I’ve worked with a few former criminals who spent time in prison for things they did in their youths. Keep in mind that I’m Scandinavian and our justice system is very, very, different. But all of them had been young and unadjusted and eventually wound up hurting someone over something stupid. Having matured and now in their 30’ies, none of that past life remained in any way in my dealings with them.
Obviously this is both anecdotal and success biased as I’d never be in a position to meet the people who don’t succeed, but not giving people a chance just because they’ve made mistakes is silly and I’m happy that initiatives like this exist when your justice system doesn’t want to reform people.
The single best tool for rehabilitation, for the convict and the society around them, is meaningful activity. People hurt each other for reasons that are often as sympathetic as they are ultimately intolerable. I think it's wonderful that you had a great experience and shared it because the stigma needs to go. The inclination to follow the law may be tangentially related to a basic ability to follow directions, granted, but it doesn't make someone good or moral.
I think it’s just a really hard nut to crack. Because even if you remove the bias and stigma, corporations are at their core, risk adverse.
I’ve met these people in the public sector where we have policies in place to employ the people who are hard to employ and focus on not discriminating people because of what they bring. But the fact that we have those policies and that focus speaks a lot about how hard of an issue it is.
Because if you’ve committed crime, you’ll simply be considered a more risky hire, and we don’t like that. The most expensive mistake a manager can make in my country is hiring the wrong person. This is where a lot of the discrimination against former criminals, people with different sort of diagnosis’s, people over 60 and so on come from.
Often the risk assessment isn’t actually true. Because a lot of these people will be far more loyal to your organisation than a fresh hire out of university, but the risk assessment will still favour the young person, and if someone experience and “normal” in their late 30ies or early 40ies is in competition, well…
I will say nothing that incriminates me but I have broken plenty, plenty of laws in my life. And I have done unspeakably shitty things to people that were perfectly legal. Someone's criminal record is a different kind of CV to me, simple as.
This is why the solution is for a background check to report “ok” for a standard job, but “no” for another type of job based on the crime. Companies can never do it because they open themselves up to lawsuits.
Also giving people a perspective is the best weapon to deter crime in the first place. The organized form has massive problems recruiting new members when there are plainly better economic opportunities to be had. Maximum security prisons are only needed when that has already failed.
Unfortunately it's not very representative. The vast majority of people in SiS do not end in a good place. Anyone who has worked at a SiS institution can attest how hopeless it feels that so few has any chance of rehabilitation whatsoever. You almost presume most will end up in prison or dead.
Are developers the new blue-collar workers? I haven’t seen a similar program for aspiring lawyers, doctors or accountants. Aren’t we too eager to commoditize the profession?
what's wrong with blue-collar work? tech elitism never fails to amuse me.
anyway, there is a push to do the same for doctors [1] and lawyers [2], so your point is moot anyway. the problem is that with credentialed backgrounds it will never be as easy so it will always seem like tech is more accessible, which it is inherently.
finally, with respect to incarceration and being a part of a profession, unfortunately many hospitals and law firms will not hire felons, which is a problem in itself, but it's a fact. so this kind of website would be difficult for those fields. so even if med school and law school respectively weren't necessary, it would still be difficult. tech companies are very liberal in this aspect, actually.
You literally directly contradict yourself. You link to two pages that have absolutely nothing to do with getting formerly incarcerated people into law/medicine, then immediately concede that there isn’t an effort to do so because they’re not welcome in those fields.
Your failure to keep two paragraphs of texts consistent and coherent badly undermines your overall point. It’s pretty clear tech as a whole is a lot less elitist than law/medicine.
People are “elitist” because there is non stop pressure to drive down wages of engineers and it’s often disguised as progressivism. It can also undermine the professional and political power of engineers if the field is constantly portrayed as easy for anyone to enter. The AMA knows this better than anyone as they’ve tightly restricted the number of new doctors for decades, so it’s highly ironic you’d even link to them at all.
>You literally directly contradict yourself. You link to two pages that have absolutely nothing to do with getting formerly incarcerated people into law/medicine, then immediately concede that there isn’t an effort to do so because they’re not welcome in those fields.
I linked to the two respective institutions that lobby for physicians and lawyers respectively. They cannot be compared to some crappy random website for ex-felons going to tech. If that's what you're looking for I can find those for you, too.
Furthermore, it's disadvantaged or incarcerated. Or do you believe that people with disabilities (as referred to by both organizations explicitly) are not disadvantaged?
> People are “elitist” because there is non stop pressure to drive down wages of engineers and it’s often disguised as progressivism. It can also undermine the professional and political power of engineers if the field is constantly portrayed as easy for anyone to enter. The AMA knows this better than anyone as they’ve tightly restricted the number of new doctors for decades, so it’s highly ironic you’d even link to them at all.
there's a lot of problems with the AMA and medicine in general but it's a profession that inherently needs to be credentialed, as is law, due to the fact that failure to perform leads to more severe consequences as compared to tech.
finally you cannot compare doctors specifically to all of tech. if you're talking about health in general there has been a huge push to get more nurse practitioners and physicians assistants in the field to replace many of the doctors that PCPs have.
This is crystal clear, to the point, and well put. The response to your comment makes no sense and is all over the place.
Anything that starts with 'there's a lot to unpack ' is going to be mental gymnastics communicated in a patronizing tone to defend someone's ego.
Just wanted to say I agree with all of your points and think it does tech a disservice to treat it like a blue collar job instead of a profession but at the same time the lack of professional strictness has led to alot of rapid innovation.
> Yes, all of this come from fear of not being able to make a living as a programmer in 10 years
Caveat: I'm in the USA, so what I'm about to say may only apply here. I don't know the market for software engineers outside the USA.
In 10 years, you and I will have 10 more years of experience than we do now. We will probably be twice as valuable to a company. Anyone who joins the field today will forever be behind us in years of experience. Years of experience means nothing if the experience isn't valuable, so we need to continue improving. That's a good thing.
I don't know the exact distribution, but not everyone who joins the field today will even be able to compete with us for jobs in 10 years. I'm just guessing here, but I think the majority of people, or at least a very large minority, don't make it to senior level. Some quit and change careers, others don't want to or can't get there.
I'm in no way concerned about job security in 10 years. I see AI being a larger threat to our jobs than other developers. But I doubt it will be a threat to my career. I have about 30 years left, and each year I have more experience than before. So AI would have to overtake me at some point in the next 30 years, and in the meantime also overtake /lots/ of others. The software engineering field would be fairly decimated by AI before it took my job.
Eager, but not "too." Reading this site I see very little interest from developers in professionalizing their industry. That would require standards bodies, licensing, and many other layers of management and cruft.
Personally, I'd say good on developers for welcoming all comers. Hack the planet, you know?
This comment just doesn't sit right with me. Obviously there's the issue that it reeks of tech elitism but there's more to it than that.
Like not everyone needs to pass a FAANG hiring crap shoot. You can give someone useful skills with which they can earn a living.
As for accountants, well there are levels here too. Bookkeeping being one entry-level route. "Accountant" also means many things, like it's often conflated with "consultant" in, say, a Big Four (is it still Big Four?) case.
Lawyers actually do have a path to practice law without getting a law degree via a sort of apprenticeship program. It's not often used but it does exist.
And then there's doctors. If you ignore college and just focus on medical school plus required on-the-job training (ie residency program, possibly a fellowship), it can take 6-12 years to fully train a doctor.
Whatever you may think of us software engineers, we're nowhere near the same level as a doctor in terms of required training. And that's all there is to it. I mean no one figures out how to remove an appendix when they're 12 in their parents' garage.
But the US criminal "justice" system is really a human rights abomination for all the well-documented reasons (eg incarceration rate, racial bias, institutional rape, unjustifiably long sentences for possession of substances that are now legal in ~15 states, etc) but the big one is scarlet letter cruelty that most Americans seem to be OK with.
I am of course talking about the nefarious "are you a felon?" question on job and other applications. I'm of the view that once someone has served their time, you should no longer hold it over their head such that they can't get many jobs, rent an apartment, etc.
We should all be concerned about that if we care at all about recidivism. Unfortunately many Americans take a purely punitive view.
> required on-the-job training (ie residency program, possibly a fellowship), it can take 6-12 years to fully train a doctor.
> Whatever you may think of us software engineers, we're nowhere near the same level as a doctor in terms of required training.
I don't know about that.
Residency takes years, but I'm not convinced it couldn't be done faster (there are cultural reasons why it's done that way). Basically, there's a strict pecking order among residents (first years are taught and evaluated by second years and so on) and every "level" basically tries to show off to his boss (because most coveted spots are competitive).
That often degenerates into a contest of who can sleep the least and be the hero that keeps the floor from "falling apart". I've seen fourth year residents undo work from third years, who themselves re-did work the second year did, who himself re-did something the first year resident had done. Everyone "saved the day" that night, except when the attending came in the morning he agreed with the diagnosis and treatment the first year resident implemented. You get the picture.
The long years of schooling with little, expensive residency matching trips and interviews and unrelated undergrad required to even apply are all pretty good gatekeeping mechanism to keep poor people out however.
>Whatever you may think of us software engineers, we're nowhere near the same level as a doctor in terms of required training. And that's all there is to it. I mean no one figures out how to remove an appendix when they're 12 in their parents' garage
Kids arent chopping organs out in a garage because thats a future serial killer.
Kids make make medical breakthroughs all the time.
The short answer is yes, the bar for a developer is much, much lower than for a lawyer, a doctor, or an accountant, requiring much less training. Doesn't mean that there aren't some forms of development that require considerable skill and experience, but many positions just don't.
The parent mentioned regulated professions, but there is a flurry of roles surrounding lawyers, nurses and accountants that don't require certification.
Now, I'm sure there are programs to try to help ex-convicts to get into generic company roles like assistants, data operators etc.
Good lord this hurts to see. Writing html and css isn't surgery or arguing a case in court. However many similar programs exist for paralegals and accountants. I don't think there are a lot of jail to rocket science programs but coding isnt rocket science.
Is scaling a high performance financial platform that needs to have .000001 downtime simple? No. Is this program trying to train anyone to do that? No. There are plenty, and I'd argue the majority, of software jobs that are pretty simple and can be picked up by most folks with average intelligence and interested/effort.
> Aren’t we too eager to commoditize the profession?
On the other hand, the USA opens around 500,000 coding jobs per year and graduates only 50,000 CS grads. Lots of room for inviting more people into the profession.
For lawyers, passing the Bar and education are just one requirement. In some cases your criminal record simply classes you as not "good moral character" and you are denied admission to the Bar or school (w/o significant effort)
Blue-collar literally means manual labor. So no, developers are by definition not blue collar.
There aren't similar programs for other professions you listed because (1) all of them are highly regulated and have significant education requirements as well as additional certifications/licenses/board approvals, and (2) tech is in general more progressive and liberal when it comes to social issues.
For the last part, I feel like tech has actually proven that you don't need to artificially gatekeep your profession in order to make your members more valuable. If tech was commoditized then wages would be coming down, but in reality it's the opposite.
Why would that bother you? If they can do the job then why not? Lawyers, doctors and accountants have deep certification moats protecting them, perhaps appropriately, but software development is still relatively free from credentialism.
I don't think so, the only thing that separates lawyers/Dr's etc vs. developers is there is no requirement for a degree or certification for a developer. With the other professions there is.
What's wrong with being a blue-collar worker / commoditizing the profession? Seems fine, in and of itself.
If you mean it as a proxy for salaries going down because of competition - so many engineering orgs are understaffed, I don't think that's realistic. And tech is, as they say, eating the world. Demand for software engineers seems to be steadily growing; I'm not concerned about supply catching up, at least within my lifetime.
If you're concerned about working with formerly incarcerated and disadvantaged people - that's on you, buddy. Seems great to me. (And yes, that's on most doctors, lawyers, and accountants too. The legal profession in particular, as another commenter pointed out, is awfully gatekeepy. The medical profession requires a whole bunch of formal training, which we have culturally never been excited about imposing. And so forth.)
I don’t understand how including people who’ve been incarcerated commodifies the profession. But I also continue to identify as a worker and have solidarity with my fellow workers, so I’m probably not your intended audience.
There's been decades to make a decent and well recognized credential like lawyers/doctors but the industry was having none of it, so I guess we are getting "commoditized".
Someone who fixes cars isn't the same as someone who builds prototypes, despite the fact they both know their way around engine parts. Lumping all developers into the same category is just as ridiculous. There are blue collar development jobs, doesn't mean all developers are blue-collar workers.
The equivalent for doctors would be nursing programs, and I'm pretty sure there are similar programs for nurses - like developers, there are a lack of nurses right now.
I would love to become a doctor, I was an EMT before I was incarcerated. No medical institution would ever take on the liability of hiring me. Legal is very much the same way, the board can deny you licensure based on your "moral character."
People who think devs can become blue collar workers don't understand that you actually have to be smart to be a good developer regardless of credentials.
The only difference between a programmer and a lawyer is a lawyer can't practice law on his own and get feedback without hurting anyone, and a programmer can get feedback from his laptop.
I think you are overestimating the ease of breaking in. Out of 800 job posts in the ask HN hiring thread this month, only 2-3 mentioned they are willing to hire junior devs.
This is a biased data set of course but you will see similar patterns across the board. Even people with degrees, it's getting hard to break in because most companies have realized that hiring senior developers is better value for money.
In tech, you are also constantly tested regardless of how many years of experience you have. This doesn't happen in other field at the same frequency so you don't get to slack off if you want to switch jobs.
I agree generally, but I think the reason executives lean on seniority is because they have no confidence in their own team to make a good technical hire, or spending a lot time/money/effort on the hiring process isn't a priority. They assume if someone has had a job for a few years, that they can't be that bad. Nobody ever got fired for hiring a former FAANG employee.
They started adding tests after this approach failed, and they're making the same mistake in a different way. Having the motivation to grind leetcode is not the same as having the motivation to finish a software project. You'll end up with a lot of people who really want the money, and will suffer any number of hoops, but in the end they really hate the work.
Yes, and guess where they learned it from? Regurgitation and handing in "something" on time can pretty easily get you a degree, even at a top tier school. That will get you further at most organizations than a resume with completed software projects and no college degree. Once you are in, it's easy to do enough to avoid getting fired. No one wants to take the blame for a bad hire.
After a few years, they're a mid-level engineer and maybe they make good looking diagrams. They answer all of their emails, they show up for the meetings that actual engineers don't want to attend. They have a purpose and fill a role, even if they still fundamentally don't understand what's going on.
No matter where you go, or how high up the chain you get, they will be on every team and in every meeting. What they lack in technical understanding they cover with political and social skills. Which also means they will be your management.
I can't reply to your most recent response, so I'm replying here instead.
You have gone from saying
- "you actually have to be smart to be a good developer", to
- "Incompetent people sliding by is hardly limited to programming", to
- "I have no idea how someone totally incompetent could break through".
The original statement was not "totally incompetent people can break through". The original statement was "Are developers the new blue-collar workers?" And your response assumes that blue-collar workers are not smart. In fact, it seems like you think blue collar workers are "totally incompetent" since you created an equivalency between "blue collar workers", "not smart", then "incompetent", and lastly "totally incompetent." That is incredibly ignorant and prejudiced.
I think about that a lot. It's interesting though, that you make the suggestion with a reference to three professions which require a certain level of security clearance, and an adherence to a legally upheld standard, in order to hold practice.
They always were, it's just they got fooled by the free snacks and occasional ballpit. The fact "no one " get hired past 40 is another indication.
Blue-collar worker means labor ( both skilled and unskilled ), but deep down they are nothing more than a cog in the machine ( just look at any Jira board ).
Lawyers, doctors or accountants are valued as they grow old. Programmers? apart from the anecdotes they are mostly viewed as tired beasts of burden. Our industry is infantile and as long as there's fresh meat coming-in in droves it will never change and that's one of the main reasons you are a blue-collar worker.
The golden watch is the promise of fuck-you-money. How many workers get golden watches these days?
I am a person with a degree in computer science that was convicted of a felony many moons ago. I have been working as a developer for about the last decade.
You can do it, but the fear of losing employment, housing, etc is a very real day-to-day thing I still have in the front of my mind.
It's going to take a movement to raise awareness about felons not being a Protected Class, and the legalized-discrimination that implies.
The way I usually phrase it is:
"What would you do if you were black/hispanic/asian and someone said:
'Yeah there's nothing technically WRONG with you as an applicant.
'But we just don't really house/hire YOUR KIND around here. Just policy, nothing personal, sorry.'"
And then watch the horrified look on peoples' faces.
This is just an expected occurrence as a felon, regardless of how long it's been.
But who is going to raise such awareness?
Someone who can afford to lose their job?
Which unfortunately isn't me at the moment, and it sounds like isn't you.
To be fair a massive amount of people end up with felony records based on bullshit, trumped up charges, or laws that now seem insane (selling small amounts of drugs which are now legal).
People from lower socioeconomic statuses are the majority of criminal convictions, especially with the trash public defender system.
Have you ever been so hungry that you literally had no choice in the moment between blacking out from low blood sugar or shoplifting? It's a very traumatizing experience, my time as an Emergency Medical Technician had less effects on me than abject poverty did.
Oftentimes the way you are born affects the chances that "something you've done" is recorded on a permanent record. If one race is more likely to be punished with felonies then policies that discriminate against felonies are indirectly discriminating against race.
The sign up form could use a confirmation dialog, had to get into the dev console to confirm it had been submitted. Otherwise cool idea, I'd like to help coming to development from a non-traditional background as well.
Although I support the idea, the web site seems a bit … sparse … to me.
This is an area that I know well. I’ve been working with folks like this for decades.
One huge problem with rehabilitation and reentry programs, is a fairly significant level of sketchy behavior. Many times, these efforts start from a good place, but fall victim to corruption.
It’s difficult to work with folks that have criminal backgrounds, but it can be quite gratifying. The challenges are real, but there are many, many people that are willing to work hard to climb out of a hole. It’s incredibly rewarding to help those folks.
But there are always a few that have no interest in changing their spots, and they can really piss in the punch bowl. It’s important to be ready for these people. This kind of work is not for the faint of heart. Tough room.
Also, I’m not too thrilled about the site conflating “disadvantaged” folks with ex-cons.
They are quite different. Although ex-cons are a subset of disadvantaged people, they are a pretty small percentage, and present radically different challenges from other folks that suffer from things like poverty, prejudice, and lack of opportunity.
1. The website is sparse because we spend our money on the mentees bills and so relied on those learning to build it.
2. As for orgs having a "fairly significant level of sketchy behavior" and falling victim to corruption, as you put it...sounds like a lot of speculation. I cant know either of those assertions as I dont have any data on it. I only know what we are doing.
3. I disagree that it's difficult to work with folks who have criminal backgrounds. I do agree that there are some who have no interest in changing.
4. The site doesnt conflate “disadvantaged” folks with ex-cons. Read it again. It says OR. Meaning you can come from either.
5. You say ex-cons are a subset of disadvantaged people and then you mention they face "radically" different challenges than folks who suffer from things like poverty, prejudice, and lack of opportunity. They face legal discrimination but thats the only difference. The vast majority of inmates come from lower socio-economic backgrounds so they face very similar obstacles.
If you have any more questions reach out rick@underdogdevs.org or join an info session some time.
I won’t get into a pissing match, here, but my own life story is one you might find interesting (or maybe not).
I’m not some “ivory tower geek,” using strawman arguments. I have over 40 years, working directly with folks, suffering from withering challenges. It's entirely possible that we might travel in the same circles, and you may have even run across my work (most folks don't know it's my work, but a lot of people use it).
But I sincerely wish you well, and I’m gratified that you responded. You are always free to reach out (I’m easy to find), if you want to continue the discussion.
Good luck, and Godspeed.
[EDITED TO ADD] And welcome to HN! I'm looking forward to seeing your viewpoints here. You have a unique life story.
I answered sincerely and in some areas corrected you. Thats it.
I didnt attempt to "out credential" you. Your post felt like it was insinuating we are shady and so I answered. Correcting you isn't a pissing match.
Had I wanted to engage in a pissing match I would have let you know that I did 18 years in prison and became a software engineer afterwards. I intimately know what it takes for our mentees to do what we are trying to help them do. I did it. I grew up in prison and then later became a developer. All that is true but I was just answering your questions and felt no need to tell you why I think I have the perspective and knowledge to do what we are doing.
Actually, I already knew your story. You haven’t made an effort to hide it. It seems as if you actually make a point of highlighting it.
I’d gently suggest that taking a combative stance may play well in The Yard, but is less effective, out here. Those of us that face societal challenges are best-served by playing nice. That’s one of the hardest lessons that folks in reentry need to learn.
I sincerely wish you the best. There are folks that want you to succeed, and we may not all be who you expect.
I certainly apologize for throwing shade. I have become quite cynical, over the years, and regularly encounter folks that look at people like us as “easy marks,” because society doesn’t really have our back.
You're right I havent made an effort to hide my past. Hard thing to hide, spending nearly half my life behind bars. I also highlight it. I use it as a tool. Its a point of reference for people wondering if they can do it. And we have also used it to garner support for Underdog Devs.
Thats not me being combative. Thats just me answering what felt like accusatory insinuations. I was defensive and direct but I wasn't trying to provoke you.
Appreciate you apologizing and I understand your cynicism. Im a bit cynical with this space as well.
I assure you UD is a different thing than what you're used to. We havent even used any money for operating costs. We could but we've instead focused on getting mentees bills paid so that those who would be most impacted by the economic mobility that programming affords can focus on learning. We all have spent countless hours, all as volunteers, trying to create opportunities for folks who might not otherwise have them.
I think your original response came off as a bit defensive and combative, as did this one. Not a good look if you're trying to garner support, especially since the person has experience in this realm and it would've been good to acknowledge different experiences
I agree they were defensive responses. I was responding to accusations. The defensiveness was intentional.
The first comment felt like he was insinuating we are sketchy and the second that I was attempting to involve him in a "pissing contest". Neither are true and so I was defensive. I wasn't being an asshole. I was speaking plainly to those insinuations. I simply addressed where he might be wrong.
Between school and studies I also worked for a year a job involving manual labor (what people do during that time). So there were people with such backgrounds. All people are different and while working there I found them very likeable. With one guy I also became friends later and that guy stalked/pressed money out of me for a year. I think this is all great but companies need to have a very good idea what they are doing and have 1:1s with all employees about this and educate their juniors well.
> Also, I’m not to thrilled about the site conflating “disadvantaged” folks with ex-cons.
True, I mean "disadvantaged" people might not be selling themselves so well anyway. So people are already cautious.
I want a program like this to work, and this is of course an unpopular but factual statement - most of these kinds of programs define "disadvantaged" on your sex, skin color, and country of origin. This makes sense because they're the programs companies like to fund to pad their diversity portfolio.thst protects them from Title 9 lawsuits. It follows the money. But it doesn't actually target "disadvantaged" people, it targets whatever criteria they've created.
But perhaps this program is different, there's no details given for maybe good reason.
We are a scrappy group of software engineers working to create opportunities for people who might not otherwise have them. Mainly the formerly incarcerated.
We are a very unique org in that we have no operating costs. No operating costs and yet we do the following....
We provide pair programming sessions all week for mentees with professional software engineers, they meet every other week with another mentor for career guidance, we have interview prep, our bootcamp partnerships provide free seats at various bootcamps, they get code assessments to determine progress by a CTO of a successful fintech company in San Fran, and a group of them have their bills paid so that they can focus on developing their skills unimpeded. Again, costs nothing, so all our money goes to the mentees bills.
We have had 16 people hired in under a year and without a website. We plan to have 6 more hired within the next couple months. Although these aren't huge numbers remember that these are folks who have done prison time, who usually dont have degrees, who come from low income, and who many times felt like giving up on their software dev aspirations. This isn't the architect turned coder...this is major economic mobility that will change entire their family's trajectory. That 16 is a very meaningful 16.
If anyone is interested in more info reach out.
on Twitter Im @RwoltX and you'll find UD at @UnderdogDevs
I became a convicted felon a hair after my 18th birthday, for a trespassing charge I received while out-of-my-mind high on drugs.
Long story short, by the time I started highschool, I was experimenting with drugs and skipping school. I was in and out of youth prison for drug-related stuff, and never finished highschool. My life spiraled out of control, in full-blown drug addiction, until I finally landed a year in jail and this felony charge right when I turned 18.
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<Begin relevant part>
When I got out, I got my start in a program similar to this, a software apprenticeship program for "at-risk" youth. It wasn't targeted towards formerly-incarcerated (in fact I think I was the only one they ever had) but I was completely transparent about my situation and past.
I had been doing code stuff for fun, through video game scripting (Lua, some Visual Basic) ever since I was a child and it really paid off.
Today, I have a career in a semi-well-known upstart tech company and live a life I never could have dreamed. But it could come crashing down at any moment. I'm still on felony probation almost a decade later for something I did when I was 18, due to massive debt I have to pay off.
It makes it nearly impossible for me or my wife to find housing, since felons aren't a protected class (IE, you can legally discriminate against us, unlike people with disabilities or on the basis of race).
By no exaggeration, I went through nearly a dozen interview processes while my wife I were working minimum-wage manual labor jobs on the brink of homelessness, to be given an offer letter and then rescinded due to HR blanket "no-felons" policies. "We're so sorry. We would be happy to recommend you to anyone else, though." It became a running joke. I'd do multiple interview rounds which all went well, have a good sense I'd get an offer, and feel nothing from it because I knew I'd have it yanked out from under me on a technicality.
Even today, I live in constant terror that my current employer or coworkers would find out. It's been ~10 years for christ's sake, I've never done anything else in my life. I can't express to you all how absolutely fucked it is to go to prison and become a convicted felon.
Actions speak louder than words, but I'm saving up enough to quit my job and try to secure state funding to back into prisons and teach development + give other people a reason to wake up every morning.
It's really hard not to neck yourself when you're staring at doing multiple years/decades in one of our country's fine estates.
It seems that we used to call prison "paying your debt to society", but now we as a society charge interest on that debt to insure it's never paid off. We're loan-sharking people's past mistakes, which is not justice.
As a mentor - I signed up to show interest and will attend an info session - just curious about the process and time investment - is it typically "bootcamp" type of coding - full stack, web stuff? And if you do weekly sessions with someone, is it more reacting and giving advice/direction? Are they typically learning through other program and need some extra 1-on-1 time? Or are you taking a more active role in education? Thanks!
I was genuinely curious as I am often involved in writing for websites, including on D&I issues, so it's helpful to know what kind of information is needed, that's all. I don't think I deserved this comment. Cheers.
Obviously this is both anecdotal and success biased as I’d never be in a position to meet the people who don’t succeed, but not giving people a chance just because they’ve made mistakes is silly and I’m happy that initiatives like this exist when your justice system doesn’t want to reform people.