San Quentin Inmates Learn Technology From Silicon Valley Pros 109
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes "The Washington Post reports that a rigorous, six-month training program launched by successful tech entrepreneurs for inmates in the decaying San Quentin State Prison is teaching carefully selected inmates the ins and outs of designing and launching technology firms, using local experts as volunteer instructors and the graduates, now trickling out of the penal system, are landing real jobs at real dot-coms. 'We believe that when incarcerated people are released into the world, they need the tools to function in today's high-tech, wired world,' says co-founder Beverly Parenti, who with her husband, Chris Redlitz, has launched thriving companies, including AdAuction, the first online media exchange. During twice-a-week evening lessons, students — many locked up before smartphones or Google— practice tweeting, brainstorm new companies and discuss business books assigned as homework. Banned from the Internet to prevent networking with other criminals, they take notes on keyboard-like word processors or with pencil on paper. The program is still 'bootstrapping,' as its organizers say, with just 12 graduates in its first two years and now a few dozen in classes in San Quentin and Twin Towers. But the five graduates released so far are working in the tech sector. 'This program will go a long way to not only providing these guys with jobs, but it is my hope that they hire people like them who have changed their lives and are now ready to contribute to society, pay taxes, follow the law, support their families,' says former California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation director Matthew Cate who adds he made the right decision to approve the training course. 'All those things contribute to the economy.'"
Sword has two edges (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Are you a law abiding citizen... (Score:3, Insightful)
No need. There are plenty of lucrative job opportunities awaiting a released convict with outdated education.
Mugger, burgler, car thief, drug dealer, extortionist...
The squeaky wheel ... (Score:4, Insightful)
There are millions of poor people who had enough sense not to commit crime who would do ten times more with similar help languish, every politician lectures them to pull themselves up by the boot strap while continuing to cut investment in social programs, every pundit talks about how "poor people don't have ambition" or "poor are the takers and the rich are the makers".
Wish there are charities dedicated to helping the working poor. The government spends billions of dollars in helping middle class people get to and from work in their cars, public transport, traffic management, highway etc etc. But helping an inner city poor person to get to work in the suburbs? Hardly any help. They all live just one blown tire, one alternator going on the blink, one fender bender away from being sucked into the vicious vortex of inability to get to work, inability to earn their way into the work force ...
And all these felons, with newly minted tech skills thrown into the internet where nothing could be regulated or enforced... What can go wrong?
Re:Are you a law abiding citizen... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:This is so exciting, my leg is tingling... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, law abiding people deserve better. They deserve education, healthcare, housing and food. The fact that prisons provide these free of charge to prisoners is irrelevant.
They also deserve lower crime rates, and hopefully schemes of this kind will mean these offenders are less likely to re-offend. It's going to depend on the numbers. It's an unfortunate reality that justice isn't necessarily fair for people who do the right thing.
Wait, someone gives a shit about REINTEGRATION? (Score:4, Insightful)
The truth is that "criminals" are still people. You have to treat them as such. Give someone good reasons not to break the law...you know, like all that stuff I just said. They won't be so inclined to break it. Or, to put it another way, the most dangerous person is the one that has nothing left to lose.
Violent agreement (Score:4, Insightful)
While I expected this barrage of "wait: you're gonna TEACH all those CRIMINALS things? What if they become SMARTER CRIMINALS?" or "what about the INNOCENT PEOPLE who don't get any help?" it's still an eerie feeling.
This is the intellectual elite? Sheesh.
If I had to single it out, I'd say this is the thing most wrong with USA society. It makes me sad.
Comment removed (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Are you a law abiding citizen... (Score:5, Insightful)
The point of my post was not that recidivism rates are 60% or 80% or any specific value - making an estimate just helps to establish the threshold for cost savings. (If recidivism was zero, we wouldn't need this.) The point is that if this program reduces recidivism by any measurable amount then it is a net economic gain instead of some kind of "free government handouts for felons" as the OP was claiming.
And yes, I think we're far better off providing free educations to people before they become criminals. But because we live in the real world, that doesn't always happen. If we simply ignore the damaged parts of society, they won't heal themselves.