The piece reminds me of something I saw once about an ex con who went straight and put his drug dealing experience on a resume. He wrote it up in business terms that he moved $100k worth of product per year, arranged shipments, scheduling, etc and did it all in secret. I don't recall what kind of work he did after he went straight but my impression is he was pretty successful.
Except that being an ex-con means that at some point his standard NDA must have been insufficient/unenforceable... Or he made a bad hire, or trusted the wrong people. Just sayin'.
I do not understand why you would assert that. Anyone can make a mistake, ex con or not. So I don't follow your logic in tying the two things together. Do you think people simply cannot change?
Seems to me that he's saying it's obvious he didn't do a good job at not getting caught considering he got caught. Nothing really about people not being able to change. I may be wrong though, but hopefully that clarifies.
The legal dept at bigco where I once worked indicated that emloyee fraud was most often reported by the ex girlfriend/boyfriend. The Great Wall of China was breached by bribery. Getting caught doesn't prove incompetence. And, again, I don't see that in the remark made.
Choosing cohorts that won't rat you out happens to be an important part of not getting caught. In the case of Ex's someone who won't hold a grudge or seek vengeance, bribery well pick someone who has morals, then make sure to pay them enough to make bribery a non-issue.
This reminded me of Sudhir Venkatesh's book "Gang Leader For A Day", parts of which were described in Freakonomics. Some of his findings included an organized corporate structure of a big gang, a gang member with an econ degree who wanted to put his education to use, etc. Pretty interesting read.
I'm not sure if you mean that it's worth pointing out because he has experience with prisons and therefore his opinion should be given more weight, or because he's biased and so his opinion should be given less weight. I'm not sure I think either is true.
Yes. At one point in our history the criminal justice discussions were about how best to rehabilitate the offender rather than punishment. Punishment that neither makes the victim whole or rehabilitates the offender is just useless vengeance.
> Punishment that neither makes the victim whole or rehabilitates the offender is just useless vengeance.
You're ignoring deterrence. And yes, deterrence works. I don't park in red zones all that often.
You're also ignoring the benefits of "warehousing". If person A commits an assault a week, general society avoids an assault every week that person A is in jail.
You can argue that the cost exceeds the benefit, but you don't get to ignore the benefit.
> At one point in our history the criminal justice discussions were about how best to rehabilitate the offender rather than punishment.
Yes, that's what they talked about, but what did they accomplish?
Rehabilitation is a secondary purpose of incarceration, its main purpose being to deter others from committing crimes and to isolate dangerous criminals. A lot of criminals don't even have to be rehabilitated (e.g. educated criminals or criminals serving lifetime sentences).
Well, let me back up a little first. Criminal penalties as deterrent do work up to a certain point, and there is nothing wrong with embracing them to a civilized and practical degree. But the retributive nature of the American justice system is beyond fetishistic. This is harmful for two reasons.
First, evidence suggests that draconian penalties are counterproductive as a deterrent. The exact psychological reasons for this are being researched, but it is thought that it is a matter of respect for the rule of law. When people perceive a law as unjust and disproportionate, they are more likely to break that law, and that applies to the punishment as well as the crime. It seems paradoxical, but increasing the penalty for a crime beyond what people view as equitable will actually reduce the deterrent effect of the penalty.
Second, we as a society have become so obsessed with retributive sentencing that we will, to that end, actively cut programs that are proven to reduce crime. Any program that helps felons to get legitimate work once they are out of prison is likely to be attacked as "soft on crime" and "wasteful", even though such programs are usually relatively inexpensive and actually save the government money in the long run by reducing recidivism.
It is not hard to understand why giving ex-convicts non-criminal career opportunities is good for society, yet the idea that we should at least throw a couple of bones in that direction is actually quite controversial.
I agree with you. OP seemed to imply that America was unique for punishing criminals. I'm not American and can't comment on America's justice system specifically, but punishment seems like a fairly non-controversial purpose for prisons all around the world. I'm all for rehabilitation but it has to be balanced with the punishment component. Thinking that punishment is "useless vengeance" is beyond naive.
I was not trying to imply that America was unique in punishing its criminals, but that America is retributive to an unusual degree. The "useless vengeance" comment was someone else.
I would love for there to be a way to help prisoners not commit future crimes but this seems like a huge stretch.
First, most prisoners are not drug kingpins, they are people that do drugs to the point of not being able to control their lives, or people who commit violent crimes for nonsensical reasons or people who steal large or small sums of money. Many are people you would literally be scared to see in public.
Second, entrepreneurial prisoners like drug dealers are dealing drugs because they do not view risk the same way normal people do. They are in prison because they decided to take an illegal path toward making money knowing that it was easier than working.
Third, VCs will have a tough time explaining to their LPs about how they finance criminals. Even worse would be a VC’s risk if they finance one and the business fails and they have to explain it to their LP.
Forth, a really tough thing about starting a business is getting various people in the industry to work with you. Being a past prisoner is likely to be a burden in those relationships.
Fifth, them getting state/national licenses that may be required to start various businesses will be very challenging.
There are exceptions, like there are with every rule, but this is a tough sell. I could see a very small number of people being helped this way, but I genuinely feel like it would be tough. There are so many great people working toward businesses with no criminal background, it seems strange to try to put the effort in to people that have made no effort for themselves.
I wrote this in the comments on the article, but also wanted to share my thoughts with everyone here, please reply if you have something to say about what I'm about to say, this is one of the topics in life that I haven't finished making conclusions on, it is terribly complicated and I'd love feedback on my mental process. Thanks.
When someone goes to prison it's generally for a good reason, after the jury and trial and all that, it's safe to say then that these people forfeit their rights. That's what happens when you go against the rules of a society you belong to. I think everyone can agree with that. The trick is balance, sure it's not fair to blanket treat inmates all the same, however they cost us money to not just capitol-punishment the lot of them (a bad idea for moral reasons.) So they need to pay off their debt. But to go as far as to say they should be treated as if being away from everyone is their only punishment and that's already bad enough is a bit naive. Many people in prison did really bad things, like rape and murder, try telling the victims family in those cases that the inmate that killed their kid gets to get an education, a job, some savings for his release, cable TV, food, etc, etc. Tell them that and see what reaction you get.
To be completely fair they did bad things, we need to keep that in mind, also the cheap labor could be used to help society. Cheap furniture/clothing/household items, etc for low income families comes to mind.
I think the real solution is to be transparent about how much things cost, and we need to keep in mind that we can't allow for slave labor of prisoners just for those profits to go into CEO's pockets. If we are to do that then it needs to go to the potential rehabilitation of the inmate, and in dropping the costs so lower income people can save money on essentials that are made by inmates hands.
PS: This is definitely one of the most thought provoking articles relating to inmates I've read in a long time.
I don't think I'm disagreeing with the gist of your comment, but a couple of the ideas you put forward as givens freaked me out.
We have to leave aside two unanswered statements in your comment: how many people in prison actually deserve to be there, and how many of their rights prisoners surrender by being convicted of a crime. I'd argue that one's human rights don't ever get revoked, but that's just me.
What is the purpose of prison? I'd argue that it's a dual purpose: punishment and rehabilitation.
Being away from everyone you've ever loved or known is a terrible punishment. Once you walk out of a prison years after you went in the world will have changed out from under you. Your babies are grown and won't know you. Your parents might have died. Your friends' lives have moved on without you. The rhythms of daily life are now foreign to you. The particulars of any specific penitentiary system might make this easier (visitation, parole, etc.), but this is pretty horrible.
Why does someone commit a crime? Unless they are mentally unbalanced (which, in the US, is served by separate processes... e.g. pleading insanity), they have behaviors that are unacceptable outside of a set of social norms. Giving someone the opportunity to learn what society expects of them should be part of being in prison. Isn't education a great way to figure that out? Why should we be against someone trying to turn their life around after making some terrible choice? (Again, leaving aside questions of over-eager judicial systems e.g. the US' war on drugs)
Human rights shouldn't get revoked, no doubt, they are still human after all. I'm referring to citizenship rights, like the right to a minimum wage as an example, or the right to have certain foods or religious needs met. At the end of the day most inmates took rights away from another, like in the case of rape, a girls right to say no. Or murder, a persons right to live.
I would say in regards to rehabilitation that we teach them exactly what they need to know about society in order to cope with coming back in, I do agree that if someone spent that long without freedom, and they served their time, then they should be free when they get out, with all rights given back.
I get that it's a terrible punishment to, sometimes worse then death for people that enjoy their freedom, I would argue that we continue to evolve what is the "correct" length of time for people to be in prison for one. And yeah we shouldn't be against someone turning their life around, but not to the extent that we waste resources on people getting a second chance, when there's a plethora of people still waiting for their first chance.
Jury nullification: Discrimination in some form or another plays such a large role in who goes to prison that we actually have a term in th U.S. for the process of trying to combat it with what amounts to legal civil disobedience.
When a regime falls: I have heard it said that when a regime falls, the first thing that gets done is to release all the prisoners. Why? Because being in prison isn't about being a bad person. It is about violating the rules.
I knew a man for a time who went to prison in his youth for his political activism. He was extremely idealistic. Like me, he was prone to being too honest for his own good. He was very clear that laws are written by humans and there is nothing inherently moral about them. They are, at best, only as wise and moral as the authors. Unfortunately, in most cases they are less wise and moral than that since getting passed at all may involve politicking and compromise. And in many case they are writen with no intent to be "fair" (such as Jim Crow laws).
Best of luck in coming to some meaningful, informed conclusions.
I can't agree more in regards to Jim Crow laws. Also the war on drugs. Prostitution (seems like a victimless crime to me.) Etc. etc. I'm mostly referring to prisoners that do things like kill, rape, extort, and pounce on another's freedom to pursue happiness and such.
The problem with your standard is that even in the case of murder and other violent crimes, sex, race and socioeconomic status (also influenced by race and gender) play a big role in who actually does time.
As a woman, here is one example I am painfully aware of: A woman who defends herself with lethal force against a husband who has beaten her for years does more time on average than an abusive husband who finally goes too far and beats his wife to death. I can explain some of the reasons why that happens if you care to hear it. But the reasons do not change the fact that injustices happen daily in our legal system and many of our laws foster those injustices, to say nothing of the biases of judges and juries.
In a better system (basically the system we as citizens of our respective countries should be pushing our lawmakers into.) socioeconomic trends, race and sex shouldn't have anything to do with how bad someone gets punished.
Also, I would appreciate it a lot of you did go into details about the wife versus husband abuse. Seems to me that the only answer to that is sexism though. For many years it's been held in certain groups that women being the child bearing gender and men being the "bread winners" meant that men were somehow above women. In many area's of the world it's much worse then others but regardless you see that everywhere. It would seem to go without saying that that's wrong, but I'm speaking as a man who respects people equally, and leaves it to each individual to prove to me their merit. A whole ton of people think that their race is best, and that their gender is best, for reasons they all think are good. It makes me wonder how we might be able to change this, I feel it starts with leading by example.
"Justice is blind". Fair != equal. Men and women are different. Applying the same standard gets unequal outcomes.
The details:
You do more time if it is premeditated vs. a crime of passion. You do more time if you used a weapon vs. your bare hands. Most of the time, an abusive husband who kills his wife beats her to death with his bare hands. Most of the time, a woman who finally kills her husband to protect herself had to plan it and used a weapon to accomolish it. Men frequently have a size advantage and are also more likely to have served in the military, taken martial arts or otherwise be better prepared to do physical harm than a woman. The law currently does a poor job of accounting for such differences.
That is without getting into what happens if the judge or one of the lawyers is a wife beater. Edit: That is also without getting into other relevant factors, which don't get properly considered under the current system.
I don't think that's really fair to say that. Things really need to stop being about man versus woman, and more about the actual facts. Like who's actually bigger (I know of men that were beaten by their wives.)
That said...
If you premeditate kill someone then you did NOT do it to protect yourself from harm. At that moment you can and should leave and get help from whoever can help you. Restraining orders to start off with, and carry a weapon around for self defense, entirely different then premeditated murder.
That all said the current system is without a doubt messed up, our high crime rate is proof of that. What's scarier is how much crime goes un-caught.
Unfortunately, the facts don't fit your idea of how things should work. One study found that women who killed their abusive husband were the most severely abused, the most isolated, and basically were all out of options. They often killed after being told something like "In the morning, I am going to kill you.", which they had every reason to believe was absolutely true. They had typically already tried counseling, leaving, restraining orders, you name it. They typically were also told things like "If you leave and I can't find you, I will instead kill...(some other loved one such as your mother or sister or our children)"
I am not some man hating bitch. I'm quite fond of men. And I don't know how to fix this particular problem with the justice system. All I am saying is that doing time is not the ultimate proof that someone is depraved. It is more complicated than that.
Peace and carry on. I am not interested in being nailed to the wall with ugly insinuations and it looks to me like that is where this is going/has already gone to some degree.
I'd like to say that I'm sorry for saying anything that came across as me insinuating anything about you, that wasn't my point. My point is that the system is obviously flawed and that we need to work to get that fixed, this includes and is not limited to bringing anyone abusing their spouse to justice, so that no-one, man or woman, should ever suffer through it. (just one of the things that need fixed.)
I think we think we aren't agreeing, when in reality we agree much more then we realize, but I digress. Someone having been to prison doesn't mean they are depraved, BUT and this is a part I agree is complicated, we as a society need to be sending only the truly depraved to prison. Otherwise it's not about keeping the rest of us safe, it's about something like money, or some such.
Please accept my dearest apology, I don't mean to say that I'm sorry you were offended though, but to say that I'm sorry I said something offensive.
Fwiw: I think a better answer lies in providing more support for children and families. I typically focus more on providing parenting advice to people with really challenging children in hope of preventing the types of problems that lead to criminal charges rather than addressing what to do after everything has gone wrong. However I am currently homeless, which has me spending more time around very poor people, many of whom have done time. And this crowd references prison differently than the middle and upper middle class people I typically have been surrounded by.
Then we should be using money on people that violate the more severe laws, and not waste it on people that smoke pot, etc.
I suppose in my mind we need to do it in an order like this, first change who is getting arrested, then decide if those people deserve minimum wage, etc.
First, it's prison. So, y'know, punishment on some level. In addition to rehabilitation. So my gut reaction is that I'd rather see more educational programs going on. Especially since a lot of "entrepreneurship" is really just either scammy behavior or flat-out fantasy (my start-up's the next Facebook!). Especially when the education isn't in place.
That said, I'm not entirely opposed to the idea. But, as a tax-payer, the idea that someone is getting free room and board on my dime while they make a good income grates a bit. What does it cost to keep someone incarcerated for a year these days? $40k? If the inmate were to repay this -- the sort of rent and bills every other entrepreneur has to pay -- then the idea would be more palatable.
I had a friend in prison some years ago. He said the worst thing wan there was nothing to do. Most people slept 12+ hours a day & when they got out they couldn't adjust.
So yeah, I feel any productive activity is a damn good idea.
It's very true. By far the worse thing inside is the boredom.
When you see it on TV/movies all you see is the drama. You don't see the endless hours of _absolutely.nothing.to.do_
It's mind numbing. So you try to sleep as much as possible to make the time pass
Nowhere in the article I see anything about the mental disorders of criminals, psychopaths and sociopaths who can be very entrepreneurial but also very low on ethics.
There are two kinds of criminals: the ones that do it because they were desperate, and the ones that are mentally ill and not only can't see risk but can't see why it's wrong to kill another person for money or turf.
The desperate ones would truly like to have a normal life and a job, but some of then were born SOL into crack houses and abusive fathers. The psychopaths come from every social class, I meet this guy in college who had rich parents and still was trying to push X all over the place.
At the risk of sounding glib, I don't think that's how most drug dealers in prison began dealing drugs.
I could be way off, but the scenario he posits, wherein all hits mates are buying weed and he arbitrages, is probably not how most drug dealers come into operation, and certainly not how I suspect the prison-time crowd got into it.
"How do you think they got in to it then? Trying not to sound snarky - I'm genuinely interested in what other route you see people taking into drug dealing." -, asked HN user djacksonkf in his dead comment.
I think he is Duane Jackson, the author. He seems to be banned for some reason.
It doesn't sound far off to me. My understanding is many start dealing to help support their habit and it grows from there. I don't have firsthand experience but I've had "friends in low places" so to speak. What do you propose as a more logical explanation and what is your theory based on?
Particularly as it relates to imprisonment (meaning 'rural' dealers are less likely to be caught and imprisoned) - the average drug dealer in prison likely got into it out of necessity in one form or another.
In urban environments, drug dealers are more plentiful, work on slimmer margins and operate in a riskier environment. In more cases than not, the drug dealers that are dealing with enough volume to catch prison time are those attached to gangs, or out of necessity to stay above the poverty line.
The picture painted in the article, at least to me, is perhaps the most likely way for middle class white kids to end up in prison for drug dealing, but most drug sentences serious enough to involve prisons don't go to middle class white kids, they go to urban blacks.
This isn't to say that the numbers are right, or fair, or necessarily representative of how the real world works -- but if we're talking about people in prison, this is more likely.
It's the way I started dealing. And the way many others I know (both in prison and out) did too. And I'm certainly not middle-class.
I think pleading "necessity" sounds like excusing the actions. It's very very rarely neccesary to have to deal drugs or similar to stay above the poverty line. Especially here in the UK where unemployment benefits are fairly generous. Unless not having the latest pair of Nike Air Max equates to poverty.
I don't doubt that there are people who start dealing in exactly that fashion, I just don't think it's the most common way. Looking back at the article however, I see you said 'many' and I probably read it as 'most', so we're probably both right.
As for my use of necessity, I certainly don't mean to excuse their actions -- perhaps 'believed necessity' would be more appropriate.
Last thing, I was also speaking specifically to what I know of American drug dealing, and I have absolutely zero knowledge of how well that information travels overseas.
Thank you and have an upvote. I do not know who is "right" but you certainly supported your position. I am in no position to argue it, but then that wasn't my intent anyway as I hate arguing. But I appreciate learning something new.
That's genius. Jet Blue's uses stay-at-home moms as their entire workforce of reservation agents. Productivity increased by 25% and employee turnover was reduced when they moved from call centers to homes.
maybe we can get Hans Reiser back working on file systems from prison someday, even when it became clear he had killed his wife there is a part of me that wanted too see him get off to keep working on ReiserFS
Being a good entrepreneur is more than identifying opportunities for arbitrage and executing on it and rolling profits into the system that can fuel more arbitrage. It's also taking into account the sustainability of the system. Evaluating the legality of the arbitrage is more important than the skill to profit from it.
Are there really many entrepreneurs who take it upon themselves to consider the sustainability of the system, rather than just their own ability to profit from it? Some probably, but it doesn't seem to be the norm in business culture, apart from some talk of "corporate social responsibility" at large companies that I strongly suspect is mainly for PR reasons.
