Working on databases from prison
(turso.tech)840 points by dvektor 4 days ago
840 points by dvektor 4 days ago
I am the Turso CEO. We pay him a full salary, just not health care benefits.
Your doing the Lord's work.
Even if you just paid him the state minimum wage, it would stop him from having a giant employment gap.
The next step would be background check reform. A DUI record isn't relevant to anything not involving driving.
Excluding a very small handful of SVU level crimes everything should be wiped clean after 5 years or so.
I had an experience with a co worker who would brag about robbing people, selling substances and when he got caught his family money made it go away. He's a CTO at a mid sized tech company now. Had he been poor he'd have a record and be lucky to work as a Walgreens clerk.
Was the biggest "tough on crime" person I've ever met. I think people with means don't understand if you don't have money you can't afford bail.
Can't afford bail you'll just be indefinitely detained without trial for months if not years.
Everything about the criminal justice system is about exploitation. Get house arrest, that's a daily monitoring fee. States like Florida are forcing released inmates to repay the state for the cost of incarceration.
It's past fixing tbh, I'm personally hopping to immigrate to a functional country soon.
>Excluding a very small handful of SVU level crimes everything should be wiped clean after 5 years or so.
It's nice to think that people should be able to fully pay back their debt to society but (a) criminal court proceedings need to be public in a free society and if they are public, people should be able to record and distribute the results as private citizens if we believe in upholding the principle of freedom of speech.
Even if it were possible to prevent this, (b) this does a small but not entirely negligible harm to people that never committed a crime by casting some doubt upon them. This is most apparent for minority groups that are associated with criminality; they experience worse employment prospects when the state makes criminal records unavailable.
Criminal records should be available, but in a controlled way.
Where I live (Poland), only the person itself can request their criminal record from the state. This is a routine procedure required by some employers, you can even do it online these days.
Most if not all criminal offenses "expire" after some years, how long depends on the offense. If there's something you've been charged with but not convicted of, it doesn't appear on the record.
This is easier to implement for us because there are limitations on how media can report on criminals (no last names for example). Even in the US, I think that system could be workable. Instead of attacking distributions of "unedited" criminal records, you'd have to target employers and require them to only acquire the state-approved versions.
> The next step would be background check reform. A DUI record isn't relevant to anything not involving driving.
This is already the case in some countries, including The Netherlands. A background check is done for a specific "profile", and convictions which aren't relevant for your job-to-be don't show up. Someone with a DUI can't become a taxi driver, but they should have no trouble getting a job as a lawyer. Got convicted of running a crypto pump&dump? Probably can't get a job as a banker, but highschool teacher or taxi driver is totally fine.
A surprising number of US states also drop crimes from your background checks or legally forbid them from being used against you after so many years, 5-10 on average, as long as they aren't directly related to the job.
https://ccresourcecenter.org/state-restoration-profiles/50-s...
> Excluding a very small handful of SVU level crimes everything should be wiped clean after 5 years or so.
My understanding, is that's what the UK does, with an exemption for certain jobs, like teachers and creche hosts. In the US, I think some states have the ability to expunge convictions. Not sure about federal crimes, though.
The "scarlet letter" of a past conviction is a very real issue, and keeps some folks down. People can get past it, though. I know folks that served time for murder, that have very good careers, and people that have misdemeanor records, that have always struggled.
Just curious, why would you expect him to be paid less? I know historically pay is bad for prisoners, but if he's working the same hours and is just as productive as any other employee, shouldn't he be paid the same? I could potentially see paying someone less if they were coming in with much less experience than what's usually hired for in the role, but that doesn't seem to be the case here.
The 13th amendment specifically allows slavery of prisoners.
Edit: I don’t mean to imply the author isn’t paid fairly by Turso. A few posts down, the CEO of Turso asserts that they do pay fairly. The OP in this thread might reasonably wonder about this because several states do in fact use prisoners as unpaid slave labor.
It's unclear whether the carve out for prisoners applies to just "involuntary servitude" or "slavery and involuntary servitude."
In practice, only "involuntary servitude" has been used. "Community service" - unpaid - is a very common low level sentence.
The eighth and fourteenth amendments almost certainly forbid enslavement - permanently becoming human property - as a criminal sentence.
Even before the 13th amendment, enslavement as a punishment not common, if it happened at all.
There is almost no case law on the 13th amendment. There are no legal slaves in the US today, and there have not been since the 19th century.
You can make the exact same argument about employers paying different rates depending on the country the employee is based in, and for all the same reasons.
Is there a good reason why a developer in Thailand or India should be paid less than their colleague who works on the same team, but is based in the US? Many companies believe so - there's a significant difference in the cost of living between those two employees, and employers believe it is fair to adjust the salary to provide a similar quality of life to both.
Equally, a person incarcerated in New York City doesn't have the same living costs as a person who has to live in New York City, so you could reasonably argue that any "Cost of living premium" that a company offers to NYC based employees doesn't need to apply to a person who doesn't experience those higher costs.
> Is there a good reason why a developer in Thailand or India should be paid less than their colleague who works on the same team, but is based in the US?
Yes, and that reason is that people in most of the developed world are free to say yes or no to job offers based on their individual preferences. And, it just so happens, in Thailand and India there are many people who will happily say yes to offers that people in the US would say no to. The cost of living explanation that companies give is illusory; the reality is that they have to pay enough to get people to say yes.
Now, you might ask why people in different countries say yes to offers at different compensation levels. But I think the answer is self evident: people will say yes to offers when they believe that there are lots of other people who will say yes to it. Under those circumstances, saying no won't earn a higher offer but cause the company to give the job to someone else.
Ultimately, then, regional prices are set by what the locals are generally willing to say yes to.
Except prison has some very key differences from living freely in another state or country. You cannot leave and so don't have a choice about where you work. Even if cost of living is low in prison, you often still have to pay for being there and wages are far less than the cost. A prisoner will be released one day and their cost of living will skyrocket overnight. Do we want motivated hard working people leaving prison with nothing so they end up back in the same environment that got them there in the first place?
>Many companies believe so - there's a significant difference in the cost of living between those two employees, and employers believe it is fair to adjust the salary to provide a similar quality of life to both.
What a complete bs. If anything, in India it costs MORE to achieve a similar standard of living than in the USA. In India you can spend 3 times what a US worker gets paid - and you'll barely have enough money to get the same level of security that that worker gets.
Companies don't care, they pay the minimum amount that they think will interest the worker for long-term employment. And since in India or Thailand the workers don't have such a wide choice in work - they will be paid less, just enough to get them. And they pay the Americans just enough to get them, it is just happening that for Americans this amount are several times bigger. That's all here is.
> and employers believe it is fair to adjust the salary to provide a similar quality of life to both
That's bullshit. E.g. electronics cost the same in all countries.
>but if he's working the same hours and is just as productive as any other employee, shouldn't he be paid the same?
Why would the salaries all bump up to big American city salaries instead of resting somewhere in the lowest range worldwide? If we purely judge work completed.
If you're a remote worker your competition is the world not people in the major city the company is based in.
I speculate: Supply and demand. He doesn't have many options, so doesn't have leverage in negotiating.
Well that’s basically what I’m wondering. Is this a normal employment arrangement - subject to same state payroll tax, labor laws, employee rights, etc - with the additional detail that he resides in prison? Or does the employer need to go through some gateway enforced by the prison with maximum compensation or other restrictions?
But otherwise, in terms of why he’d default to being paid less… yes, what the other commenter said: supply and demand, aka leverage. Turso could choose to be a good citizen and pay him the same as any other employee, but that’s subject to all the questions I posed above, regarding the structural requirements placed on them as the employer.
I am the CEO of Turso. We are free to negotiate any salary we want with him, the prison system doesn't put any caps, up or down. We are paying him well, and certainly not trying to enslave him or anything. There are some restrictions on how the payments are made but not the amount.
We also don't pay him healthcare, because he wouldn't be able to use it.
I assume he doesn't have to pay rent while in prison and gets free meals, so unless they take some of his income, he might actually be doing pretty good.
I guess if you look at pay as solely a result of 'work done' you'd come to this conclusion, and it should work this way, but really its got more to do with the relationship between employer and employee. A person in prison has a very different legal status than someone who doesnt and they do tend to get paid less.
> but if he's working the same hours and is just as productive as any other employee, shouldn't he be paid the same?
He should, but the median salary of engineers in Taiwan is like, 40,000 USD, vs SF which is 160,000 USD. Or London, if one wants to argue something about English language ability or whatever, is 80,000 USD. Literally half that of SF.
Salaries aren't determined by labor value, they're determined by how well employers can collude in a region to get the lowest possible rate while still being able to hire people. Thus they somewhat tend to correlate with cost of living, but not really, e.g. see London vs SF vs NYC. All correlations are used as excuses, when the core, real, reason always comes down to, employers will pay as little as they can get away with.
This annoyed me enough that I started a co-op about it, and we're doing pretty well. I'm still annoyed though. Apparently glommer, the CEO, pays him "full salary" (market rate?), which makes them a good person, but a bad capitalist. They could easily pay basically a slave wage and leverage this dude's ingrained passion for programming to get huge output for almost nothing - that's what the rest of the industry merrily does.
>Salaries aren't determined by labor value,
In a free market, very little is determined by its "value". Clean drinking water costs pennies, but its value is far higher. People in developing countries routinely spend hours a day getting clean water, which works out to a price far higher than even bottled water from for-profit companies.
>they're determined by how well employers can collude in a region to get the lowest possible rate while still being able to hire people. Thus they somewhat tend to correlate with cost of living, but not really, e.g. see London vs SF vs NYC.
Is there any evidence there's more collusion happening in London?
>employers will pay as little as they can get away with.
You're making it sound like this is some sort of profound insight, or that companies are being extra dishonorable by doing this, but literally everyone in an economy is trying to pay "pay as little as they can get away with". When was the last time you tipped a gas station?
> they're determined by how well employers can collude in a region to get the lowest possible rate
Colluding is only one of the factors that influencing the demand for labor. Moreover, in most regions it is a rather insignificant factor. Typically, this is the degree of economic freedom, protection of investments and capitals, the level of regulation and the tax burden in the region, not the degree of colluding.
> good person, but a bad capitalist.
Capitalism is not about evaluative characteristics, but about descriptive ones. It is not "bad capitalists pay a lot, good ones pay the minimum", but about "people tend to pay minimum, so to pay the minimum is expected behavior of capitalists"
> The US prison system has a bit of a nasty reputation when it comes to exploiting prison labor
Do you mean for private interest? If so, I would agree that prison labor should only be used for public benefit. And this labor should be part of the sentence.
/me putting on my Law & Order hat
Why should the taxpayers be burdened by the results of his bad decisions?
/me takes off hat
It's not mutually exclusive.
Someone can both work towards rehabilitation and pay their 'debt to society'. If they earn over what it costs to house them in a Maine prison then, by all means, let them keep the excess earnings. If they earn $100k/year and the state pays them $1.35/hr then there are deeper institutional issues around prison labor exploitation which should be addressed.
I used to have an uncle who was constantly in and out of prison over drug-related issues and he would do all sorts of work programs just to break up the monotony. Ironically, none of these rehabilitation efforts did any good and what finally 'set him straight' was the Three Strikes Law.
Imprisoning someone is also a great harm. That harm should have a cost, so that it is not employed flippantly.
Because that's what a social community would do. But where you probably are, such an approach is falsely labeled as “communism” by MAGA anti-social assholes.
what if prison ends up becoming the most distraction-free dev environment. no meetings, no slack pings, no linkedin recruiters, just you, a terminal, and 10 years of uninterrupted focus. kinda terrifying how productive that sounds
Not rent, just crippling debt: https://apnews.com/article/crime-prisons-lawsuits-connecticu...
that is horrifying. i really wish i hadn't read that. we live in a cruel world.
this is something you can freely achieve for yourself without prison -- no need to speak this evil into existence haha.
When I had a <3 year old demanding child I often thought about how relaxing prison would be, with relatively normal set sleeping, work patterns, and in some prisons guaranteed personal space at night with at worst an adult roomate.
Just the thought of maybe being able to peacefully read a book for 30 minutes, at times I almost wished to be imprisoned...
Something like prison probably is the most productive environment one could be in. It almost completely eliminates the need for self discipline because it's all enforced.
You never go on vacation. Your family gets sick. Your friends need your help. You want to travel. You want to go to funerals for people who aren't in your direct family. You want to explore hobbies.
Idk, a few?
You're essentially designated a human of lesser value, which means nobody really cares about you. If guards harm or sexually assault you, nobody cares. If other prisoners harm or sexually assault you, nobody cares. If you get sick, nobody cares. You will not receive good care in any sense of the word. If you have mental health issues, may God have mercy on your soul.
The scary thing is that Maine is considered progressive for prison.
My former (brilliant) student developed schizophrenia and tried to rob a bank with a gun because the voices told him to do it. He got 10 years in jail. I think every EU country would treat him for his condition until he was safe to rejoin society. In the US, he was thrown in the slammer.
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/irishman-jailed-for-10-years...
> I think every EU country would treat him for his condition until he was safe to rejoin society. In the US, he was thrown in the slammer.
From the article, his parents express frustration at their inability to get him committed for treatment in Ireland. They cite the lack of response there as a key factor in his spiral.
Also, the US facility he was sent to did offer psychiatric treatment and the judge urged him to accept it:
> The judge recommended that Clarke serve his sentence at a prison that would give him access to psychiatric treatment and he urged Clarke to accept it.
I understand your objections to the “slammer” but the sentence was actually as lenient as could be, offered the psychiatric treatment he needed, and had an opportunity for him to return to Ireland in a couple years:
> Speaking on behalf of the Clarke family, solicitor Eugene O'Kelly said that they were relieved at the relative leniency of the sentence and expressed the hope Clarke could be returned to Ireland "within a year or two" to serve out his sentence.
Why do you call it a facility?
Do i need to explain the difference between treatment at a pyschiatric center vs the offer of psychiatric treatment in a prison?
If you think they are somehow equivalent, you are very much mistaken.
You are putting somebody with pyschiatric illness in with hardened criminals. Do they welcome him with open arms?
> difference between treatment at a pyschiatric center vs the offer of psychiatric treatment in a prison?
The first was rejected by Mr Clarke's own country before committing any crime. The second was offered following a crime which could have cost somebody their life.
It's a very clear difference in my mind.
> My former (brilliant) student developed schizophrenia and tried to rob a bank with a gun because the voices told him to do it. He got 10 years in jail. I think every EU country would treat him for his condition until he was safe to rejoin society. In the US, he was thrown in the slammer.
Is the story supposed to be more sympathetic because he was (brilliant)?
Putting brilliant in parentheses indicates that it is parenthetical. That means it’s an aside, an afterthought, or additional information that isn’t essential to the main point of the sentence.
What is your point?
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
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.
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."
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.
In the part 1 article, the author mentions "making tens of thousands of dollars a week" in relation to drugs, which is why I talked about dealing. Obviously I've got no proof of that or anything, so I'm happy to be proven wrong.
Drug charges are difficult. In my opinion, if you are using drugs personally, I don't really see a problem. If you commit some crime while under the influence which could harm another person, eg driving while drugged, obviously that's a different story, and coercing other people into it isn't great either, but if you're just smoking in your own home, its your body that you're altering. If you're selling to other people, that feels a bit more iffy to me because you're affecting other people with that... though I do realise that preventing the sale is effectively the same as preventing the usage...
When it comes to selling, the nature of the drug also matters IMO. I don't have a problem with people selling stuff like cannabis or LSD to consenting able-minded adults, but given the nature of opioids, there's no responsible way to consume them outside of medical necessity.
I've got a lot of experience working with prisoners. I've almost never seen any rehabilitative programs of any value at all. Mostly the programs I see are "learn to mop floors."
I just helped someone to complete a year-long paralegal course and qualification while inside. The Illinois prison system has now banned this since (a) it came with the option of facilities awarding a 6 month reduction in the length of a non-violent sentence, (b) required the facility to allow someone to proctor the final exam.
The Changelog recently did a long form interview with this guy: https://changelog.com/news/refactored-in-prison-0X1D
I fear that the distinctly American emphasis on personal independence and deprioritization of root causes has led to our persistent and failed war on drugs.
Unfortunately, many of the laws written and policies enacted presume an idealistic fantasy where humans are much more rationally acting, thoughtful, and informed than they really are.
The clearest example of this is raising statutory penalties from "many years" to "many many years" in prison. What is this supposed to achieve? Do people think that folks out there:
1. know the laws well enough to know how many years they'll get for the crime they're about to commit?
2. (and if knowledgable about penalty changes) think, "oh well I would have done X and risked many years in prison but now that it's many many years, I won't" ?
If huge prison sentences and massive resources spent on crime detection+ enforcement were the answer, America wouldn't have an illegal drug problem.
Very interesting.
I have some basic questions if anyone knows:
a. do all inmates get computer & internet access? (or only some, dependent upon the crime you committed)
b. do the inmates have to pay to use the computer & internet? I ask because I hear commissary is prohibitively expensive in prison.
c. how much time per week do inmate get to use the computer with internet access? (and is that time guaranteed they will get)
d. are there job boards specific to helping inmates find remote friendly jobs that are accepting of incarcerated individuals?
This place is an absolute rarity. Almost zero jails or prisons have any access to the Internet at all. Many of the places I know won't even allow a print-out of any information from the Internet (e.g. Wikipedia, Facebook etc) and won't allow any books about computers for security reasons.
Commissary is generally "gas station" prices in jails and prisons.
Some of the inmates I work with right now have tablets that allow music streaming from a small catalog, but I think it is $3/hour to listen to it.
Obviously the families and friends of the loved are the ones burdened with paying for all of these, unless you can get an in-prison job that pays, e.g. dealing drugs is probably the highest paid, sadly.
This needs to be a model for other states to follow. Too often, incarcerated people are left with very few real options to have a viable career beyond some sort of physical trade like construction, hospitality, or food service. And while all of those career options are great, they do not often provide a real living wage.
Hopefully, we see more of this throughout the country!
> preferring instead to spend ~15+ hours a day on projects and open source contributions.
This makes it clear it's not just that the prison provides such opportunities, but that inmates are motivated to take advantage of such. Too many fully law abiding folks spend 15+ hours of screen time just doom scrolling.
There's a real lesson here for similar community services. For folks whose upbringing maybe doesn't afford such advantages, if services can be available where students can find reprieve from harsh daily life and be (very) modestly taken care of, I can see value. At a much lesser level, I benefited enormously from school, church, and community services where I could apply myself, things my family could never afford. So, like school lunches but for practical developer education.
Fantastic accomplishment, Preston! Wish you good luck and the very best ahead!
This confirms something I’ve occasionally wondered about. As an adult with a job, a side business, a family, and an ancient house, I can still remember the incredible focus of youth. No responsibilities.
I’m not saying that I envy anyone in prison — it sucks whether you’ve “earned it” or not, but I’ve always wondered how productive a person could be while locked up.
Glad to see him making the most of the opportunity. With care and feeding, he’s got a good shot at getting out and staying out.
When the Government is so corrupt they can take your ability to work any kind of job away from you without even arresting you for anything, having employment from prison is a real achievement.
I've had the chance to interact with both Preston and Clyde (Preston helped Clyde get going in code as well) - Clyde actually completed like all the backend courses on boot dev and is doing great at unlocked labs.
anyhow, thanks for all you did to help Clyde Preston!!! and thanks to glauber and turso for giving Preston a chance, he's such a a cool guy with such a cool story
The place I was at you weren't even allowed a book about computers, lest you might gain enough knowledge to somehow access a facility computer and hack your way to freedom.
They had a computer lab, but it was only for Mavis Beacon. I found the C# compiler that's hidden away in the Windows directory and started teaching programming on the sly. Luckily one of the nuns at the facility took pity on me and bought C# Weekend Crash Course on Amazon (with the CD) and sneaked it through the security checks for me so I'd have a good reference to teach from.
For those who might be wondering, facilities/counties/states vary a huge amount on what is and isn't allowed.
In California they teach inmates coding, while in other states all computer-related technical books are banned as security risks. Same with basic electrical work — Promising People has an interesting VR program for teaching electrical helper skills, but in some correctional systems that would be considered unacceptably risky. Tablet and similar system operators/vendors have to shape the material available to the inmates to suit the local restrictions.
and hear i am browsing hacknews at work on monday morning, wishing I was still asleep. Really gives you perspective, I hope you get out safe and sound and soon and things work out for you.
The key delineation here is the work is voluntary. I was uneasy reading the article and weighing it up, realised that the author could choose not to work whilst he serves time.
If he was being coerced into labour however, which the for-profit prison undoubtedly makes profit from, it’s simply unacceptable; indentured servitude, slavery, call it what you will, it’s bad for society in every way because it allows the ruling class to steal labour from the working class under the guise of “rehabilitation”.
This is all good and well. Would people be amenable to the same opportunity for say Hans Reiser?
Crazy to keep seeing PThorpe from Primes Discord on HNs front page. I hope youre doing alright in there.
Speaking of incarcerated tech gurus... I've been really liking what Sam Bent [0] has been producing lately.
If you're allowed/able to watch YouTube in American prisons, I would definitely check him out!
I am the one who hired Preston. Whatever he has done in the past, I have all the evidence in the world in front of me to assure me that he has a transformed heart. It is not a common thing to see, but here the fruits are clear.
We are happy to have him with us.
Good man. I've worked with a man who did time. I never knew until he told me, and once he did, I didn't give a rats ass.
I knew the person, and whatever was done in the past. Is the past. He's done his time. It is not mine to add penalties over what the state imposed.
Thank you for having a strong constitution here.
It's obvious from the comments in the thread that the internet hate mob still wants its pound of flesh and for Preston to be judged for life regardless of current circumstances.
They don't realize how damaging their posts are to people who have done wrong in the past and want to change their lives. Once again I am ashamed to be part of the Hacker News community, but thank you for your fairness and goodheartedness.
The vast vast majority of DV complaints are unsubstantiated, so speaking to the wife is generally a poor predictor of whether the presumption of innocence will be overcome.
If you're going to extend kindness to Preston then perhaps a little kindness towards others wouldn't go a miss either. Preston isn't rare, the prison system is filled with normal kind hearted people who were unfortunate in life and things went awry. Everyone deserves a chance, not just someone who can provide economic value to you.
From your link:
> The defendant, Preston Thorpe, appeals his conviction for possession of a controlled drug with intent to sell
He may have done other things, but his conviction was for possession with intent, and that seems to be why he's locked up. It doesn't make anything else he's done acceptable, but in America he's innocent until proven guilty, and it doesn't seem he was found guilty of assault.
Indeed. I quickly searched and found this article:
The original link does not say that the girlfriend reported the broken arm to the police. The police were called by her mother, who made the allegation against Thorpe. The article above says:
> According to [Thorpe's lawyer]’s appeal, Abogast told police she had fallen three days before Thorpe’s arrest and doctors at Elliot Hospital said her arm was broken in three places.
The original link says that she had scars and scabbing on her face, but this link says that Thorpe also had scars and scabbing, which the police noted in their report as consistent with drug abuse.
I'm not one to disbelieve women when they report abuse. In this case, the alleged victim didn't report any abuse, a third party who was not witness to any alleged crimes did. It's also very unusual to have your arm broken in three places, call your mom to say what happened, and then not seek any kind of treatment. I feel sad for everyone involved, because it's clear to me at least that the drug issues were the crux of the matter (which is corroborated by the actions and findings of the state). Without a statement from the girlfriend or a finding by the state, any suggestion of domestic abuse is unwarranted speculation.
I feel ok that there's a distinction between legal rulings and other circumstances of the case that I as an internet person can use my judgement to understand.
Just because someone is guilty or not doesn't separate other facts of the case.
In an extreme example: I'm ok with the court letting someone off who murdered someone, because the police didn't follow proper procedure wrt evidence/confessions/witness testimony. Our legal system should be held to the highest standard when convicting someone of a crime. That doesn't stop me from believing that the defendant actually did the crime or not.
There was no crime reported by the girlfriend. The allegation of abuse was made by the girlfriend's mother, who was not present. As far as I can tell, there were no charges of assault or battery, even after the police interviewed the girlfriend for their report. There's really no basis for forming any kind of judgement here, legal or otherwise.
Sure, but bjorkandkd unpromptedly accused Preston of being a liar, which is just incorrect as far as I can tell.
Everyone is of course free to make up their own mind, but when making public accusations I would at least expect an honest effort to keep those accusations factually correct.
"Prosecutors said Thorpe was on parole for other drug convictions when he was arrested last year and also had two suspended sentences for drug offenses over his head."
https://www.wmur.com/article/man-facing-carfentanil-charge-r...
We're allowed to form judgments about people based on evidence that wouldn't be sufficient to convict them of a crime. The consequences of me forming the opinion that this guy is a domestic abuser are far lower than the consequences of a court doing so. And of course, even courts use a much lower evidential standard than 'innocent until proven guilty' when deciding civil cases. Making a derogatory comment about someone on the internet is much more analogous to a civil court finding against the plaintiff than it is to a criminal court giving someone a jail sentence.
In any case, HN is very selective about this high evidential standard. People will make a lot of effort to give probable domestic abusers the benefit of the doubt, but pick one of HN's official enemies and suddenly any little scrap of evidence is considered quite sufficient!
I agree with this sentiment but I'm also willing to explore/consider the possibility that "innocent until proven guilty" isn't strictly only useful as an esoteric legal construct, but a philosophy that could potentially have applicability to an individual's worldview.
That being said I wouldn't have much patience for a "merely" accused murderer or child predator in my personal life, just as I also don't have much patience for a doctor who refuses to prescribe me antibiotics because the chance they could help me is "only" 1%. I don't really care that it's socially irresponsible when it comes to my personal assessment of risk.
He’s not just saying he was locked up due to drugs. He’s saying that “all” his “poor decisions and lifestyle choices” in his twenties were related to drugs.
"Innocent until proven guilty" is only for the justice system. You are deliberately avoiding the fact that the entire reason the cops showed up was to respond to a domestic violence call. People do not need an entire court trial to determine that the woman's arm was swollen and her face was bruised because her partner hit her.
> ...in America he's innocent until proven guilty...
...in a court of law. Innocent until proven guilty doesn't extend to internet comments.
>Innocent until proven guilty doesn't extend to internet comments.
That's not a good thing.
Edit: I cannot really believe that this, of all comments, is controversial. Living life treating everyone as guilty until they prove themselves innocent is... just shitty, let alone exhausting. Do people forget about how many times reddit and other ruined innocent people's lives?
Sometimes HN amazes me with new technology, interesting conversations, etc. Sometimes it amazes me when people are arguing that we should go through life treating people as guilty first, until they are proven innocent. I think I'll go back to not participating for awhile.
In my experience "drug-related" can definitely include serious violent crimes (some that can result in execution, or life without parole). Through my extracurricular work, I personally know a lot of drug offenders, and breaking their spouse's arm easily fits. I also know women that have drained their husband's retirement, people that have snorted their kids' college funds, mothers that have pimped their kids, and other stuff that would have a lot of folks horrified.
There's a reason people don't like drug addicts, and there's a pretty significant portion of the population that wants them all dead (except for my little Muffy, who was corrupted by her boyfriend, of course).
The Second Chance stuff is important. Surprisingly enough, Jaime Dimon is a big supporter of it[0].
I wish this chap well. The proof will come, when he leaves the structure of prison.
[0] https://www.jpmorganchase.com/impact/careers-and-skills/seco...
https://secondchancebusinesscoalition.org/
Lists other companies which are part of the coalition.
I don't know what to make of this document and claim, is that a report, an actual conviction? I don't understand it. It definitely sounds horrible in any case.
However, the point of a program of hiring or educating people who are in prison isn't to judge them. They are already in prison. 10years is a long time, so it's likely they did something bad and have been judged for it.
This is to give people who are capable and willing a chance to grow and integrate. From the little knowledge I have about this, it seems like this is very effective.
It’s a judicial opinion denying his appeal. The facts listed are findings from the trial court where he was convicted on drug charges.
He wasn't charged with injuring his girlfriend, and notably fled with her after that confrontation, setting off a national manhunt that led the TV news in the area.
https://apnews.com/general-news-d68dca63e95946fbb9cc82f38540...
Not an ordinary possession charge either, sounds serious!
> 15 to 30 years in prison for possessing a synthetic drug with the intent to distribute it
> like many synthetic opioids, the exact effects of U-47700 are little understood and a small amount could be fatal
> charged with possessing carfentanil, a powerful synthetic drug much more powerful then fentanyl
I'd like to see him get life in prison with no chance at parole. He's responsible for at least three deaths (probably more) but because he's proficient at social engineering and feeding people lines he's weaseled his way into the tech industry (from prison!). Over 78k people died in 2023 of fentanyl alone and this twerp was trafficking a substance far more lethal, he literally left a trail of bodies in his wake.
https://www.wbay.com/content/news/New-Hampshire-man-suspecte...
Not to defend the author, but I think a more generous reading of this section from the blogpost:
> A brief summary is that I'm currently serving prison time for poor decisions and lifestyle choices I made in my twenties, all related to drugs.
Is that their poor decisions were related to drugs.
The blog article that he links to has this in it:
>My name is Preston Thorpe, I'm 31 years old and I've spent just under 10 years of my life in Prison (all for non-violent drug crimes.)
Indirectly causing a death doesn't make a crime violent. A doctor guilty of fatal negligence isn't a violent criminal either.
The most common reason violent offenders escape charges or conviction or domestic abuse is that the victim(s) are too afraid to press charges, and/or they feel guilty about it happening or even the feeling that they brought it on themselves and deserved it.
This then combined with the fact that the abuser is going to jail for on unrelated convictions. This is a huge relief to any abuse survivor. The person is going away, and I will be safe.
The other component is all the steps involved with filing charges which will often feel invasive and have to bring it all up again.
I have seen this up close and personal on a few occasions, I have begged the victim to go to the police but they would not do it.
The worst outcome of this is when the abuser is let out, the abuser may seek out the victim again, or the abuser will find new victims.
In this case the police had a call from a close family member accusing the person of domestic abuse. They had suspicious behavior from the accused person. They also witnessed that the possible victim had multiple injuries consistent with domestic abuse. As well as the arm injury the call from the family member had initially reported. But probably no charges or at least no convictions.
So now you're openly condemning a person that you've never met about things you don't really know about other than just some random comments on an internet forum.
For fucks sake, have some human decency. If your name was the one involved, how would something like this make you feel?
That's not what your report says. Your report says there's evidence she may have been beaten and that her arm may have been broken. There's a likelihood of both and that he did it but there's no evidence in that report that he did it.
There is no actual confirmation in that document that her arm was broken, just that that was what was reported to the officer and that it was injured/swolen.
You're free to say "allegedly", just like the standards the media has to go by.
There was evidence of an exigency which lead to a warrentless search of his apartment.
The jealousy must be strong, does it really hurt that much that someone in the prison system reformed their life and is probably doing better than you for you to create a new account and try to drag them down? I don't know what hurt you are going through, but you can definitely do better if you are willing to be more positive in life.
Sorry, but this is a disgusting take. Addiction is well established as an illness. It's outright shameful to suggest that someone who is going through recovery is purely doing it as a grift. What you're suggesting is that we can't trust that rehabilitation is possible or reasonable, which is a deeply cruel prospect.
Rehabilitation is great. But you might have the wrong idea about the crime.
It wasn't just addiction. He had enough U-47700 for 30,000 trips (30 thousand). See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44291172
I'm not disputing that. But someone doesn't simply decide to acquire that much of a very serious drug with a sound mind. Is it fair to treat a crime the same for two people if one person is suffering from schizophrenia and the other is of sound mind?
Simply saying "you did a terrible thing, and that's irredeemable" isn't useful to society. What good are you doing if you've rehabilitated the criminal? You're just spending tax dollars on principle. It's cruel and unproductive.
And I'm sure if you had your way the prisons would be empty of anyone convicted of a drug related crime because 'they and their terribly sad addictions/illnesses are the real victims'
Theyre in prison as a punishment for crimes
To what end? To spend tax dollars? To make them rot away indefinitely?
What good are we doing to society if we are keeping rehabilitated individuals locked up at taxpayer expense? There's no objectively correct amount of punishment. The correct amount of punishment should be the smallest amount of time necessary to be confident that the criminal won't cause more harm to society, especially when the crime was committed as the result of a treatable illness like addiction.
They are adamant in their conviction to oust the impostor, it appears.
> I quickly outgrew the curriculum, preferring instead to spend ~15+ hours a day on projects and open source contributions.
TIL from 15-20yrs old I was a prisoner
But seriously, programs like these need to be made available to more people, incarcerated or not. There's millions of people in this country who have basically no access to employment. Remote work could not only be a lifeline to those communities, it's advantageous to employers and good for the economy.
shame were doing a large push to return to the office anyways
there's a good reason for that, fortunately or unfortunately. the numbers don't lie
which numbers? the property values for big office buildings?
Reading this, I think it's a crime that this guy is not out on early release. The majority of his sentence was for marijuana, which is now widely decriminalized and in some places legalized.
Blog post said majority of sentence was for marijuana. Where do you find this other stuff?
I mean it would be sad if he was lying - but i don’t see any of that.
https://apnews.com/general-news-d68dca63e95946fbb9cc82f38540...
Saying that he got his time for marijuana seems to be a big stretch.
He broke his gf's arm as part of a prolonged campaign of domestic violence against her.
I’m basing my view on what he said in the blog. Where is this said?
I recall what I read in his blog post was “majority of sentence was for marijuana”
Why would you take him at his word when he's a self-admitted bad actor and therefore likely to be an unreliable narrator?
I agree he should be released but using the mail to transport marijuana across state lines is definitely not legalized or decriminalized anywhere.
How does the compensation work? The US prison system has a bit of a nasty reputation when it comes to exploiting prison labor, so I hope those practices aren’t carrying over into these more forward-looking types of initiative… but at the same time, surely Turso isn’t paying full SWE salary?