What is it like to be a geek in a prison?

I help teach a nonviolent communication program at a nearby prison, and the technological restrictions placed on the prisoners are pretty shocking to me. They are allowed an electric typewriter with 7K of memory (down from 16K.) The only audio media they are allowed are cassette tapes. DVDs are forbidden, apparently because a shard from one could conceivably be used as a weapon. A co-ordinator of a college program for the inmates told me that they have a CS course, but can't find anyone to teach it because the students will not be allowed to use computers. This despite the fact that there are multiple roomfuls of computers in the prison school. They get to choose between having a TV and receiving packages from the outside once a month (no, I don't see the point of this dichotomy, either, except maybe as a way to save money on inspecting the packages.)

Some of the guys I know in there are in for decades at least. I can't imagine them having the education for any kind of gainful employment when they get out.

A comment response by the top poster [1] deserves a full read as well, for observations of behavior, motivations, and recidivism by others in the system. On the latter note, there is also this sobering paragraph:

...Here in Colorado we have what is called "mandatory parole" - which is probably not what you think it is. It does not mean that it is mandatory to release you early, it means that even if you are released after serving your entire sentence, you will be considered "on parole" and will have a parole officer assigned and live under the threat of being sent back to prison (even if you already served your entire sentence). Hence, you could do almost 15 years on a 10 year sentence because if you are released after doing the 10, you will still have to do 5 years of "parole" and could be sent back if you violate any of the terms of parole. In fact, nearly 40% of the intake into Colorado prisons is from "technical" parole violations, which are violations of parole conditions that are not felony crimes. This system has created a terrible sense of hopelessness among those caught up in it. My assessment (admittedly based on anecdotal data) is that Colorado parole officers think it is their duty to try and find reasons to violate a parolee and get them sent back to prison. They seem to go out of their way to make success difficult for a parolee, rather than just expect compliance with the law.

[1] http://www.quora.com/Prisons-and-Prison-Life/What-is-it-like...

You get access to Corrlinks email you pay a lot for if in fed prison, and since min security is where most criminals end up so they can perform nearly free labour there is barely any violence. If you follow the simple rules of prison nothing is likely to happen to you. Rules are never talk to guards you will look like a snitch, accept nothing from other inmates, don't talk about any other inmate if they arent in front of you and do your own time. A good example is somebody tells you hey that guy over there called you a goof. This person is trying to get you to beat somebody up for them but since you do your own time you laugh it off and reply he can say it to your face, then the weasel guy slinks away to find another sucker to fight for him.

Prison is just being really bored all the time for the most part and working menial labor for pennies a day. Hopefully people you know send you books. If you maintain a prison blog BOP will read it and punish you severely for any criticisms. Like months in solitary. Don't ever release pictures either and put them on social media or online even if you get permission. Solitary again.

The most interesting prison is where foreigners are housed in the US @ D Ray. There is no racism because no Americans so none of that don't eat with people outside yout race crap and hardly any other silly rules American inmates make up. The spanish inmates have a union everybody joins to coordinate disobedience against the guards whenever they crackdown on the library or other rights you're supposed to get from BOP. Other fed prisons it's mainly run by illiterate racists and gangs who for the most part leave you alone unless you break a rule or have money to extort.

I have a far off request. I remember reading a good long read quite some time ago.

It was of a hacker that was sent to prison, I think federal prison.

He goes into a lot of detail about how life is inside there and how you have to behave, I remember him advising to fight for your stuff even though you're going to lose since if not you'll become "their bitches" or something of the sort.

If I remember correctly (might be far off) the website was mainly black and orange.

He also mixes in his experience with drugs, I think psychedelic mushrooms or so.

I was quite a long article but quite catching, by any chance anyone remembers what I'm talking about?

I read it at least 3, 4 or 5 years ago.

I am a developer/hacker who spent 6 months in prison about a decade ago.

They had a room of old broken computers that were donated and I offered to fix them up in exchange for increased library privileges. Normally inmates could only visit the library once a week and check out two books, but I read about 4 books a day during my time there.

I fixed up the computers and supported them once they got a teacher, read my books, helped people with grammar in their appeal letters, and stayed out of trouble.

The only stress I felt was from being thrown into an environment with totally alien social structures and ways of interaction. I was a upper-middle-class white kid who had learned to talk logically out of situations, and most of my peers in prison were people who grew up in settings where the only way to solve disagreements was with intimidation or actual violence.

Once I learned that I should give a little to intimidation so the other party feels in control and powerful, but refuse to be totally controlled because the other party wouldn't risk their early release dates to beat up someone for no good reason, then I did well. It also helped to be able to pay off the local gang leader once a week with a pint of ice cream from the commissary. Protection was relatively inexpensive, all things considered.

The library was outdated, but there were enough books on physics for me to refresh my understanding and my friends and family ordered books for delivery for me on a regular basis. I discovered a life-long love of Mark Twain, especially the book he wrote about Joan of Arc.

6 Months seemed to crawl by and was full of home-sickness. Then, all of a sudden, it was over. After that, the world seemed a lot more magical for a few months. Everything was brighter and more colorful than I remembered. There was such joy in being able to listen to a CD or eat chinese food.

All in all, it wasn't a terrible experience. It was very interesting sociologically and a good experience for me to see how a different ecosystem worked. I also got to eat a balanced diet and exercised. I was in marvelous shape back then. I wouldn't recommend it or anything, but if you go with the right mentality, you can make the most of it.

The obvious downside is that prison sticks to you for the rest of your life. It takes several months to stop walking without your hands behind your back or saying "Sir" all the time. Also, the stigma of having a criminal record sticks to you forever. Even now, in my middle 30's, it's nearly impossible for me to get a tech job even though my felonious history was from when I was a teenager. You pretty much have to resign yourself to the fact that you'll work at 50% of the salary as your peers or have to make your own future by starting your own companies and projects.

I'm a hacker who served 4.5 months of a 9 month sentence 5 years ago. I was in two jails in that time, spending the majority of the time in the second, lower security place. The experience totally changed me, but in a positive way.

First of all, I actually had a lot of fun in jail. My education made certain aspects of the prison system very easy for me to navigate, such as legal documentation and debating with guards. My ability to mend broken electronics very quickly became known. These things made me feel very safe, since people were actively protecting me. It also made me feel quite important in the community.

It started when someone came to me and asked what I knew about mending mobile phones. In UK jails, many people have mobiles, usually obtained by over-the-fence smuggling. Pay-as-you-go credit vouchers are a major form of currency. This guy was very important on the wing - he had a crew of other guys who walked around with him and people often came to pay him. I said I knew enough about phones, and what did he want? He explained that someone had owed him money but couldn't pay. He'd taken the guy's phone as payment, but the phone was pin-locked and he couldn't get in. The phone was an old samsung, one which I knew (having previously owned one) didn't impose any limit on the number of pin attempts. So I told the guy: yeah, I know a few tricks. But I need to get my tools out so I'll do it overnight. (Note: I didn't have any tools). The guy left me with the phone overnight, and I sat up through the night to try all 10,000 possible 4-digit combinations. Thankfully, the correct code turned up in the mid 2000s. So the next day this guy turned up and was amazed that I had figured out the code. He went round telling everyone that I was some tech wizard and that people should always come to me with their problems. In return for the job he arranged for me to have a Playstation 2 in my cell for two weeks, and to get access to a phone whenever I wanted. For the rest of my time, people would bring me trivially broken electronics and I would retire for the evening to make it out like I was doing something difficult, then return the fixed item the next day. It massively increased my quality of life in there.

Secondly, it opened my eyes to how people less fortunate than me live their lives, and how terrible the prison system is for most people. Many, many people in jail were severely mentally ill. There was no support for them. Some were killed in jail, either by inmates or staff, because they flipped out and people got scared. Another large group of people were hopelessly addicted to very harmful drugs. People who exploited this group were the most powerful - they would have drugs smuggled in, then build an army of addicts who would do their bidding to get the next fix. It was a really explosive situation. Almost every act of violence was drug debt related. Immigrants were completely screwed in jail, because there was no way for them to navigate the bureaucracy. I helped several people avoid deportation, including one cell-mate who had a hit contract out on him in Jamaica because he defended his business when yardies tried to extort him. He couldn't read or write, so he couldn't fill out the asylum application. His patois was so strong that his lawyer couldn't really understand what he said, and the border agency was going to send him back to Jamaica to be killed. I wrote letters to the border agency, the prison governor and the home secretary and he was granted asylum and an interpreter was arranged so that his legal visits would be more productive. Hundreds of others in similar situations go without that help every year.

Thirdly, I saw some horrible things. For example: 'syruping' - when someone mixes sugar into a bucket of boiling water and dumps it on someone's face. The dissolved sugar makes the boiling water cling to the skin longer, and the skin peels off leaving the raw flesh exposed. I also saw someone held down by four guys, who performed anal surgery on him with a sharpened spoon to extract drugs he was hiding. He later maimed all four of his assailants, stabbing them in the neck with a pen (saw that too). Another was a guy who was clearly paranoid schizophrenic. His cell was opposite mine. He started screaming one night and barricaded himself in. He then stripped off and covered himself with baby oil, and started setting fire to his cell. The guards came in riot gear to tackle him, but he was so slippery it was like trying to catch an eel. He gave them the run around for quite a while before they eventually fired sedative darts into him and he collapsed screaming. He died in hospital.

Fourthly, I felt so ashamed of myself that I changed my life forever. I was a middle class white kid with a great education who got obsessed with hacking and document security as a teenager and went down for figuring out how to perfectly replicate the driving license, thus throwing away many of the advantages that luck, society and my parents had given me. Everyone else in there had no such advantages. Most of them were born to a life where poverty, drugs, violence and lack of education all being concentrated in their environment led to them being systematically channeled into prison. I was there essentially through misplaced intellectual curiosity, while others were there because their lives were so bad out of jail that crime was actually a rational survival choice. Society failed them, while it tried to hold me up with both hands. I was, and am, disgusted with myself. Upon leaving jail I learned programming, worked freelance to pay for my tuition while I got a degree, got a PhD, and am now working towards spending my life using my skills as efficiently as I can to improve the lives of as many people as possible. If I ever have a lazy moment, I just have to cast my mind back to prison, and the disgust with myself rises up again, and I launch myself back into work with an energy I never knew I had before prison.

Finally, I would say that my criminal record has not held me back. I no longer have to legally disclose it, but when I did I always did so with a letter explaining some of the circumstances and how deeply it had affected my life. I had several positive comments about my disclosure, and I have never been turned down for a job I've applied for. It doesn't have to hold you back - your attitude has to convince a potential employer that your background makes you a great candidate, not a worse one.

It's a summary of a Quora thread. Direct link:

http://www.quora.com/Prisons-and-Prison-Life/What-is-it-like...

"I learned that you should go straight to the person you're upset with rather than go to authorities."

This is bullshit and dumb advice. If someone steals my bike and I find out who it is, I'm not going to go to his apartment and beat him to death in the middle of the day (smart money on confronting a scumbag not leading to a productive conversation).

Fuck that. The reason we have "authorities" is because we have people that can't figure out how to live in a society. Why should someone not use the framework that we've invented to resolve issues?

edit: Whoops, I forgot that the internet is the place in which "snitches get stitches" and no one reports serious crimes to the police because there's a batman in each of us.

"I learned many things from inmates that I never learned in my prior life. I learned that you should go straight to the person you're upset with rather than go to authorities. I learned that giving and keeping your word is the ultimate measurement of character. I learned that loyalty is easy to promise, but few really deliver. Don't be that guy. Prison is really a learning crucible since the reactions are so quick and amplified. If you have annoying habits, you'll find out fast. If you are not respectful to others, you'll hear about it and you may get a "tune up" to teach you respect."

Sounds like a better and less expensive education than Harvard and Wharton.

I was sentenced to 10 months in 1998. I was released in 1999, went to college, got a Master's, and finally, a Doctorate.

When I was originally sentenced, I was sentenced to a "boot-camp" style facility, with the goal of doing 90 days of boot-camp style labor, and walking out of prison a free man with a parole term. Due to some paperwork issues, I was transported to the main prison camp (where the camp's goal was to treat sex offenders), and ended up doing 99% of my time at that camp instead, waiting for a bed to open up. By the time a bed opened up at the boot camp, I had less than three months left to go on my sentence, and chose to stay on the hill instead of the boot camp, and expired out with no probation or parole at the end.

Prison itself is a great sociological experience. There are three tiers of people -- the grunts (who have their own stack ranking system), the intellectuals, and the guards. Communication between any of the three groups is a challenge. Learning to talk to the 'grunts' always came with some intimidation. I ended up getting a job in the law library, helping other inmates type out legal motions and briefs. Fellow inmates would ask for my assistance with their appeals, and guards would ask for my assistance with their union cases. It was an interesting dichotomy, to say the least. You keep your head down, and only form alliances in which trust is the underlying factor. Around my 9th month there, there was a massive race riot in the prison, and I had both an African American guy as well as a Hispanic guy deflect conflict that was coming my way because of those relationships and the assistance that I had rendered in the library.

Upon my release, I went head-first into getting an education. I applied, and was accepted to MIT and RIT when I took the ACT and scored high on it, only to have my acceptances removed once they performed my background check. Two smaller religious colleges did accept me, regardless of my background, and I ended up focusing on engineering.

I graduated in 2003. I couldn't find a job until 2006, surviving on working small jobs for retailers (merchandising), and eventually going back to school for an MBA, graduating with my Doctorate in 2007.

Two things to realize:

1.) After each days passes and you stay out of prison, your chances of going back fall. 90% of recidivism occurs after the first year.

2.) After seven years, they can no longer report any criminal activities if you are doing a FDCPA based background check. That information will be there, but they're not allowed to use that information (in the state of California, at least). Banks and others use a SEC of FBI based background check, and those will always show.

I ended up getting a pardon in 2009. It cost me about $100,000 and was shady as all hell, and then took me another 18 months to clean up from the various background check providers, but, now my background is clean, and I have worked for big companies and startups alike.

Prison isn't the problem, it is the lack of opportunities that exist after prison that's the problem. Housing options are closed for you once you're released because of your record -- nonviolent or violent. Employment opportunities dry up. Educational opportunities no longer exist, or the funding isn't there due to your conviction. If you don't hustle every day, a felony record is the equivalent to a civil death sentence -- you have doors that close up and things that cannot be fixed until you either die, get it expunged, or have it no longer work for you.

I was once arrested and in jail for 12 hours.

I saw a big machine opposite my cell. I asked the guards (standing opposite my cell) what that machine did. They light up with excitement that someone showed interested in and could have a coherent conversation. They spent all night explaining to me and showing to me all the cool technology in the system. That big machine -- apparently for electronic fingerprints to take them and transmit them to some national database but it never worked, they kept on mocking the NYC police dept for adding layers and layers of technology and bureaucratic forms and none of it worked, including that machine. We ended up having an all-night conversation, we got along great. I asked the guards all these things I always wanted to ask policemen but never had the chance to: have you ever bee in a chase (yes, once, on the BQE!). What is the pay like? (Horrible, so they all have second jobs; he also worked at Radio Shack! But they all want to get jobs on Long Island, where the police pay is awesome!). It was a very fascinating and enlightening conversation.

12 hours later, when I was released, the policemen I spent the night talking to, offered to drive me back to my apt. He did and when he dropped me off, he got out of the car and shook my hand. Bizarre experience.

Conclusion: I think the police treated me well because I treated them with respect, and I showed in them.

(And because I'm white and dress well. When I went to the court for the court date a few weeks later... I was the only white person in the entire courthouse, excluding the lawyers and judges. No exaggeration. The judge ended up throwing out my case before the trial even started.)

Of course my self-involved reaction to this discussion is "what does a geek do to land themselves in prison?" I'm guessing probably mostly drug offenses, and maybe occasionally hacking related activities. Anything else? I'm sure violent crime is pretty unusual. Maybe tax evasion?

I bet it's a lot like GOATSE.

Exactly like it is to be any other privileged white boy in prison.

I like this line: being in prison was a chance to learn about so many things.. Sometimes, bad things happen for a purpose. They are blessings in disguise..

Hmm. He makes no mention of what crime he was convicted of, and expresses no remorse, either. Although he does seem to be feeling regret (which I think is an appropriate function of prison), he sees himself as being a victim -- no other victim is referred to. It seems he's proud of his murdering, home-invading comrades.

This is certainly a testament to the failure of prisons (at least in his case). The education he needs is not in Agile, but in how to be a decent human being. He has learned nothing in that category.

What a horrible guy.

it is like this: http://www.slate.com/blogs/business_insider/2013/12/26/what_...