
Ask HN: Prisoners Not Allowed to Study Programming? - school_lunch
I have a friend in federal prison (he developed a drug addiction and got arrested for theft).  Not a bad person or anything, just had some problems.  Anyways, he&#x27;s always been interested in my job (software engineering) and has wanted to learn.  I told him I&#x27;d send him some books to learn engineering, especially since he has a lot more free time to read now.  I sent an introductory book on programming and it was not allowed to be given to him because it the prison said it posed a threat to order and security.  I believe this is because they have access to a computer in the library where they can send some very basic messages, and they&#x27;re afraid they&#x27;ll figure out how to &quot;hack&quot; this computer.<p>Considering that software engineering is the perfect job for an antisocial person, I feel this is a huge mistake by the prison system.  If someone has the aptitude for software engineering, this should be encouraged as a path to reintegration with society.<p>I was wondering what other people&#x27;s thoughts were on this, do you think an introduction to Ruby On Rails, PHP or JQuery is dangerous to teach an inmate?  Should this policy be changed?
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mchannon
I think you have the situation wrong.

Federal bureau of prisons will not let you mail books on any subject to
inmates unless directly from the publisher. Did you buy the books new from
Amazon shipped direct? That’s pretty much the only way they get the books.

Imagine the number of steel files tucked in the spines or hollowed-out pages,
and LSD-soaked paper they’d have to deal with.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Federal bureau of prisons will not let you mail books on any subject to
> inmates unless directly from the publisher.

That's not precisely true. BOP allows _softcover_ books at minimum and low
security facilities from any source, but hardcover books or any books at
medium and higher security facilities must be shipped directly from “the
publisher, from a book club, or from a bookstore.” (And exceptions can be
made, though it requires a special request, if the book is no longer available
from those sources.) But shipping from Amazon direct, as was reported
elsewhere in the thread to be the case here, would seem to be okay.

Software engineering would not categorically seem to fall into any of the
explicitly listed (but expressly not exhaustive) problem categories (unless
you perversely misread “written in code”, which seems clearly intended to
refer to encyphered/encrypted content), but the threat to order justification
is fairly elastic (though a warden’s decision on this can be appealed by the
inmate or an independent review may be requested by the sender or publisher.)

[https://www.bop.gov/policy/progstat/5266_011.pdf](https://www.bop.gov/policy/progstat/5266_011.pdf)

~~~
hackermailman
Every prison mailroom is different, I usually just ignore what the bop or
state website claims and phone the prison mailroom directly to ask. In
general, all books must come from a store/publisher, and have an invoice. I
use Books A Million for prison deliveries because they always include an
invoice and Amazon often doesn't.

Anybody wondering some good books for prison are the Little Schemer series of
books, since they can be done with pencil & paper. The Schemer's Guide is
another pencil & paper boook if you can find it. Kernighan also has a good
book for this but it contains a chapter on cryptography which some prisons may
not allow but I haven't had any problems yet "Understanding the Digital World:
What You Need to Know about Computers, the Internet, Privacy, and Security" or
get the older paperback version "D is for Digital". They give an intro to
programming. Code by Charles Petzold, a really good intro book, may not get in
either just because of the title.

------
bdcravens
I have sent friends who were incarcerated (Texas prison system) programming
books; I haven't had the same experience. With most issues in the prison,
there's a lot of subjective judgment, often by lower paid employees without
much training or experience. Your best bet is to contact the prison's office
and ask to discuss the issue with someone at the major or warden level.

~~~
PostOnce
That sounds like a good avenue, promote it as learning a skill to get a job
and re-integrate. Maybe also explain that it takes a fair bit of effort and
study to master so it would focus the prisoner's time on something productive.

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Mc91
In my CS major, continuous math, discrete math, graph theory, probability and
statistics, linear algebra etc. were prerequisites to other courses. So see if
those books are blocked as a "threat to order".

If those get through and he reads through them, try sending things like "An
Introduction to Formal Languages and Automata", "A First Course in
Combinatorial Optimization" and this sort of thing.

There are also prison reform groups like FAMM that you can talk to.

------
Caleb_Smith
I teach a programming course at my local jail, so there are institutions that
allow it. In my experience, the jail prefers if the books come straight from
Amazon or other known companies, so you might want to try that.

~~~
danbolt
This would be a wonderful topic for a blog post or article, if you’re ever
interested!

~~~
Caleb_Smith
Feel free to email me! I am happy to answer any questions.

------
victorhn
The stereotype of SW engineers is that we are asocial, as in socially inept,
but antisocial (as in breaking the rules of society) AFAIK we are not, if
anything the stereotype is the opposite, we are seen as tranquil calm persons
(even shy) respecting the laws around us.

~~~
lilsoso
Software engineers aren't thugs, you're right that they're often soft-spoken
and polite -- but they also do not have a history of respecting tradition and
laws they view burdensome.

For example, look at the startups, Uber and AirBnb started by explicitly
violating laws. Uber has even demonstrated, again and again, contempt for the
law.

Then look at the founder-types: Thiel, Gates, Zuckerberg, Jobs, Ellison,
etc... They're often anti-social and on the asperger's spectrum. They
disregard convention. Violate laws as need be. And can be ruthlessly
individualistic/libertarian. Read Thiel's book "Zero to One" or watch the
documentary "all watched over by machines of loving grace" for more on this
topic.

Look at the stories and discussions posted on this site -- they're often
against the grain. There seems to be a keen interest in drugs: psychedelics,
MDMA, Ketamine ("as a treatment for depression"), and nootropics
("productivity!"). The libertarians here relish in cryptocurrencies. And
there's a prevailing anti-union, anti-socialist, and even anti-SJW attitude:
the population here seems to be bright, if isolated, individualistic and
perhaps mildly autistic males.

Paul Graham's essays aren't conventional. And other leaders in this domain,
such as Naval Ravikant, rail against the "overton window".

~~~
watwut
Uber etc is not so much software engineers breaking laws as enterpreneurs and
managers doing that.

Also, people are too quick to see autism where mere arrogance would be
sufficent to explain the same behavior.

Yet also, Zuckerberg did not worked as engineer for long. These are all
primary managers with some engineering background rather then engineers
earning money from being engineers.

~~~
lilsoso
I'm pointing out a curious trait of the tech industry as a whole -- the ethos
of the community.

Whether or not the names listed currently work as software engineers, or
whether or not they all have autism, is inconsequential.

~~~
watwut
You said: > Thiel, Gates, Zuckerberg, Jobs, Ellison, etc... They're often
anti-social and on the asperger's spectrum.

So yes, it does matter whether they are autistic or not.

> Software engineers aren't thugs, you're right that they're often soft-spoken
> and polite -- but they also do not have a history of respecting tradition
> and laws they view burdensome.

You are talking about software engineers in general, so it does matter whether
people you have in mind are software engeneers or good representants of
average software engineer.

> I'm pointing out a curious trait of the tech industry as a whole -- the
> ethos of the community.

What community? HN and startup crowd represents very specific subset of the
industry. Business and management represents business and management, not
sofware engineers.

~~~
lilsoso
Written language works a little different than programming: the references can
be a little looser, a little more imprecise -- particularly if the vehicle is
a written comment on a message board.

I was attempting to quickly outline an attitude, and orientation, that affects
the tech industry as a whole. This attitude is not limited to currently
employed software engineers, founders of tech companies, or people with
accounts on Hacker News. And no, this attitude is not so pervasive that it
affects everyone in the tech industry. But yes, this attitude is probably more
common amongst software engineers than say people in marketing within the same
industry.

My observation isn't even novel: we can find echoes of it all over as I
briefly tried to point out.

~~~
watwut
This has nothing to do with language vs programming. This is about your want
to use loose definitions so that you can generalize non engineers behavior and
combine them with engineers stereotypes so that you can blame engineers for
actions of non engineers in same industry you dislike.

So you had used language to build image of autistic charismatic rule breaker.
So I will add that you don't know what autism is and interacted with such
person enough to know.

You still did not managed to cite a single engineer. You did not even
demostrated knowledge of engineering culture beyond what is found on few cool
sites frequented by ... enterpreneurs and many non engineers.

Afaik, if you claim that marketing is more orderly and more rules following
and engineers, you should have used an example of typical marketing person
action and typical engineer action. For some reason, you went with high
management and enterpreneurs.

------
cbanek
First off, that sucks for your friend. I would hope they would be able to
learn programming. I think the policy should be changed, but I'm also not even
sure if it's a policy, or if different prisons get to make those decisions.

I think one of the logistical issues is I'm not sure prisoners have great
internet access, in terms of either time, size of things downloaded, or having
a persistent space to store their own data, if it's on a public computer. I'm
not sure for example if they are allowed a laptop in their cell, or something
like that. Probably not?

Makes me wonder if there's a way to compile resources on a USB drive that
would have the software required, and the books / knowledge, without
necessarily accessing the internet, and a place to store files on. Kind of
like a class on a stick.

~~~
bdcravens
Most prison systems will not give the inmate access to a computer to write
code, and definitely will not let them keep a USB drive, etc. The books you'd
want to send would need to be those that could be followed without access to a
computer. (A friend I sent Hartl's Rails tutorial in print was frustrated by
errors in the print version that weren't in the online version)

------
higherpayusa
If you believe prison is for "punishment" and that prisoners are
"fundamentally bad" then the answer is no - don't let them do anything that
could improve their lives. However, if you believe prison is for
"rehabilitation" and that "people can change" then exposure to current tech,
within reason, would be good thing. I vote for the latter, mainly because
almost everyone who goes in comes out.

And now for the off-the-rails part of my answer... maybe we could limit
prisoners to outdated technology - they might end up with decent jobs
maintaining old mainframes or Cobol or Fortran - somebody is going to have to
do it and a lot of the old school guys are retiring.

~~~
school_lunch
That was actually kind of my thinking. There's a huge demand for these
technologies at lower salaries than your tech hot spots, so most younger
talent won't be interested in learning. Yet a 60K a year job would be AMAZING
to the average felon.

~~~
Fjolsvith
Uh, this is unrealistic. I came out of prison with programming knowledge and
not a single company would consider me because of my record. Its why I have a
shed manufacturing business now.

~~~
school_lunch
I think a program like this would have to work to build relationships with
organizations, and it would be an uphill battle.

Perhaps focusing on very specific skills, like test coverage and documentation
would be more amenable to an organization than DB Admin.

~~~
Fjolsvith
Its a security risk. Allowing a felon access to the company network is
irresponsible.

------
coralreef
Seems obvious everyone here will agree with you. Question is how to create the
change needed.

~~~
school_lunch
yeah, I'm hoping for some recommendations, maybe should have indicated that.

------
dragonwriter
> Should this policy be changed?

The policy you have inferred from this single rejection does not appear to
formally exist, so asking if it should be changed may be premature.

------
nickphx
I would have amazon send the books again, or another title on the same
subject. Chances are some new B.O.P. employee was heavy handed based on an
ignorant assumption.

~~~
dragonwriter
> Chances are some new B.O.P. employee was heavy handed based on an ignorant
> assumption.

“Only the Warden may reject an incoming publication. In the Warden's absence,
only the Acting Warden may perform this function.”

[https://www.bop.gov/policy/progstat/5266_011.pdf](https://www.bop.gov/policy/progstat/5266_011.pdf)
(p. 3)

------
ksec
>Should this policy be changed?

Absolutely. But I have a question, is this US specific, or could we expect
every prisoner around the world not be able to learn programming?

~~~
school_lunch
I think it's prison to prison.

