
After 25 years in jail, the Internet blew my mind  - l33tbro
http://www.salon.com/2013/03/14/after_25_years_in_jail_the_internet_blew_my_mind_partner/
======
zalew
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_G._Santos>

_While in prison, he divorced, got married, received a college degree from
Mercer University in 1992, a master's degree from Hofstra University in 1995,
began a doctorate, and developed programs and resources for inmates and their
families._

well, you can say he got a lot of time for that in there, but still, wow.

~~~
asveikau
The whole time reading this article, I thought, sounds good, but having spent
25 years in jail he must have done something pretty bad.

Then I read that Wikipedia article and it turns out he was caught selling
cocaine in his 20s...

Man, say whatever you want for drugs being bad, but that's kind of a BS reason
to rob someone of their youth like that. For 25 years I thought maybe he'd
killed a guy.

~~~
babuskov
I completely disagree with you. Think how many lives he destroyed by hooking
people to cocaine. I have a friend who became a cocaine addict by falling for
a nice guy who turned out to be dealer. She's still struggling, but she'll
never get last 10 years of her life back. Now, multiply that with 30+ people
he was dealing to, and you get much more than 25 years. Punishment should be
hard unless we want to see more and more people doing it. It's all about
perceived risk and profit, after all and if risk is higher there would be less
people doing it.

~~~
mynameisvlad
However, the dealer is not wholly to blame for that. It's the person's choice
to use the drugs in the first place, and, sometimes with help, you can quit.

A gun store is not blamed for someone dying at the hand of a gun they sold.

~~~
probably_wrong
I don't think I agree completely with your second statement. You are comparing
the drug dealer with the gun store, while in fact you should be comparing a
drug store to a pharmacy, in the sense that both sell stuff that can be
misused but has lots of other uses, and where both have a code they are
expected to adhere to.

A drug dealer, on the other hand, has a business model based on addicting his
customers to his product (unless there are dealers who advice their customers
to stop buying and try and keep their addiction in line, as it is hurting them
and their loved ones).

A better comparison, I think, would be a drug dealer and an arms dealer
selling AK-47 on Irak.

~~~
rwmj
_A drug dealer, on the other hand, has a business model based on addicting his
customers_

It's clear you haven't known many (or any) drug dealers. Drugs are taken for
pleasure, and drug dealers (who are often primarily also users just trying to
make ends meet) sell pleasure to people who are gladly buying it.

What the criminal did in this case is no different at all from what major
supermarkets do all the time with alcohol, with the sole exception that it's
illegal because society has some very naive and stupid laws.

------
aashaykumar92
The story is amazing. But what continuously went through my head was how
different our world will be 25 years from now. It'll be 2038...what will
technology be like?

If you take a second to realize what it was 25 years ago, what it is now, and
then ask yourself what it WILL be in 25 years...well shit, I was left
speechless.

~~~
WalterBright
My great-aunt remembers the time the first car arrived in her village in the
1800s. She lived to fly across the Atlantic in a jetliner, and see the moon
landings.

~~~
jacquesm
She _remembers_? Wow. That's amazing. How old is she now then?

~~~
WalterBright
She passed in the 1980's. She was born in 1890 or so.

------
CatMtKing
<http://youtu.be/A1mhhtpmXfo> \-- last mile in Norway.

Instead of condemning inmates, rehabilitate them.

~~~
yareally
It was Sweden (with a similar system to Norway) where Frank Abagnale[1] (Catch
Me If You Can) spent some time and spoke highly of the penal system of the
Scandinavian countries. I think he mentioned they were paid a fair wage, able
to take real college courses (not just correspondence) and made other attempts
at real rehabilitation.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Frank_Abagnale>

~~~
draugadrotten
The Swedish system tries to rehabilitate prisoners using various evidence-
based methods. For some types of prisoners it works very well.

Prisoners are paid but only a few cents per hour. They generally spend it all
on buying cigarettes.

The punishments are much lower in Sweden than in the US. Drug smuggling
offences and murders carry the longest penalties. I would say on average
penalties are a factor 5x or 10x lower. This seems to be good for both
criminal and society. Prisoners know they will have a life again after prison
so they want to rehabilitate and prepare.

However, the last 10 years of very high immigration from the muslim countres
of middle east and north africa is rapidly filling Swedish prisons. The chief
of Kumla maximum security facility was recently in the news saying that 80% of
his prison are muslim. Politicians don't want to touch the subject out of
fears of being branded racist, but it's vividly discussed on the net in forums
such as flashback.net

~~~
yareally
Wow, thanks for the insight. I didn't realize things had changed so
drastically in Sweden in the past decade.

So just statistically speaking, has the overall crime rate gone up drastically
in Sweden throughout the past decade or is it more of a slight bump? Just
wondering if it has gone up enough that the average person notices in their
daily lives or if it's more of a news report/sound bite for politicians? I'm
not an expert by any means on Sweden, but I always thought of it as having a
progressive legal system and low crime rate.

~~~
draugadrotten
Crime is up.

Statistics are complicated and there's no simple truth, but the number of
_reported_ crimes have risen dramatically since the 1950s (when immigration
started). [1] As soon as you start discussion why there is an increase you're
holding a very hot potato. For example, if you look at the armed robberies in
1987 and compare with 2011, the number of armed robberies by Swedish citizens
are constant, but the number of armed robberies in Sweden by foreign citizens
have quadrupled in absolute terms, or relatively speaking, the percentage of
armed robberies have gone from 40% to 70% foreign citizens. From 1975 to 2006,
violent crime is up 200%

Some say Sweden's crime rate is out of control [4]

Mind you, I still perceive Sweden as a land with a low crime rate. It seems
international crime statistics are very hard to compare. For intentional
homicides, the rate in 1997 was 1.77 for Sweden, 0.54 for Japan, and 6.80 for
USA. For major assaults, the rate in 1997 was 37.93 for Sweden, compared with
20.91 for Japan, and 382.31 for USA. For rapes, the rate in 1997 was 14.71 for
Sweden, 1.31 for Japan, and 35.93 for USA. For robberies, the rate in 1997 was
75.04 for Sweden, 2.23 for Japan, and 186.27 for USA. [5]

[1] Wikipedia has a trend graph :
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Sweden>

[2] Robberies graph, blue citizens red foreigners:
[http://affes.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/ran_1987_1999_2011....](http://affes.files.wordpress.com/2012/07/ran_1987_1999_2011.png?w=720)

[3] violent crime graph:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Anm%C3%A4ld_misshandel_197...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Anm%C3%A4ld_misshandel_1975-2006.svg)

[4]
[http://cavatus.wordpress.com/2011/07/10/sweden%E2%80%99s-cri...](http://cavatus.wordpress.com/2011/07/10/sweden%E2%80%99s-crime-
rate-out-of-control/)

[5] [http://www-
rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/rwinslow/europe/sweden.htm...](http://www-
rohan.sdsu.edu/faculty/rwinslow/europe/sweden.html)

------
alexvr
I don't think I could handle a quarter century in prison. That's just insane.
Had his sentence been closer to 30 years, he would have served his first term
the year my dad graduated from college, and he would have been released the
year I intend to graduate. Crazy. 25 years is longer than I tend to think.
It's from, like, black-and-white Beatle-mania to the Apple Macintosh. Or, in
this case, from the Macintosh to the iPhone.

------
mistercow
What kind of idiotic policy is it to keep prisoners from using the internet,
computers, or electric typewriters? Are they _trying_ to make it so that
prisoners have no options but crime once they get out?

~~~
unimpressive
I'd believe that.

~~~
yoster
It would be harder to monitor inmates. Prisons have to monitor written
letters, phone calls, and visits. As a taxpayer, would you want to allocate
more of your hard earned money for computers for prisoners?

~~~
mistercow
>As a taxpayer, would you want to allocate more of your hard earned money for
computers for prisoners?

Yes. Helping prisoners build skill sets that allow them to get jobs outside of
crime prevents recidivism. Considering that computer hardware becomes obsolete
at a breakneck rate, the ROI of throwing old hardware at prisoners is pretty
high.

------
jbrooksuk
Another page about the exact same thing was here the other day.
<https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=5593659>

~~~
xijuan
I KNOW! I am a bit surprised that people are talking about it again. Well, it
is an amazing story...

~~~
jbrooksuk
Don't get me wrong, it's a good read, and Michael should be so proud of what
he's achieved within those 25 years and be excited for the future. I wish him
the best of luck.

I'm just amazed that this story is being regurgitated by an audience who will
probably visit HN every day.

------
GhotiFish

       "Staff members oversaw policies that placed enormous barriers between the 
        people inside boundaries and society. In the prisons where I served my 
        sentence, prisoners were even prohibited from accessing electronic 
        typewriters. They had their reasons, I suppose, but blocking people inside 
        from using technology did not go far in preparing them for success upon 
        release."
    

They have a very good reason actually. Any mechanism for communication will
let people on the outside order people they know on the inside to murder other
people they know on the inside. Prisons have to go to great lengths to prevent
message passing and compartmentalize prisoners from each other. Quiet a few
are just itching to kill each other, apparently.

~~~
GFischer
Well, they could work harder on the 2nd part and relaxing the first.

Prisions have a LOT of wrong things with them, which vary from country to
country.

In my country there's so much overcrowding that Human Rights people aren't
exactly clamoring for Internet access - there was an atrocious fire a while
back which killed a lot of inmates, there simply aren't enough prisions.

------
Iterated
I cannot imagine how shocked he must have been to have such immense amounts of
knowledge at his fingertips. Coming out of prison and seeing new incredible
technologies would be amazing. When I was a teenager I worked at a grocery
store and I was washing my hands in the bathroom. The faucets were motion
activated. A man walked up to them and looked at them and then looked at me
and said, "How do you turn these on?" I told him that you just put your hands
underneath and they turn on automatically. He said, "Wow, I've been in prison
for a while."

------
larrythefox
This is awesome. I doubt it'll get much attention on here, but this guy has
done something amazing from an otherwise terrible experience and made a
difference.

If anyone wants to dig a little deeper, there are a lot of organizations
working with prisoners for success stories like this. Check out
<http://thelastmile.org>, and <http://startupnow.org.uk>

------
xijuan
I had a recent post about how this guy got married in the jail:
[http://www.quora.com/Prisons/How-do-you-nurture-and-
maintain...](http://www.quora.com/Prisons/How-do-you-nurture-and-maintain-a-
marriage-from-prison)

I think the story was a bit too good to be true. If it is completely true, it
is just too amazing!!!

------
tokenadult
He writes as a man who is grateful to enjoy the freedom of outside life again.
I posted the article to my Facebook wall with the tagline, "He really
appreciates what he was missing."

Since the big comment subthread here is about the author's criminal history
and what that means to society, I should probably comment on that issue too.
I've lived in east Asia, and once upon a time, I thought that there was a
generation of Americans who had all heard of the Opium Wars and understood the
historical context of why several countries in that part of the world want
nothing to do with their common people having access to most drugs. Harsh drug
laws in some places--including the death penalty for what seems to Americans
like dealing rather small amounts of drugs--is a reaction to a historical
experience in which whole countries were ruined by foreign drug dealers
(British imperialists trading in opium) and their local agents. I'm not
personally in favor of the death penalty for all drug dealers, but I can
empathize with (for example) a parent of a child who started using drugs who
would want the child's dealer in prison for the rest of his life or even dead.

Of course we want to look to other countries for historical examples too. In
Europe, where the historical experience was different, there has been some
decriminalization, but very little "legalization" of drugs.

[http://www.holland.com/us/tourism/article/dutch-drug-
policy....](http://www.holland.com/us/tourism/article/dutch-drug-policy.htm)

[http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/03/dutch-
dr...](http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/03/dutch-drug-policy-
pragmatic)

[http://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/time-to-end-the-war-
on...](http://www.virgin.com/richard-branson/time-to-end-the-war-on-drugs)

I am tentatively convinced that a national drug policy that focuses mostly on
keeping users from harming other people and on helping users to stop using is
perhaps a better national drug policy than harsh criminal penalties for
dealing in drugs--in countries that have already established a drug-using
culture. But east Asia, with very harsh drug laws and a culture of limited
use, is doing well in human progress,

[http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2012/08/15/singapore...](http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2012/08/15/singapore-
worlds-richest-country-by-2050/)

[http://www.economist.com/news/21566430-where-be-
born-2013-lo...](http://www.economist.com/news/21566430-where-be-
born-2013-lottery-life)

so that policy choice has to be put in the mix too in evaluating what will
work well as the United State reforms a national drug policy that everyone
seems to decry.

~~~
mseebach
I was under the impression that the Opium Wars were not primarily about opium,
but rather imperialism. The British wanted control, so did the Chinese. If it
hadn't been opium, it would have been, god knows what, silk or pepper.

> I can empathize with (for example) a parent of a child who started using
> drugs would want the child's dealer in prison for the rest of his life or
> even dead.

I can empathize too, but this runs counter to the idea of justice. I'd want to
have the hand chopped off the guy who stole my bicycle (actually, I'd want to
do it myself), but justice must separate the passion of the victim from an
objective measure of the damage the crime did to society.

------
soheil
Must watch video:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=w...](http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=wPd2eVd0rrE#at=1696)

~~~
pied_piper
This guy is dangerously naive. He seems to think (with ardent passion) that
regimes in the middle east fell because "Twitter made that happen."

Okay, sir. Time to settle down and reel that nonsense back in.

He speaks emotionally about things that aren't necessarily tethered to reality
and his facts aren't precise, and maybe he has the amnesia of a politician.

His message is that prisons are bad, and that we should rethink the manner of
punishment we exact on people. His passion is very obviously motivated by
personal experience, and that doesn't invalidate his message. Essentially, I
agree with him. But. I'm not drinking his kool-ade about "OMG INTERNETZ."

Yes, I'll entertain his notions about prison being an inefficient and
destructive practice that mostly leaves inmates as damaged wrecks, and
possibly transforms many into more terrible criminals than they might've been
without jail time. But I'm going to take his message with a grain of salt.

When I say dangerous, I mean it. He is too new to the internet, to extoll its
virtues. In the same talk in which he absolutely RAILS against the
privatization of prisons (which is an evil all its own, and yeah I'll agree
with his points on that) his next words advocate just haphazardly dumping
absolutely anything into the hands of large, corporate, profit-driven nigh-
monopolies like Facebook. There's a cognitive dissonance in those two concepts
that he very obviously hasn't thought deeply about (and to be fair, maybe he
hasn't been given the time yet).

Which is surprising, I might add, considering that he's a man who had his mail
read by prison staff, his phone calls monitored, and was displaced across 19
prisons during his time served.

He needs to acclimate himself with some of the debacles of the recent internet
over the past 5 years in particular, and maybe familiarize himself with
personalities like Julian Assange. If he can bring himself to understand
certain realities about the internet, and how it can enable evil as well as
good, maybe he wouldn't be so quick to proclaim that it's some kind of
universal salve, which can cure all our ills.

------
ThomPete
In a hundred years from now, they will look at the war on terror end the
criminalization of it as one of the most useless and primitive forms of
legislation ever made.

Tens of thousands of innocent people gets killed every year, because we don't
want people who have made far more conscious "choices" to become heroine
addict.

------
mardix
This article has been posted so many times now... c'mon people...

~~~
antoinec
At this moment it's in first position, I guess that's because most of HN
readers (including me) haven't read it before, so the repost is totally worth
it.

~~~
jader201
I agree but I think, as a general rule on HN, that any repost - or maybe any
article dated earlier than the current date - should include the date in the
title.

