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Working on databases from prison

(turso.tech)
849 points dvektor | 4 comments | 16 Jun 25 12:32 UTC | HN request time: 0.755s | source
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voidUpdate ◴[16 Jun 25 13:25 UTC] No.44289290[source]▶
I'm glad to hear accounts of people in the prison system who are given the opportunity to do some good. While I am admittedly less sympathetic of dealers, the fact that the author recognises that they were in a bad situation and have been able to make positive progress since being given the opportunity to is really nice to hear
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komali2 ◴[16 Jun 25 14:19 UTC] No.44289766[source]▶
I don't know the circumstances of this case, but in many states, e.g. Texas my home state, simply having above an arbitrarily defined amount of a given controlled substance automatically gets you tagged with "intent to sell." An overloaded court system combined with a pay-to-win "justice" system means a lot of people take the charge in their plea deal even if they aren't dealers.
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1. BryantD ◴[16 Jun 25 14:30 UTC] No.44289901[source]▶
Without judging this guy's current state, he makes it clear in his first blog post that he was a dealer.

"So instead of coming back home broke and apologetic, I ended up pretty deep into this and soon was making tens of thousands of dollars a week, very much unapologetically."

Then, after his first sentence:

"I was left with the difficult choice of either living there and walking to a temp agency with hopes of making $10.50/hour doing manual labor (without an ID or social security card at this point), or getting on a bus to NYC to see some associates, and coming back in a week or so with $15-25k in my pocket and living in comfy luxury hotels until I could rent an apartment... I chose the latter: and obviously, was back in prison after a short 14 months of addiction and misery."

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2. dvektor ◴[16 Jun 25 17:01 UTC] No.44291316[source]▶
Yes unfortunately for a long time my whole life revolved around 'drug culture', and so did of all my 'friends' and my entire social circle.

I certainly cannot act like I did not deserve to come to prison, and it's definitely the only reason I am even alive right now. Coming to prison, specifically in Maine, was the best thing that ever happened to me.

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3. komali2 ◴[17 Jun 25 03:30 UTC] No.44295498[source]▶
Well, yeah, selling drugs is bad, but it keeps happening and nothing we're trying is stopping it. Clearly, the fact that people end up in prison isn't disincentivizing people from choosing the 10-15k in their pocket option. Humans aren't good at understanding risk or connecting long term consequences to short term actions, in aggregate. We should design our society around this fact.

Hence why I typically argue for legalization and regulation. You have a pretty unique perspective though. I suppose in your position you're incentivized to always say you did the wrong thing, drugs are bad, etc etc, but to the extent you're able to discuss it, what's your take on arguments for legalization and regulation?

4. BryantD ◴[17 Jun 25 10:56 UTC] No.44297654[source]▶
Yeah, the really interesting thing there for me wasn't what you did, it's the clarity with which you presented your options as you saw them at the time. I am firmly pro-rehabilitation and that means I've got to be aware of the obstacles to getting out of that culture.