crime, not a little weed in his pocket). When I went to Mexico for a month, he's the person I trusted the keys to my storage unit (with tens of thousands of dollars in gear) to. Why hold a mistake made in someone's youth over their head for the rest of their lives? How does that make a better, safer, more peaceful society?