
Why an Upstate Prisoner with a History of Escape Foiled His Latest - danso
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/30/nyregion/david-sweat-prison-escape.html
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dmix
Free pentesting for the prison. Pretty awful move by the warden/staff though.
He clearly had good intentions and had some minor requests in return which
could have been negotiated (and should have been in writing with a lawyer).

And now at the next prison he's causing more problems instead of less... as
clearly he doesn't trust the guards to not even poison his food now. It
deteriorated the situation and caused more headaches instead of potential
being a useful or zero-sum one. Including the negative press via this NYTimes
article...

I don't feel much sympathy for the prisoner but in terms of problem
resolution, management skills by the staff, and minimizing costs/drama they
are taking the worst approach. Especially now that he's in some (probably
expensive) hospital setting for some dumb reason.

Clearly they have a relationship built purely on hostility and fear with the
inmates fueled by short term relationships (as mentioned they do 60k transfers
a year). So many of these prison stories sounds like the staff prod the
inmates into being shitty prisoners. Sounds like a bunch of drama queens in
high school, on both sides.

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sp332
Yup, my grandfather worked at a state prison, in New Hampshire, and when an
innate described a vulnerability in the electronic lock system (back when they
were new), the warden went to the judge to ask for a reduction of the man's
sentence.

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stevemk14ebr
I have to say that's pretty slimy of the prison administration.

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pavel_lishin
> _He had his girlfriend tell the authorities that he would reveal his plan in
> exchange for a few privileges: an extra visit each week; the ability to
> receive food packages and take photos with his girlfriend and her 6-year-old
> daughter._

> _Mr. Sweat and Ms. Malanik met after his infamous 2015 escape. She was among
> many people who wrote to him after the Clinton escape, and she and her
> daughter eventually began visiting him regularly at Five Points._

I don't think I would bring my six year old daughter to visit a convict I had
been dating for two years, and had never met outside of prison. It seems like
a lot for her to process.

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valuearb
She’s not thinking about her daughter.

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CapitalistCartr
Prison administration are as trustworthy as mega-corps when revealing security
flaws.

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williamscales
I really can't see how he thought this would be a successful negotiation.
"Don't negotiate with terrorists." If the prison gave him special treatment
that would establish a precedent. Subsequently, other prisoners would attempt
to negotiate special treatment. If the activity were solely restricted to
"pen-testing" then it might be a net positive, however, since we are dealing
with known criminals here it does not seem likely that things would go well in
the long run.

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klibertp
> "Don't negotiate with terrorists."

> since we are dealing with known criminals here

Every time I see something like this I'm reminded how fortunate I am to live
in Europe. "Known criminals" are people too, you know, you can't just take
anything from them for free, they are not slaves, they deserve a fair
compensation for the value they provide. Not to mention, being "tough" on them
simply doesn't work the way you'd hope to. I really think that the system in
your country would benefit tremendously from being a bit more humane.

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valuearb
Sweat is a lifelong criminal and a cop killer.

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dh-g
It would be an amazing and productive program for prisons to offer
standardised bounties for security vulnerability disclosure.

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scoggs
He's got plenty of time to rethink that strategy of doing the right thing in
exchange for some niceties... I wonder what was the biggest factor in making
him decide to reveal the plot instead of trying to execute it.

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pavel_lishin
> _I wonder what was the biggest factor in making him decide to reveal the
> plot instead of trying to execute it._

I'd wager it was the gunshot scar from his previous escape attempt.

