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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: 0s | source
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mlissner ◴[16 Jun 25 14:28 UTC] No.44289885[source]▶
Maine's remote work program is an incredibly promising development to prevent recidivism. The amazing thing about it is that it gives real jobs to prisoners that they can seamlessly continue after they get out of prison. Normally when you get out, it's impossible to get a job, and the clock is ticking. This leads to desperation, which leads to bad behavior.

There is a real risk of exploitation, but if it's properly managed, remote work for prisoners is one of the most hopeful things I've heard about the prison system. It gives people purpose while there and an avenue to success once they're out.

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lo_zamoyski ◴[16 Jun 25 14:43 UTC] No.44290046[source]▶
This sounds good. It is important that we recognize all of the purposes of punishment instead of overemphasizing one or neglecting the other.

Punishment has three ends: retribution, rehabilitation, and deterrence. It is important that you pay for your crime for the sake of justice; it is charitable and prudent to rehabilitate the criminal, satisfying the corrective end of punishment; and would-be criminals must be given tangible evidence of what awaits them if they choose to indulge an evil temptation, thus acting as a deterrent.

In our systems today, we either neglect correction, leaving people to rot in prison or endanger them with recidivism by throwing them back onto the streets with no correction, or we take an attitude of false compassion toward the perp by failing to inflict adequate justice, incidentally failing the deterrent end in the process.

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ty6853 ◴[16 Jun 25 14:49 UTC] No.44290114[source]▶
One of the most baffling elements of the justice system is how little the victim is involved in the justice. 'Society' should not lord the lion's share of the justice decisions over the victims. Quite often the victim would prefer compensation and release over getting fuck all while the perpetrator languages in prison at the tax dollar of the victim.

Much of 'justice' has been usurped from the victim into a jobs campaign for the state.

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tptacek ◴[16 Jun 25 17:32 UTC] No.44291576[source]▶
There are (institutional, complicated, well-ordered) civil and criminal systems elsewhere in the world where victims are much more directly involved in sentencing and punishment, and you probably wouldn't want to live in one.
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ty6853 ◴[16 Jun 25 18:02 UTC] No.44291839[source]▶
There are certainly differing personal opinions on what they'd like to live under. For instance, Dutch lawyer Michael van Notten moved from the western to to the xeer system in the horn of Africa, and found it superior in his personal estimation from the perspective of serving victims, as documented in his book.
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tptacek ◴[16 Jun 25 18:39 UTC] No.44292216[source]▶
A clan-based blood-money system? I reiterate the claim I made previously: while you might enjoy reading about them, you wouldn't want to live under one.
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1. ty6853 ◴[16 Jun 25 18:51 UTC] No.44292340[source]▶
I don't see it as a binary option. Why can't we learn from one another? I'm more interested in some of the elements found in for instance that system, where the victim can elect to prioritize restitution over retribution when it leads to a higher likelihood they will be made whole. I don't see any requirement that one has to embrace everything about a societies' system to find advantages in elements of it.
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2. tptacek ◴[16 Jun 25 18:57 UTC] No.44292386[source]▶
Well, I'll just say, when I referred earlier to institutionalized systems wherein victims are given principal roles in meting out justice, I was specifically using that word to contrast with things like xeer clan law --- a system you just implied might be superior to our common law system (it is not). There are "modern" legal systems descended from that kind of oral tradition honor law. You would not want to live under them.

Happy to keep nerding out on comparative legal stuff from around the world! Just keeping this grounded in "you probably wouldn't enjoy living somewhere where your landlord can have you imprisoned for unpaid rent".

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3. ty6853 ◴[16 Jun 25 19:22 UTC] No.44292620[source]▶
I'll be honest, I have not seen a single implemented legal system I would like to live under, although that's not to dismiss all systems as equally bad. I was imprisoned in the USA once because an officer claimed a dog alerted, resulted in being stripped naked and cavity searched -- but that doesn't mean the entirety of our justice system is bad. Which isn't implied to be as bad as, say, a rapist getting away with it via a forced marriage as might happen under Shariah or xeer law.
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4. Breza ◴[23 Jun 25 14:58 UTC] No.44356480{3}[source]▶
The fact that someone can be temporarily jailed without any evidence or a change to challenge the charges is a painful compromise that the Founding Fathers made to balance justice (they themselves were at risk of arbitrary imprisonment by the Crown) with order (sometimes you see someone running with a bloody knife and you should arrest him before you trace his steps to find a corpse). Police departments try really hard to push what they can get away with, and there are certainly areas where I wish the courts would constrain them.