from Hacker News

Inmates at California’s San Quentin prison learn to code

by correctifier on 11/14/14, 3:21 PM with 53 comments

• by GuiA on 11/14/14, 7:00 PM

  > While the goal of Code 7370 is laudable, faced with competition from younger programmers, many of whom have handled computers since they were toddlers, will it make any meaningful difference for inmates? For now, it's too soon to tell.

  Of course it will make a meaningful difference for inmates (if only because in terms of all things one could do in jail, this is probably in the top 1% in terms of intellectual stimulation), and of course they could become high quality professionals after this. Especially given the fact that the training seems more intense to me than any of the bootcamps from which a lot of today's web devs come from ("four-day-per-week, eight-hour-per-day, six-month course" - most bootcamps are a few weeks, or a few months at the maximum).

  This sort of line of thought is so harmful. There's nothing magical about programming that makes it different from any other industry. You don't need to have been immersed in it your whole life to be an outstanding professional. It's not the case for chemical engineering, it's not the case for mechanical engineering, it's not the case for electrical engineering, why would it be true for computer engineering?

  Especially given the fact that of all the subfields in computer engineering, there's nothing deeply complex about HTML/CSS/JS because it relies on so few prerequisites (if you're writing low level assembly, it requires a deep understanding of the machine's architecture; if you're writing graphics code, it requires a solid knowledge of linear algebra. But there are no such foundations for web development).

• by numlocked on 11/14/14, 7:04 PM

  This is offered through a great program at San Quentin called The Last Mile. I got to know one Chrisfino Kenyatta a bit (a founding member of the program while he was an inmate) when our company was at RocketSpace, where he works.

  One day shortly after he started at RocketSpace, he asked how I was doing and I said "eh, surviving". Not knowing his background, I was caught a bit off-guard when he told me he had recently got out of San Quentin after 19 years, and gently reminded me that I was doing a bit better than just surviving. He's a great, great guy.

  He did a Tedx talk about his experience that is well worth watching. http://www.tedxmarin.org/2014-speakers/chrisfino-kenyatta-le...

  Totally coincidentally (though thanks to Kenyatta for being such a great ambassador for the program) we are interviewing a Last Mile member for an operations position at our company, ePantry, later today.

• by Zelphyr on 11/14/14, 8:38 PM

  I have an uncle that spent the better part of a decade in prison because of our idiotic drug laws. While he was in he learned coding (DBase if I recall--it was still popular at the time). He never used it after he got out. Why not? He has a marketable skill now, right? Sure. But nobody wants to hire an ex-con regardless of their skill.

  I think projects like this are great but we also need to address the problem of being able to find a job for these guys after they get out.

  Or, you know; get rid of the drug laws that put him there in the first place.

• by shawndrost on 11/14/14, 9:06 PM

  Hey yall -- I'm a cofounder at Hack Reactor, which wrote the curriculum and is running the program from an instruction and student success standpoint. This is my baby and it's exciting to see it getting some attention this week -- I think that prisons should be schools by default and I hope that public perception changes. AMA if you're curious.

• by estsauver on 11/14/14, 6:45 PM

  Does anyone here know the people who are working with code 7370? I'd love to help in some way. I don't know if they're looking for code reviews or tutoring, or what I could provide, but I'd love to be of help.

  It seems like providing the inmates access to something like http://kapeli.com/dash or mdn locally would be a godsend.

• by krishna_sh on 11/14/14, 6:40 PM

  San Quentin prison seems to be doing a great job at engaging prisoners. The inmates write beautiful answers on Quora too.

• by 300bps on 11/14/14, 6:52 PM

  So now when I tell friends and relatives who can't get a job that pays more than $12 per hour that they should learn how to code in their spare time, I have more ammunition.

  My favorite story to relay is an Indian woman whose husband came to the U.S. on an H1B visa. She came here on an unskilled visa. In her spare time at home while she was working as a maid, she taught herself programming. A year later she was making $60,000 per year. A few years later, making $80,000 per year.

  Every time I relay a story like this - the person I'm trying to convince has an excuse as to why it won't work for them. "Oh, but that was a different time! There are no jobs today!"

  I can't wait to hear the excuse as to why they can't learn to code even though prison inmates are now doing it.

• by nowarninglabel on 11/14/14, 7:40 PM

  We were fortunate enough to get to partner with Last Mile https://zip.kiva.org/trustees/186 to fund Tulio: https://thelastmile.org/meet-the-people/alumni/tulio-k-cardo...

  He's now Lead Developer at Launch Podium: https://launchpodium.com/company/

  And his side project is looking pretty good now compared to the last time I looked at it: http://collaborativebenefit.org/about-us/from-our-founder/

• by lordnacho on 11/14/14, 8:37 PM

  Perhaps they should be allowed to work remotely after graduating? You would think having a 60-100k job in sight would reduce recidivism. No idea what the stats are though.

  Society gets to continue punishing them for whatever they did, and the inmates gets something meaningful and productive to do.

• by tete on 11/15/14, 11:38 AM

  This is a really great project! I think caring about people in prisons is one of the best ways to show the strength of a society.

  I know, the US/Californian prison system has many things to criticize and rant about (and people should!), but here is a great project to face some of those problems. It's really great, but I hope people keep pushing such projects. Prisons will probably never be empty, but setting that goal is always better than surrendering, cause huge costs, both financial and social ones.

  I hope such projects set an example for other states and countries.

• by morbius on 11/14/14, 8:02 PM

  There are many prisons where inmates are encouraged to study business. This is a good, positive thing and if anything, it reflects the permeation of computer science down to even the most fundamental infrastructures of society.

  We still have a lot of work to do, but this is a very, very good sign.

• by taksintik on 11/15/14, 3:56 PM

  It's criminal that bad guys get the luxury of learning while innocent children around a majority of school districts don't. We also spend 5-6X more annually housing inmates. Really strange decisions.

• by JSPy on 11/15/14, 1:14 AM

  don't they know that the inmates will be able to launch missiles by whistling into the phone now?

• by andyana on 11/14/14, 9:32 PM

  Hans Reiser is at San Quentin.

• by daviskim on 11/14/14, 7:10 PM

  Go Hack Reactor!!