
Prisons Are Banning Books That Teach Prisoners How to Code - arkadiyt
https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/xwnkj3/prisons-are-banning-books-that-teach-prisoners-how-to-code
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dang
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20240090](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20240090)

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kennywinker
It’s almost like there are multiple industries built on prison labour that
might feel threatened by prisoners learning employable skills and never coming
back... strange.

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marcoperaza
This is a disgrace. The idea that someone is going to be a menace to prison
computer systems because they read a few books is really laughable and betrays
such a thorough ignorance of how these things work.

No one cares about prisons because it’s not an issue that affects most of us
in any way and prisoners aren’t a powerful interest group.

The absurdities of bureaucracy are allowed to fester without checks. What does
the person in charge of approving books, who is probably ignorant of
technology themselves, gain from allowing a book? Nothing. What do they lose
if allowing a particular book leads to problems? Potentially a lot. So they’ll
only allow only the safest material for which their judgment could never
possibly get questioned.

I don’t think there’s a conspiracy to keep prisoners uneducated and likely to
come back to prison. There’s just no reason to for the people in charge to do
better.

I don’t know how feasible it is, but if we’re going to have private prisons,
maybe they should be rewarded when prisoners successfully reintegrate after
their release.

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HillaryBriss
the US job market for coders is kind of saturated anyway, and given the
extreme selectivity tech companies apply to job applicants, avoiding coding
might be a good thing for people in that particular sub-population. i mean it
will probably save ex-cons a lot of heartache. our beloved tech employers are
likely to discriminate against ex-cons just like they do other minorities and
protected classes. what is the point of raising an ex-con's hopes of getting a
coding job? the tech companies are going to find some reason or other to
reject them anyway.

just sayin'

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rutierut
As a freelancer billing triple digits an hour I've never been asked if I had a
criminal past, just sayin'

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whamlastxmas
I've never had a background check done that I know of at any of my dev jobs

