San Quentin high-tech incubator forges coders, entrepreneurs | Hacker News Reader

San Quentin high-tech incubator forges coders, entrepreneurs

usatoday.com

42 pointskawera15 comments

One reason I prefer college graduates to the self-taught / bootcamp types is that the college grads had years to let the concepts simmer in their minds. This is because of time. You can't cram for 8 weeks at a bootcamp and truly understand things, it takes years.

But a prisoner, all they have is time. All the time in the world. Someone with a passion and desire to learn to code while locked up, and with access to the correct resources, could really learn this stuff and learn it well. I hope this spreads.

> self-taught / bootcamp types

You've cast this net a bit too wide I think.

This type of thing is long overdue but it's important to understand why real effective training for post-incarceration employment is not already the standard in the USA.

Regardless of what the books of law and public policy may state, in practice prison in America is punitive not rehabilitative.

When politicians talk about getting tough on crime they aren't talking about putting in place more effective rehabilitation programs. They are talking about harsher penalties from a punitive perspective.

Therefore the biggest barrier to whether or not this type of program can or will be successful and widespread has more to do with whether or not this can be done while still making the prisoners "pay for their crimes" to the satisfaction of the politicians and the public at large.

This is great that they are giving these people a chance to learn marketable skills so when they get out of prison they can stay out of prison.

At the same time the following passage makes we wonder if a big component of this might be tech companies looking to exploit these people for cheap labor, "starting next year, Code.7370 graduates will earn as much as $20 an hour writing code for businesses outside the prison walls through a new non-profit Turn2U Inc."

I don't know how accurate tv-mostly + one google search is but isn't that an almost 20x increase? It's hard to frame it as exploitation when the going rate is so little, this seems like an amount that can actually accumulate into first and last month's rent + a safety net for beyond prison.

This is a prison in California where the state wide minimum wage is $10 an hour starting in 2016 and in some cities it is as high as $15 an hour so offering "up to" $20 an hour sort of sounds like a PR way of saying they are going to pay them close to minimum wage w/o being explicit about it.

If you adjusted what they earn for living expenses (and do people pay taxes on prison income?) isn't it equivalent to much more?

At least it's a nonprofit?

Are they coding while in prison? Or is this some form of post parole type deal?

At first I assumed it was a program giving them a job while in prison similar to other prison labor industries. Upon second reading though it really is ambiguous whether they meant they were working for businesses that are external to the prison or if the prisoners themselves when they are no longer prisoners will be working for the companies.

Prisoners in California get anywhere from 10 cents to perhaps 2 dollars an hour for working. Those at > $1 have rare good jobs, most are under $0.50. There are also special positions like fire fighting crews that get paid more but this is even rarer. Overall making $20 or anywhere near it is a massive increase from where things currently are.

What prisoners get paid might seem slow.

In the documentary Angola, the warden makes the case for paying prisoners so little. It costs x dollars/year to feed and take care of a prisoner.

A working prisoner helps provide part of that income reducing the burden on the state, in turn the tax payers.

I'm not disagreeing.

My point was that their current rates are so low that the increase is huge, especially given the other costs involved in them being prisoners. It's not cheap labor at all.

Honestly, I'd be tempted to put in time helping on similar programs. But the question raised in another post re: "graduates earning X through a non-profit" does beg the question of how this is set up.

Might be worth looking into how Turn2U Inc is set up.

Assuming Turn2U Inc is legitimate, I'd gladly offer some of my time to work on programs like this as well.

Forges might not be the best choice of words.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com