As a business owner and former SV software engineer that regularly hires former convicts, I can speak to this a bit.
Hiring ex-cons will make your life harder. At least it has made mine. Many times, ex-cons aren't given the practical skills to get by as an adult. They may not have a bank account, understand taxes, have a driver's license and so many other practical skills.
They're also more likely to steal from you, hurt or harass other employees and more. So why hire ex-cons? Well I don't on purpose, I just don't do background checks. I have everyone on a paid trial their first week. We make the decision based on work. I only find out later.
Why do I do this? Because I want to live in this type of world and it's good for my business. My business only cares about the work being done, not the personal history of the employees. Hiring ex-cons will create more work for you but it's led to me finding some of my best employees.
I think it's easy to say we should hire felons but it's not easy for businesses to do this. Prison should be adult school instead of gang summer camp.
Growing up, my parents owned a small business that was staffed in the production department almost entirely by ex-convicts. There was both a measure of altruism, charity, and good business in their thinking -- the convicts had done their time and needed help, and were often cheaper to hire than regulars.
My parents wouldn't hire violent offenders, and most of the people they employed had some kind of drug problem at one time or another. Most of these guys were decent, friendly, hard working, and then had absolutely inscrutable abilities to go completely off the rails from time to time. Very few of them stayed employed for more than a couple of years and many of them ended up back in prison.
I remember more than one guy getting hired, working their tail off, turning their life around and so on. And then one day going on a PCP fueled naked run through the center of town, or suddenly cashing their paycheck and immediately spending it all on cocaine while their kids went hungry. One guy went so far as to have his hand mangled in a piece of equipment so he could get his hands on legal opiates, after 10 years of rock solid employment and clean living.
On occasion, my father would also catch them involved in absolutely bizarre shenanigans. I remember one day my father came home absolutely fuming because one of his guys had set up a weekend shop (when the business was normally closed) out of my father's storefront selling both counterfeit watches and postage stamps to local refugees. How he had hit on that as a business angle and why he decided to do it out of my parent's business is a mystery that has never been explained in any meaningful way.
Money management was a huge problem. My parents were approached almost weekly for pay advances, loans and whatnot. My father often traded extra side jobs patching up the building or whatnot for the pay instead of just giving it out -- it was assumed the guys were using the early pay in some irresponsible way.
While this all sounds like an absolutely nightmare, it curiously wasn't. My father made it clear that when guys were on the job they behaved, they showed up on time and they'd be payed on time. Any deviation from it and they'd be send home and not payed for the hours they would have worked. These events were maybe once or twice a year and most of the time the guys were just there putting in their shift and were otherwise fun to have around.
You and your parents' experiences echos a lot of my own.
When Bitcoin started going up again several months ago, a few guys bought in near the peak despite my warning.
Gambling in general was weird. Like betting on how long it would take to eat something.
There's a surprising number of conspiracy theories. We've had to create headphone rules for certain topics.
That being said, hiring former convicts has been both a rewarding and challenging experience for me. If you have the time and it makes business sense, I would highly recommend it.
It's generally a polarized outcome. You either end up with a great employee or a problem. If you handle the problems, you'll always get better people by expanding your pool of applicants.
This is nice to hear. I've come to know a lot of ex-cons from minor crimes to life sentences. They're just as varied as any other group of people and you're right that they can either be incredibly solid assets or crazy liabilities. There's something about the crucible of prison life that amplifies personalities (similar to other intense life situations). Many get ground down by the system but there are a few who become better through the challenge.
They've paid their debts but it's unfortunate that society turns it into eternal servitude. Most records other than the truly egregious should be sealed. It's strange how society shuns them continuously and provides no support, but then blames them from not integrating perfectly. It's a vicious cycle.
> Most records other than the truly egregious should be sealed.
This is a big one. 99% of the time employees should not be able to know someones criminal history unless it is critical for the job and that data should be proxyed via police.
For example if you want to work at a school then they can check with the police that you do not have any history making it unsafe for you to work with children but the coffee shop has no access to this data.
Last time I moved I talked a little with the movers and a lot of them had been in jail before. The leader told me that there definitely is a problem with a lot of ex-cons having problems with authority, reliability and rules. I commend you for hiring them anyway. For a single business it's probably better to not hire any although this is a loss for the whole society.
Using "Ex-Cons" as a blanket term is pretty dehumanizing, in my opinion.
People go to jail for different reasons. Would you assume that a person who went to prison for child molestation would have the same antisocial personality traits as someone who was convicted for multiple DUIs?
These are human beings, and they shouldn't be described in the same manner as insects in a David Attenborough documentary.
You shouldn't be going after me for just using a word you don't approve of especially since I am very sympathetic too them. I don't know what the movers did to get into jail but as far as the job prospects it doesn't matter anyway. What I was told is that a lot of companies won't hire you as soon as you have a record, no matter what for, be it child molestation or DUI.
> They're also more likely to steal from you, hurt or harass other employees and more.
Not disagreeing with you here as I have zero experience with this, but in your experience are there any attributes that ex-cons typically exhibit better than the other employees?
I'd just say it's generally harder. Anyone exposed to the American justice system probably has a higher rate of mental health issues, combined with the financial stress most ex-cons face. It's not like people who go to prison develop some new bad behavior. Anyone under these burdens is more likely to exhibit negative behaviors.
Plenty of businesses don't do background checks. Huge national restaurant chains often don't. Unless your employees are working with children or you are in a highly regulated industry I wouldn't worry about it.
Yeah, we're a light manufacturing warehouse. We're zoned for hemp & cannabis. We don't have any machinery that could hurt anyone (unless you open it and fuck with the wiring). Our work is simple, but repetitive and boring. People can listen to music or podcasts or just talk.
We're kind of the ideal company for an ex-con in a lot of ways.
Not to cast any kind of aspersions on this man's character, but you don't have to be scrupulous or skilled to make a lot of money. Plenty of companies are run for and by criminals, and some of them would doubtlessly not have a problem with and maybe even desire to hire people with a criminal past (though perhaps not with a record).
Arguably, plenty of corporations are engaging in behavior that's unethical (like spying on their users, trying to manipulate them through advertising, or selling products that harm or even kill people) and that if it isn't illegal already should be. Many such organizations and the people that work for them are very successful, are rewarded handsomely for their work, and are lauded by society at large.
Many criminals would feel right at home in such organizations, which do whatever they need (sometimes within the bounds of the law and sometimes beyond it) to make money.
On the other hand, just because you've been convicted of a crime doesn't mean you've done anything wrong. Plenty of people are or have been on jail for victimless crimes (like marijuana possession) or crimes that should never have been crimes at all (like sitting in the front of a bus or drinking from the wrong water fountain at certain times in American history, having a stigmatized sexual orientation in certain parts of the world, protesting abuses, or trying to shelter innocent people who would have been killed had they been turned over to the authorities), or been the victim of judicial injustice (like being convicted by a biased jury or based on falsified evidence of a crime you didn't commit). So yes, you could technically be "a criminal", but either be innocent or even justifiably proud of what you did, and any decent company should be glad to have you.
Literally any of the recent(past 10 years) VC fueled startups whose main innovation was breaking the law too fast for the government to stop? You think Uber, Lyft, Zenefits, all the scooter companies who use public property to store their fleet, etc aren't being run by criminals?
Edit: and that's before we get into the more etablished companies commiting crimes like Enron's accounting fraud, Boeing's attempts to circumvent safety regulations, HSBC modifying their teller windows to the size of the money drops from cartels so they could speed up the money laundering
Over the 3.5 years I spent driving around in my taxi, I had a few opportunities to clean after messes created by the criminal justice system. I've decided "justice" is mostly a make-work program for lawyers and prison guards.
> When the formerly incarcerated are released from prison, they are given anywhere from $10 to $200 in cash and sent on their way, often with no job or housing prospects, and few contacts in the outside world.
When the people are released from the Maricopa County Jail, they frequently have nothing, not even the cell phone they had on them when they got mickeyed up. Cell phones with removable batteries are given back to people when they're released. Phones with non-removable batteries have to be claimed from property, which is open during regular business hours.
One of the more-important things I wrote for kuro5hin.org (RIP) was titled Who Are Your Lifelines? [0]. It was about the passenger who called me from jail because he remembered my number. I went to visit, got his gmail password... Eventually I bailed him out myself, as it was "only" $300... I exercise my mental phone book regularly on his account.
When I helped him out the last time he was arrested (on a 2-year old warrant for a missed court appearance), he had no choice but to write off his phone, as he had no identification by which to get his property back.
The other passenger was a young woman who was released 15 miles from where she was picked up [1], when the city cops found a blond-haired white woman who was a better candidate for the beer thief they were looking for. Even if she'd had a cell phone with phone numbers of people she might've called for a ride, she only would have been able to reclaim it during banking hours, not at 10pm when she was released to the street. A hotel let her use their phone to call the taxi company for a ride.
>Moore’s story is one of perseverance, hard work, and redemption — but it raises a controversial question: Should a convicted killer be given a second chance?
How's that a "controversial question"?
And in what other part of the western world a 15 year old kid even gets a life sentence for a murder in the heat of the moment, especially given he had drug and alcohol issues?
There's a quote from Warhammer 40k that sounds similar to this
>Some may question my right to destroy a world of ten billion souls, but those who understand realize I have no right to let them live.
For those who don't know this is a sci go universe whose overriding style "grim dark". This is where everything is as over the top terrible as possible and there is no hope for the future.
We are at the point where comparisons between our prison/justice system can be made against a fantasy world purposefully written to have no chance of hope
I have another account on HN with lots of karma, but I'm still terrified that if I talk about my past openly, it'll be career suicide.
Here's the thing: you can "pay all your dues" to society, but if:
a. your crime is a felony
AND
b. you don't live in a state where their criminal code has a provision for felony EXPUNGEMENT (NOTE: that's not the same thing as only a pardon)
the simple fact of the matter.... you're SCREWED. It will follow you FOREVER.
There is no forgiveness, and the felony will make it very hard to get a good job unless you're lucky enough to find a company who will hire you in spite of it.
I have only had luck at companies where I knew someone who worked there already, and they vouched for me. Even then, it was VERY challenging to get past the gate that is HR.
Here's the thing, though... if (as a society) we're going to hold crimes against people forever... how do we expect them to be restored?
A good job is arguably the most important part of that work of restoring someone to society.
The real story is the state bill which gives an opportunity for parole to inmates who were tried as adults before they were 16 years of age. Beyond that, it's a story of a statistical outlier.
Do prisons let prisoners contribute to free software? It seems like it'd be a win for everyone: prisoners get something productive to do; the world get better software; prisons get to brag about providing opportunities for what amounts to career training, but without having to spend very much.
There's a long history of having prisoners clean roads and make license plates. I imagine that'll still happen, since not everyone has the temperament for technology. But why not let those who do have the temperament do something that society values?
> Do prisons let prisoners contribute to free software?
No, I'd guess most prisoners don't have access to the internet, let alone a computer.
> There's a long history of having prisoners clean roads and make license plates.
That long history, at least in the United States, comes with a lot of baggage. The thirteenth amendment in the US Constitution forbids slavery except of prisoners, and many consider forced prison labor slavery. Prisoners have done things like clean roads, manufacture goods, work call centers, etc. In California, prisoners earn between $0.30 and $0.95 an hour before deductions.
Many states engage prison in industries (like textiles) that are profit centers (though often their markets are restricted to government entities, like other state prison systems)
For anyone specifically making less than 100k - I'm curious if you had any of these reactions:
a - I'm angry because he's making more and he's an ex-con (that actually murdered someone in cold blood - as a kid)
b - I'm not angry because he did his time (22 years in a cell), but now that he's beyond his criminal time, seems reformed (likely won't do it again), even though he's making more than me - he deserves it.
I'm not grumpy about this one at all, but there was a post on reddit about kids making $30 to 60 hour doing yard work and general help out type things. The most I've made in software development is $65/hour as a contractor (so my expenses are higher than normal employment) and lately it seems like I struggle to get any work. When I was a kid I was making $5 for that kind of work (maybe worth $10 now).
The prison system is unethical and poorly implemented, and i also don't care if someone earns more than me unless it's millions more. So I'm very strongly leaning 'b'.
>According to Jennifer Ellis, The Last Mile’s chief operating officer, tech companies are often resistant to hiring the formerly incarcerated
One of the things I truly don't understand about our justice system. If time served is "repaying your debt to society" then why do anyone but law enforcement have access to your record? If it isn't, then why do we incarcerate people at all?
Most states do offer a program to truly clean your slate, restricting access to your record to only law enforcement, but those programs have pretty strict requirements. People don't think you deserve a clean slate just because you managed to serve a jail sentence.
We incarcerate people because we have to do something and incarceration is something. Nobody thinks it's ideal, to force a bunch of criminals to hang out with only other criminals and expect their criminal tendencies to somehow go away. But it's not obvious what a better alternative would be.
Putting criminals away and making them lose years behind bars is at least helpful to reduce their penchant for violence as violent crimes tend to more likely in your younger years. 50-60 years old dudes killing people make headlines as outliers because they are not common at all.
So yeah, not ideal, but aging people out of violence still kind of works.
Society is caught up in a long-running debate over whether the purpose of justice is rehabilitation or retribution. The contradictions you see are the result. Neither side is particularly happy with the outcome, mind you, but I see no obvious way to break the impasse.
Additionally, there is an element of risk-aversion among employers. Why take a risk on hiring an ex-con when you can hire someone without a record for the same effort/cost?
The primary purpose of incarceration is not rehabilitation or retribution, but rather crime prevention. Convicts aren't out committing more crimes (at least not among the general public).
That's incarceration. My comment is about justice in general. Incarceration is only one of many avenues of justice. Others include capital punishment, corporal punishment, fines, asset forfeiture, exile, expulsion from school, or registration on a public list (such as the sex-offender registry).
The effects of all of these vary widely, and many of them have very long-running debates on their merits (or lack thereof). I think it's premature to claim that any one of these concepts has a primary purpose, let alone a universally agreed-upon one.
It's not that employers have access to your criminal record. It's more that employers have routinely asked on employment applications if you've ever been convicted of a crime or been incarcerated. That has led to movements such as "Ban the Box", which aims to remove the checkbox on applications that ask that question.
As that Wikipedia article notes, prohibiting questions about criminal records makes employers substantially less likely to hire African-Americans, since race is a strong proxy for arrest rate: https://academic.oup.com/qje/article-abstract/133/1/191/4060...
Many times, that question is because of insurance companies doing stupid shit (i.e. they factor in the chance a former convict may reoffend and do so at your workplace). Shit, my company didn't even have a drug & alcohol "testing if you are suspected" policy until a few years ago when we switched insurance companies. And companies really have no choice but to do what the insurer says because the options are slim.
Presumably, the “stupid shit” insurance companies do allows them to offer competitive premiums compared to other insurance companies, allowing them to stay in business.
The solution would be to forbid all insurers from factoring in former convictions from calculated premiums.
It’s something that you are allowed to discriminate on at hiring, but can get in trouble for later.
Some contracts also make it difficult for companies to do business with them if they hire someone with a criminal record. Government contracts in particular.
Also can be an issue if you do business with the finance sector.
Finance sector companies (especially banks) have a lot of concern about theft and fraud, and one of the ways they try to mitigate this risk is by having policies restricting the employment of people who have criminal records for theft and fraud. (If you've done it before, you are more likely to do it again.)
Often, those policies will be extended to apply to vendors. So vendors will be asked to ensure that none of their employees working for that client have a criminal record for those sort of offences. They usually satisfy this requirement by running background checks during the hiring process.
And PCI DSS requires background checks. And HIPAA. SSAE16 / SOC technically doesn't, so far as I know, but it's going to end up in a company's policy due to (PCI | HIPAA | Insurance | Customer requirements | it was in the template) and therefore has to be enforced to pass audits.
Blocking access to a former convicts records isn't enough. In a world of social media and google, a black hole in your resume of time while you were inside stands out.
An alternate solution might to give prisoners the ability to open access to their records. Yes, you committed crime X, but the records at the prison show that you kept your head down and did X qualifications.
The reason people don't hire prisoners is that it comes with risk. If we open up information, you can lower that risk.
Protected classes are typically things that people cant change about themselves, which largely doesn't apply to people who have been convicted of crimes.
It also has the downside of not allowing employers to avoid hiring people who have committed crimes in relation to their occupation. I might be fine hiring someone who embezzled as a software engineer, but I probably wouldn't hire them as my CFO.
I mean, we incarcerate people for two reasons... to protect society from criminals and to deter others from being criminals. How good the system works is up for debate, but that is the idea.
Why would providing people info on past incarceration history be contrary to either of those goals?
My company once fired an intern after a month because the background check turned out bad. The guy was perfectly normal and it seems everybody regretted it but due to liability concerns there is a policy that ex-cons don't get hired.
Because the employer deserves to know so they can weigh the risk adequately. It's up to them whether or not they want to bet on Convict A not committing another crime. And it a decent risk.
There are several theories of criminal punishment [0]. Much ink is spilled debunking rehabilitation and deterrence, but from what I can tell, incapacitation fits like a glove. Reducing access to positions of trust is as much a part of that as restricting movement.
What part of his story would have been different if he wasn't white? He was 16 when he killed his brother, and was sentenced to life in prison. He got a parole hearing because of a 2014 California law giving parole hearings to all people sent to prison who were under 18 at the time of the crime. Would the parole hearing be racially biased? The Last Mile's screening process doesn't appear racially biased, it required no infractions in the last 2 years, passing a logic test, and no cybercrimes. Would Checkr's hiring be racially biased? They have a special program for hiring ex-criminals, it seems strange that they would be simultaneously racially biased.
Since you decided to make a racial accusation, why don't you find the proof instead of putting the burden on everyone else to prove your accusation wrong?
How can you 'prove' this? It literally has to be a thought experiment because the only way to prove it would be to apply for a job at the same company with the same crime as a non-white man. It's not an accusation it's a social thought experiment.
In some ways, Moore is an atypical graduate. As a middle-class white man, he says, he carries a “privilege that gives [him] an edge.” Mass incarceration disproportionately affects minorities, who face additional systemic barriers upon release. The seriousness of his crime also pushes the reform debate to its most extreme limits.
> Also checkr basically helps put people out of jobs by background checking them.
I’m sure this is true, but it’s also by design.
As a B2B SaaS company, we have customer contracts requiring background checks of all of our employees (and the customer’s lawyer wouldn’t negotiate that clause). So, since we didn’t want to churn that customer, we signed, and now we run background checks on all new hires.
And that's why having 1 or a few big companies who are responsible for a big chunk of revenue sucks.
To me that sounds like a insane request to completely change the way you run your business, by a company who is letting their lawyer have too much control.
And if they insist on controlling your hiring practices, I can only imagine how much control they'll want over the product.
edit: I misread the comment and thought you were the checkr founder. Anyone know who that guy is? Here's an open letter for him:
I would like you to consider making checkr less evil.
I understand and respect that you run a successful business by eliminating friction for compliance, but you don't have to do it the way you're doing it.
Have you ever considered what it's like to have a conviction and need to get a job? I have a misdemeanor state conviction, and I'm nervous every time I take new employment. When I was last hired, I had to use checkr and it was a terrible experience.
Let me tell you what sucks when you find yourself on the wrong side of this, and give you some tips on how to become a more ethical player here:
* Present your legal agreements in a better way. When I had to sign up for checkr, there were a lot of terms I had to accept. It was the kind of thing I'd normally hire a lawyer to review, but it was sprung on me during a tense job negotiation. I just had to accept it, but it was not good. Consider making a summary similar to tosdr.org for the people you're enrolling. You're pressuring people into signing unexpected legal documents, so try to at least have a little class about it.
* Tell me what databases you're checking. I have a conviction in a different state than I'm employed, and I had no way to know if your service was even looking at that state's records. If I knew what you were actually searching, I would have known that I was going to pass and it would have saved me a lot of stress.
* Give me a heads up. I understand that I'm not your client, my potential employer is, but why not give me a day to figure out how to handle the situation if you're going to flag me? I'd much rather get an email that says "here's what we found. we're going to automatically tell your potential employer in 24hours. if you'd like them to receive the results immediately click here. if you feel like we screwed up and this isn't your conviction, tell us here so we can have a human verify". If you do that, the public will feel like you're on their side, and your client will be happy to have a buffer to deal with "that background check is false!".
* Show a status page with each database as it comes back. Right now there are people who are terrified that they're about to miss out on a big opportunity because of something stupid they did years ago. They're waiting for their checkr report to come back. Do what you can to help those people.
* Help HR be ethical too. I was not informed that I was going to have a background check before I quit my previous job. Please encourage the HR people you're working with to be very upfront about it when sending out offers. It would take no effort to add to your training materials as a helpful HR tip. Maybe encourage them to use your company logo as part of their offer letter with an "Checkr Verified Employer" badge or something. It's branding for you and it's useful for applicants to know what they're getting into.
Companies like yours are setting a new standard for what's ethically acceptable. You're probably going to eat the market and be worth billions, so maybe consider setting a good example on the way there.
And remember that decision makers will go through your service too.
Not that it matters, but my learning from having friends and acquaintances who were convicted of crimes is:
Criminality is a spectrum.
It's not as Yes/No as one might think to deduce if someone is a criminal. Propensity to commit crime is not a static variable; it can vary a lot based on many factors in life. (We're talking 'actual crimes' here, not bullshit 'maybe crimes' like civil disobedience or carrying 1g of weed).
I've known people who were assholes get deeper into a criminal record with no remorse, and people who were A+ students do some dumbass criminal things and then work hard to put it past them. The point is: a paper record doesn't tell the full story of criminal propensity/probability - in either case - and doesn't perfectly foresee the future of someone's potential.
I'm not saying people who committed crimes are just "misguided innocents" or that "we should feel sorry for them" like they are in a wheelchair with a disability. Hold them to the same accountability as everyone else, and if they are trying to become better people then don't interfere with that.
---
As examples, here's some stories of people I knew:
Person1: Had a WRX in college, took it out streetracing on the highway at 3am, hit another car at 120mph (nobody died, but bones were broken) and charged with felony reckless driving. He posted bail, and had to withdraw from classes that semester while his court case was going on. Also had his license revoked (unsurprisingly). Had to live with a 2hr bus to/from college for the next 3 years since he was a commuter student, and also do a ton of community service. Still, he stuck through it, graduated, and now has a solid job as a software sales manager (he's a safer driver now and his car insurance premiums are his lifelong reminder).
Person2: Started dealing weed in high school and moved up to dealing up more drugs in greater quantities by age 20 to make more money. He had a few traffic tickets, but never any misdemeanor/felony charges at the time. This guy just oozed "piece of shit", in my opinion - was a bit like Jesse Pinkman from Breaking Bad (in clothes and demeanor), bought himself a blacked-out used BMW and also got a handgun illegally (to further embody the drug dealer persona), and bragged about beating a guy unconscious once who tried to short him on cash. Eventually got caught with weed, coke, xanax, and $2k cash in a traffic stop. Ended up taking a plea deal with probation (skirted jail due to 1st major offense). Worked a minimum wage job during probation, still continued his same shitty behavior on the side because he wanted the money from it. 2 years after his probation was over, his apartment got busted by the cops, and now he's in jail (idk for how long).
Person3: Another dealer, but this guy stuck to only weed products (weed, oils, wax, edibles in illegal state). He was an infosys student, and more of a "hippy stoner" (long hair, hoodie, sandals, drove a minivan). He was a chill dude to smoke with, and did not treat selling weed like The Wire (would throw in free spliffs with every quarter oz). Ended up getting caught when he was making an exchange with his supplier and was taken in for "intent to distribute". He spent a few days in jail while the cops wanted to make a case of his supplier. Ended up with probation. He stopped dealing weed, though he still grows his own for personal consumption now that he lives in CO. I believe he is a vegan now and works for some non-profit as a developer.
Jealous of what? He earned 2 associate degrees and then spent a year and a half doing coding courses, and then got a part time job in IT after he got out, and then moved up to a full role.
The entire story is basically no different to any other person who works there way into IT other than he’s an ex-Con and in the US it’s hard for them to usually get jobs.
I earned 2 bachelors (CS and non-CS related), 2 masters (CS and CS-related). My master grades are a 4.0 GPA equivalent, or at least the top 10 percentile and whatever is associated with an A. In total, I've studied 6 years in IT-related studies at an academic level.
I have about 1 to 2 years of work experience while I was studying. These study programs took 8 years of my life (and are supposed to take 9 years if you study it in a normal fashion).
Despite that, I can't even get the attention of any company in the US and it has been a dream to work at Google (I started applying since 2015), but they never respond with a coding test. In most cases they don't respond at all, at other times it's a rejection.
So yea, I'm jealous. I'm happy for this guy that he got such a great turn in his life. But I'm also jealous. Why can't I get such a turn in my life? I'm doing my best.
And it's not enough. And that's a painful message to see and it's mostly because I can't work in the US. Silicon Valley privilege is a thing. I want to be there, I have the skills to be there but I can't, because I'm not an American and I basically need to be a lot better in order to be flown over with a H-1B visa.
I know what I do have (living in a western European country with a relatively good social system), and I'm grateful for that. And I'm sad that there are amazing programmers who don't get the chances that do serve themselves on a silver platter for me. Some amazing programmers get shit pay by virtue of the country they're in, and they can't easily be recognized and get out. And I wish they'd be capable of making a $100K as well. Nevertheless, I am still jealous (and grateful and happy for that person, I feel all of it more or less at the same time).
The other person responding to you is a bit harsh, but I’d point out instead that it’s quite hard for an American company to hire someone who is not a US citizen. I had a coworker myself who was a great programmer and member of the team, we all liked him but once his visa from studying here in the US after college ended, he had to return to his home country as my company didn’t have any way to keep him on legally.
Just having a few degrees and minimal work experience probably isn’t going to be enough to break into the US market in many cases, you likely would need to be known as an outstanding expert or have some special skill to help justify issuing a Visa for you (e.g. the O-1 Visa). I’d suggest focusing on distinguishing your career within the context of the EU and if you still have the US as a long term goal look carefully at how best to get there. (Some others who have accomplished that probably have better advice, of course! As a natural born citizen I’ve never had to worry about this personally, but I assume I might face similar challenges if I wanted to move to the EU to work.)
Well, I know that my first reaction ("I'm jealous") might invite criticism. I'm putting it out there relatively raw to see how people react and what they think. Because not knowing drives me even crazier. And it is how I feel (other than gratefulness, sad for the rest of the world and happy for the ex-con).
I appreciate the tip of the O-1 visa and how to potentially get there. And I also appreciate that you state it very clearly that US companies did not choose for this fate either.
Don't give attention to other people. But important thing is - money is not everything in life. You have still many things to make your life beautiful. You don't have to judge your success by money only. In fact, living on less money is more funny than being rich. Please search about 'stoicism'. I wish all good luck to you.
I too have the same problem. In my case, I am in cheap outsourcing haven. We have IT company captives which outsource absolute crap work. There is no cutting edge to speak of.
The last time I gave an interview almost 70-80% of the work was done in the US and they are throwing some unimportant work to their captive in their outsourcing destination.
I have 13+ years of IT experience. Most of the good jobs are filled internally by some kind of favoritism and the crap jobs are floated to hiring websites. The level of technical work is a joke. Most of the companies try to hire my experience level people for junior positions(4 years exp) because the cost is low or tell to go to management.
I see my friends in Silicon valley doing interesting jobs and yes, Silicon valley privilege is a thing. The American dream is a thing.
By the way we do not even have a social system to speak of. So lucky you!
> By the way we do not even have a social system to speak of. So lucky you!
In what (perhaps small or big) way do you think others could help?
I hope that we can eventually have a social system for anyone. I hope AI will take care of this with good political leadership (one can hope).
However, even the Dutch social system isn't a heaven. It's good, but not heaven.
Good: I have success stories from family members who got their hearing back after a 15000 euro's operation that they got for free-ish (and 25+ years of being almost deaf, so there was a waiting time but also the technology needed to be there). Other family members who got a stroke got access to government housing or free personalized medical care.
Bad: I know one troubled person who is kind, but has a very very troubled mind. I'm honestly surprised this person isn't dead. The list includes almost freezing to death and being on your way to starve to death. And that's only what I know, and I know nothing. For the truly troubled mind, the Dutch social system doesn't work at all. Since all of my family is working/middle class, I wonder what goes on in the lower class families and the Dutch social system. My guess is: it's even worse.
With that said, the "being significantly helped" to "almost death on the street ratio" in my family is about 3 to 1. And since I know almost nothing, I daresay that ratio is a conservative negative estimate in my particular family. Fortunately, most of my family is simply fine.
Just so you know, your anti-intellectual attitude is a HUGE red flag. It signals that you will be hard to work with and have some serious ego problems. Piece of advice, learn to learn, learn to back up your statements with actual evidence and theory, and you'll become a far far stronger developer.
You know why I 'brag' about my degrees? Psychologists never thought I'd be able to read or speak another language when I was young, that helped my resolve to show them that they were wrong. Moreover, my parents told me to stay in school because they never did and thought it was the ticket out of lower middle class. And I'm the first in my family to even reach university. No one, not even me (for a long time), expected that I could do it.
While I'm not saying I'm the best coder (I'm not), I do have practical skills:
- I created an OpenGL computer graphics engine.
- I created a few games with GameMaker and Unity3D.
- I helped built web apps despite being completely unfamiliar with the stack (two freelance contracts).
- I created 2 iOS apps (two freelance contracts).
- I made a semi-automated trader bot (not that it worked, but it was fun scraping the NASDAQ). I made a lot of other scrapers. The most fun one was to reserve for an exclusive restaurant that a friend of a family member of mine couldn't get reservations for despite that he was always clicking on it furiously just before the reservations opened.
- I know my way around IDA Pro and have implemented a state of the art rowhammer attack called GLitch (with the help of the author).
Send me an email and then I'll send it to you that way. I need to uncover the source and get it up and running again, but it's something that I have meant to do in a long time.
My email is in my profile.
Also: while my reply was emotional, there are no hard feelings. Or like we say where I come from "we're equally good friends." :D
The person he killed will never have the ability to get 2 associate degrees, a year and a half of coding courses or a part time IT job, let alone their first kiss, have sex, or any of that stuff. so yeah it's not just a "other than he's..."
It's quite surprising to read this type of comments. Where I live (western Europe), I've never met anyone who went to jail, it's really uncommon. I just checked, the incarceration rate is almost ten times higher in the US.
Punishment is much harsher in the US and a lot of mentally ill people don't get treated but go to jail. also in general there is much less support for people at risk. I assume that people in the US on average aren't worse than people in other countries tries so to me it seems that there is a problem with policies in the US causing higher crime rates.
> I assume that people in the US on average aren't worse than people in other countries tries so to me it seems that there is a problem with policies in the US causing higher crime rates.
Why do you assume that? Murder rates in the US were 10 times higher than in continental Europe even at the beginning of the 20th century, long before support programs existed on either side of the pond. (Indeed, in Europe, all the modern support systems, government welfare, and gun control hasn’t reduced crime—at least homicide rates—at all. Homicide rates in England, France, and Sweden hit modern levels in the 1920s: https://ourworldindata.org/uploads/2013/03/homicide-rates-in.... Germany and Italy saw major drops in the early 20th century, but I’d probably chalk that up to increased political stability.)
This is not a rebuttal to your graph, whose source ("Better angels.." by Pinker) I know about and understand, but I thought it was useful context for my own understanding:
In the same units as that graph, WWII would likely register as over 1000 in Germany (compare with the less than 2 indicated in the graph).
You shouldn't forget about how different races, ethnic groups, and cultures - and how those differences throughout history may affect criminality or poverty. Hispanic and black people are incarcerated at approximately 2 and 6 times the rate of white people respectively[1] in the United States.
White Americans are substantially more likely to be incarcerated than Western Europeans, but not as substantially as the non-race differentiated number might suggest. White Americans are incarcerated at a rate similar to Russia.
I can't speak to the drug war in Europe, or if it exists, but it is a likely culprit for a large number of American incarcerations. 1.3 million arrests a year are for "possession only"[2] and the number of Americans in prison takes off late 80's early 90's as the drug war is ramping up [3].
My understanding of the American incarceration system, and this is mostly just my synthesized view from reading and thinking about it, I can't easily source this anywhere - is that there was a lot of crime in the late 80's and early 90's, especially in major cities. People realized that basically all violent crime is committed by relatively young men. So - they devised a system where a significant number of problematic young men (1 in 9 men [3]) are locked away for a period of time.
I checked the actual numbers. The incarceration rate in the US is not 10x higher than the EU, it's only 7 to 8 times higher on average. (Maybe the poster meant that the incarceration rate is 10x higher than the incarceration rate in his particular nation?)
In any case, the actual crime rates are about 3 times higher across the board. So we are incarcerating a lot more people for the same crimes somehow? About 2x as many. Alternatively, it's possible that drug crimes, which are an outlier, are pumping up our incarceration numbers vs some nations in the EU. Since they are not even arresting people for what we in the US would probably call possession at a minimum, obviously there would be no follow up prosecution and incarceration for those individuals? That might be the difference? But that's just speculation on my part. (It just kind of makes sense though, because we incarcerate a lot of people on drug charges. That's probably most of our prison population in some places.)
We actually don't. Obama tried to reduce the prison population by reducing the sentence or releaseing non-violent drug offenders. He found out that type make up less than 10% of the prison population.
The punitively long sentencing from the War on Drugs has meant that the people will go to great lengths to avoid arrest. Someone looking at 30-50 years for distribution won't think twice about murdering a witness if they think it will help them beat the charge.
>He found out that type make up less than 10% of the prison population.
Wait? What?
I'm from Wisconsin, and my second home is in Texas. In both places, non-violent drug offenders constitute the bulk of inmates by far. About 77000 of roughly 131000 inmates in Texas are in for drugs without theft or violent charges. If you factor out the ones in for big time distribution, it's about 62000 of the 131000.
Are you absolutely certain they said only 10% of people in prisons are drug offenders? In any case, at least where I'm from, drug offenders are, by far, the majority of the incarcerated.
EDIT: Hmm, it just occurred to me, are you only talking about Federal system prisons? Because most of our inmates are actually in the 50 state prison systems.
A much larger proportion of people are in federal prison for drugs than state prisons. (Gut check: there are few federal crimes that people regularly go to prison for, trafficking is one of them).
John Pfaff has done a lot of research into this [1], and drug offenders are a small minority (~20%) of prisoners. The bulk of prisoners are in for violent crimes, which makes the politics of decarceration... tricky.
> So we are incarcerating a lot more people for the same crimes somehow?
John Pfaff, a professor who studies incarceration, found that despite a falling crime rate, the number of charged felonies has been holding steady. He suggests that aggressive prosecutors are charging felonies where previously they would have accepted a misdemeanor. He suggests that part of this is because they need to burnish their "tough on crime credentials", and part is the state generally pays for prisons and felonies where the county pays for jails and misdemeanors.
>I checked the actual numbers. The incarceration rate in the US is not 10x higher than the EU, it's only 7 to 8 times higher on average. (Maybe the poster meant that the incarceration rate is 10x higher than the incarceration rate in his particular nation?)
7 to 8 is as good as 10x.
Going from 1x to 8 is a huge 800% increase.
Whereas the correct 8 from the mentioned 10 is a mere 25% error...
It seems to be cause and effect. The US incarceration rate increased was stable for most of the 20th century. It was about the same in 1972 as it was in 1930: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/48/U..... By 2005 it had increased by a factor of 5.
The causation seems to run in the direction of more crime leading to more incarceration. Incarceration rates stayed stable in the 1960s and early 1970s. By the time incarceration started ticking up in the early 1970s, violent crime had already increased by 2.5x. By 1980, the incarceration rate was about 40% higher than in 1960. But violent crime had increased by a factor of 4. The increase in incarceration rate didn’t catch up to the increase in violent crime rate until the mid to late 1990s, when violent crime started edging down.
I’m extremely sympathetic to the idea that criminal justice reform is required now that crime rates have gone down dramatically. But we need to grapple with our own history and the nature of our society. We went through a very violent phase from 1960 to 2000. We don’t know why that happened. But it seems pretty clear that our incarceration rate was a lagging response to that phenomenon.
> By the time incarceration started ticking up in the early 1970s
Don't just bury the lede. What changed in the early 70s that would have caused such a thing.
> We don’t know why that happened. But it seems pretty clear that our incarceration rate was a lagging response to that phenomenon.
Yes, we do know what happened. The 70s saw Vietnam Vets coming back from a pointless war with PTSD and heroin addictions. Nixon signed the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Act in 1970. Reagan threw gas on the smouldering fire with the Comprehensive Crime Act and bang, everything is illegal and now with the mandatory minimum sentencing. At every opportunity the federal government, rather than evaluating to see if these laws were effective, chose to make more things criminal. This didn't dissuage gangs from engaging in illegal activity. It actually made them more paranoid and more violent. Anynone that might have been remotely considered a snitch or narc was killed. If you're staring down a life sentence if you got caught might as well remove any doubt.
I didn’t mention the drug war because it doesn’t explain the increase in crime rate—it’s about a decade too late. The increase in violent crime actually began in the 1960s. By the time the DEA was created in 1973, violent crime had more than doubled since 1963. It then actually slowed down a bit—it increased only another 50% from 1973-1983. By the start of Reagan’s term in office, violent crime was already near peak levels. (It would increase about another 1/3 before peaking in the early 1990s.)
Vietnam is one possible explanation, having started in 1955. I have never seen any analysis of that. But unlike the drug war, at least the timing works out.
Is the Baby Boom sufficient explanation? Just having a lot more young adults rattling around, not fully attached and at loose ends tends to spike violence.
I half suspect that long-term declining fertility rates is one reason we currently have such historically low rates of violence.
What happened to the number of police in that same time period? Was there actually an increase in crime or did the amount of it being recorded just increase?
The number of police officers per capita increased by 30% from 1960-1970, but increased only moderately after that, peaking at about 40% above 1960 levels: https://eml.berkeley.edu/~jmccrary/chalfin_mccrary2014b.pdf. Violent crime rate more than doubled from 1970 to 1990 while police per capita went up only 10-20%.
Moreover, the overall increase in violent crime tracked the homicide rate. Homicides are very well reported, throughout the modern era. The homicide rate doubled from 1963 to 1973. That almost certainly reflects an actual increase in homicides, or just previously unreported homicides being reported due to increased policing.
A very large part of the prison population across the country comes from people convicted of a felony, given probation, and being kicked off of probation. The number 1 way to get kicked off probation is failing a drug test. The war on drugs led to the massive prison expansion since 1972 in the usa
And conveniently, mostly to the kind of communities like blacks and latinos more likely to use some cheapo drugs, and not to the kind of communities (basically rich white people) using the expensive shit (basically coke, which in the 70s and 80s was everywhere)...
Well, that's less an excuse for having more inmates, and more something for the US to do some thinking on what they do wrong as a society to get both of those things higher...
If they have both harsher penalties and more crime and recidivism, then the former are clearly not working much.
And one would need to wonder why have more crime in the first place.
Either we go with the "lower quality people" explanation (bad genes?), which I don't think has many takers, or there's some bad cultural and systemic shit going on.
It’s culture, but not the modern stuff (harshness of penalties, reducing recidivism, etc.). By 1800, almost all of Western Europe had a homicide rate under 2 per 100k. At that time they had no welfare states, and punishments were harsh. France, the Netherlands, and England all punished many property crimes with death at that time.
The poster you are replying to has a very well established HN reputation for a hard-line worldview that assumes government is almost never wrong about anything it does to citizens.
What do you mean? It sounds like you’re suggesting that the intentions of the password-guesser would somehow be worse, but surely that’s not what you mean.
Don’t know why we bother giving a second chance to people who stab people to death in their sleep. Sure, maybe they can be rehabilitated, but I don’t see why society has any obligation to make the effort.
The system failed this guy three times by letting him grow up in an abusive family with nobody lifting a finger, by letting him grow up in an environment with lots of crime, plenty of drugs, crappy underfunded schools, etc. And then finally by exposing them to vindictive/moralistic people insisting to convict a child as an adult.
That's an indifferent society that destroys people. Being part of that mob mentality is nothing to be proud of. It doesn't solve the problem; it perpetuates it. It's the root cause of the US having the largest prison population per capita in the world (and that's including some really nasty countries).
You could be hiring a murderer. Or you could be hiring literally anyone else. These jobs are in demand. There is no business reason to do this and there sure as hell is no ethical reason. I'm not saying: don't hire a murderer. If you have a cleaning job or something that just pays bad and you can't find anyone else, sure. But don't go bragging about how you are giving a murderer 100k a year. A lot of capable engineers who are not a murderer would have been happy to get that job.
No one should be defined by the worst thing they've ever done. If someone who made a terrible mistake and paid their debt to society is able to acquire the skills to get the job based on merit despite the circumstances, they probably have an incredible work ethic and a strong desire to continue growing.
When the system is a competition for even the most basic human needs people will judge and define others by anything that puts them a rung up on those others. People are very fast to put people into "deserve" and "doesn't deserve" piles here. I've met loads of lying, cheating, philandering, racist etc people who would "never" hire someone who had been in legal trouble despite their own poor, often technically criminal behaviors. It makes them feel "better than" and positions them for a better chance at a life in the pay to play society.
Murder is not a 'debt'. You can't just repay and i question the morality of economising murder. But hypothetically, you have taken someone's life and if I want to go into reasonably pricing that life, if there is a price it's equivalent to all the money his victim would have expected to have made in his life, ie we are talking millions. He did not repay millions. Even if he did, this debt is to the victim. Since the victim isn't around anymore, it can't be repaid. As for the rest, those are all assumptions. I don't think 'completed a coding course' gives anyone superior moral characteristics, let alone a murderer.
I don’t have sympathy for murderers. Plenty of other deserving people before we have to start caring about the plight of people willing to end someone else’s life. That’s one hell of a “mistake.” If you kill someone on purpose, I don’t give a flying —- about your “rehabilitation.” Murderers deserve a second chance when their victim gets one. (Note, I am not talking about manslaughter, negligence or any other situations where it might have been an actual mistake; if you intended to kill someone, you don’t deserve second chances.)
A twisted logic you have here my friend. Those capable engineers could also be murderers later in life, as you know, being in IT rise stress levels to it max... :)
So don't judge as everyone should have a chance for redemption, and it's way better to have them coding than committing another crime.
Save it for the flock. I do not believe in Redemption, or Christ, or Allah, or anything. Even if making murderers rich 'works' it should only be taken into consideration if the benefits (to soceity) are exceptional, because the practice is morally bankrupt. It should never be advertised, of course.
Religion aside (it wasn't my point), yet, everyone deservers fair chance to repay their bad deeds. I admire The Last Mile program, as it can pull out of from the claw of criminal past, and show them what they never had a chance to see, a chance for a better life.
Internet is such a tool that can empower all kind of people all over the world to make something meaningful. We should encourage this and not ban it on moral grounds, showing that they can earn a good life without a crime. Something that wasn't so obvious 25 years ago.
I too admired this program when it first was announced. giving thieves or dealers a chance at a tech job, i'm all for it. Or most other criminals. Nor would I want to discourage even a murderer from creating something meaningful with code. Or even to start a business with it. But this is about a murderer pushing good people out of a good job and i don't think i can forgive a murderer to that extent.
> Or even to start a business with it. But this is about a murderer pushing good people out of a good job and i don't think i can forgive a murderer to that extent.
What if "good people" aren't good enough? You know that he got this job because of the specific skillset required in that position, and he learned most of that from paper books without internet access? I if he wasn't good enough for this job he wouldn't land it.
In the case of a specialist with unique skills I would find this acceptable, but also something to be kept under close wraps. I am not against business doing what they have to do. Everything suggests this is not something that was found out by accident and not doubting his talent but his background suggests he is a junior level engineer. Meaning plenty of others can be found. Perhaps he was the most capable for the money in a high-wage area, but I find even that improbable. Taking a second-best candidate should be a relative no-brainer in that case. Usually companies have screenings to prevent taking someone morally compromised. What I see is a company that is doing this and having him give interviews to score points. It would be better if they don't get any, before others jump on the trend.
They don't have this chance in prison. So do you have other idea for better in-prison programs? Or maybe you would like them to not return back into society? If so how can they "earn" redemption?
Hiring a murderer is probably better than hiring someone convicted of a white collar crime. Murder has the lowest recidivism rate among common felonies.
Because most murderers spend a very long time locked up or have life sentences — so there is some selection bias when it comes to the type of murderer that would get released and then re-offend.
Hiring ex-cons will make your life harder. At least it has made mine. Many times, ex-cons aren't given the practical skills to get by as an adult. They may not have a bank account, understand taxes, have a driver's license and so many other practical skills.
They're also more likely to steal from you, hurt or harass other employees and more. So why hire ex-cons? Well I don't on purpose, I just don't do background checks. I have everyone on a paid trial their first week. We make the decision based on work. I only find out later.
Why do I do this? Because I want to live in this type of world and it's good for my business. My business only cares about the work being done, not the personal history of the employees. Hiring ex-cons will create more work for you but it's led to me finding some of my best employees.
I think it's easy to say we should hire felons but it's not easy for businesses to do this. Prison should be adult school instead of gang summer camp.