Should prisoners be taught programming?

[ik9000]

Anyone else seen this article about teaching convicts programming. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-33735039 On the one hand, good to give people skills. On the other hand, the very people I do not want writing code for me - or anything I use - would be people who have demonstrated a lack of moral integrity when it comes to theft/fraud/exploitation etc. How many back doors will they be writing in?

[Saracen]

Anyone else seen this article about teaching convicts programming. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-33735039 On the one hand, good to give people skills. On the other hand, the very people I do not want writing code for me - or anything I use - would be people who have demonstrated a lack of moral integrity when it comes to theft/fraud/exploitation etc. How many back doors will they be writing in?

Well, "prisoners" covers a wide spectrum, from the irreversibly crooked, to people that made a single bad mistake, and deeply regret it. Rehabilitating prisoners prior to release surely requires giving some of them the tools and skills necessary to support a life not involving crime.

I'd hope some responsibility is exercised in choosing what skills to teach which prisoners, but can't see programming, per se, should be off the list.

[GuidoLS]

Moral purity is a fairy tale. Nothing personal, but we all have a dark side - it's part of being the human animal. The only difference is a matter of degrees of how far a person has allowed that to come out. And if a person has been caught or not. By the same token, more than a few people in prison have committed 'crimes' that violated nothing but the self-importance of somebody else. 5 years for marijuana possession. No intent to distribute - just possession. That's just a current situation that exists in large numbers. Then there are those that get locked up for the crime of being homeless and begging for food. I don't know if that's a problem in the UK or not. It's an issue here in the US. What makes it a sin is that a large number of those people are vets that volunteered for Iraq/Afghanistan/Vietnam, and have been abandoned by the US Veterans Administration.

By rights, those people don't even belong in jail, let alone for any period of time. Do they 'deserve' education for 'rehabilitation' purposes? Some deserved it right off the bat.

I realize that the penal system here in the US is far different (and in most cases, far more draconian - blame your Queen Victoria for starting it, and a bunch of wanna-be puritans here for not having the sense to end it). I also realize that incarceration for life, without parole, as a given penalty, is as rare as a month of Sundays in Europe, and it's relatively common here, in lieu of capital punishment (aka the death penalty). IMO, those people should not get a formal education. Books, etc? Sure. But no, they shouldn't be spending the extra tax dollars, if for no other reason than they will never be able to use the newly learned information/skills to benefit society.

I personally think it's a farce that the mass murderer in Norway got sentenced to 21 years... and that he's actually taking university level classes. And I can think of 4 'gentlemen' from Sweden who all pretty much just ended their terms in prison, of whom I doubt any would have needed a further education in programming. Don't want to get into the politics of the second case. Right or wrong, they were tried, convicted and sentenced.

And in some ways, I trust ex-cons more than I trust a lot of 'normal' law abiding citizens. In a lot of cases, the only difference is one got caught while the other didn't, and they aren't hiding the fact that they have done something wrong. And we all know we have a bunch of wanna-be criminals that are just a conviction away that run our governments.

If you're going to lock them up, and you're going to offer them an education, you can't realistically deny them something that would make them a worthwhile addition back into society. Anyone can flip burgers. There's no need to teach that.

[finlay666]

It's pretty pointless to teach something like this when pretty much every dev house I have seen require a university level degree.

Teaching skills, yes

Teaching skills that are likely going to access sensitive information, not so much. Might as well teach burglars how to bump locks

[Peter Parker]

Anyone else seen this article about teaching convicts programming. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-33735039 On the one hand, good to give people skills. On the other hand, the very people I do not want writing code for me - or anything I use - would be people who have demonstrated a lack of moral integrity when it comes to theft/fraud/exploitation etc. How many back doors will they be writing in?

I tend to agree with GuidoLS about moral integrity. It's probably something we imagine to make ourselves feel better. I'm still in favour of rehabilitation of prisoners and believe most prisoners are not psychotic mass murderers, just poor decision makers.

The thing is, coding is a very intellectual skill. There's already a lot of poorly trained programmers out there writing untested bad code, and I'm doubtful that there's likely to be many "gems" in the prison population just waiting for the right opportunity. If they were capable of writing a good backdoor into some financial software and getting it past any reviews, pair programming, automated testing, security testing etc then they'd probably be very well paid programmers and either not in prison in the first place, or in prison specifically because of that and never allowed near a computer again!

It's far more reassuring to have governments and multinational corporations adding backdoors and viruses, than some lowly criminal, right ...?

Edit - perhaps we should just teach them knitting

[Saracen]

.... Anyone can flip burgers. There's no need to teach that.

Now there speaks someone that's never tried my burgers.

[Mithrandir]

Nope, hell no.

[virtuo]

I tried a few ways of writing my reply without sounding like my grandad. I shocked myself!

So to keep it PC. No, they should not.

[DanceswithUnix]

How many back doors will they be writing in?

None. Not in code that really matters anyway.

Most of my employment has been in the payment industry, if you are in the UK your money probably flows through my code on a daily basis. Every effort is made to make sure that no back doors are inserted. All code checked in is audited by at least one other person. The programmers are background checked, the development process is audited, the code is regularly sent to an external third party for audit, the release process is completely automated so that it can't have a few extra lines sneaked in.

This isn't a matter of trust of the employees, some software is the obvious target of very well financed organised crime so there is the possibility that someone could be blackmailed or otherwise forced into doing something they don't want to in the code. You combat that by making sure that at no point can one person alone compromise the system.

In this case though, the background check should get them kicked back out of the door *if* it is relevant. I say that as a convicted criminal myself, but long ago speeding tickets aren't considered as a relevant crime to financial software. So criminality isn't a hard line in itself, it is a fuzzy line and like all hiring choices down to management to try and choose wisely.

[MrComputerSaint]

Yeah, I think they should.

Think about it this way, if it's a public piece of software that they create and it's put into the world and it has a load of security holes, the security community would find those holes pretty quickly I think.
But if I owned a software house creating programs, where I employed ex cons, I'd probably do my due diligence and have the QA team test for security problems. I wouldn't want my software to go out with back doors in it.

It could be the case that these prisoners have made wrong choices and because of that they find themselves in prison. Not a lot of people would trust an ex-convict (or convict) for that matter. But I think if you've gone through the process of losing several years of your life in a prison that's one bloody good reason to try something different. Something that is not illegal.

[ik9000]

Might as well teach burglars how to bump locks

From what I hear that is part of the extra-curricular activities one can develop while detained at HMP.

[Singh400]

Rehabilitation is key I think to stop re-offenders, if they want to learn programming go for it. If they want to pick up a trade, I think we should offer that too. Otherwise they'll just be another stat in the system endlessly going in and out.

[KeyboardDemon]

Rehabilitation is key I think to stop re-offenders, if they want to learn programming go for it. If they want to pick up a trade, I think we should offer that too. Otherwise they'll just be another stat in the system endlessly going in and out.

For me this reflects how I feel, if a prison sentence was just about punishment and then letting the prisoner go at the end of their term then what they will come out to is a society in which they are less likely to find decent employment and no reliable skills other than the ones they used to get into prison in the first place.

I feel that rehabilitation is more than just locking them up to reflect on their 'bad decisions' in life so that they can re-align their 'moral compass', I think they should be given an opportunity to find a way that allows them to become constructive members of society on release.

Learning programming wouldn't automatically mean that they will come out of prison and then step into jobs where they are programming the back end of financial institutes, they might just end up working on websites for local community centres and council projects or putting together websites for friends and family that have small businesses and a need for a local web presence. Programming might not even come in to the line of work they end up in after they're out but the skillset they used when learning programming might help them in other ways, such as understanding how to breakdown day to day problems and plan a methodical approach to solving these problems.

[Singh400]

For me this reflects how I feel, if a prison sentence was just about punishment and then letting the prisoner go at the end of their term then what they will come out to is a society in which they are less likely to find decent employment and no reliable skills other than the ones they used to get into prison in the first place.

I feel that rehabilitation is more than just locking them up to reflect on their 'bad decisions' in life so that they can re-align their 'moral compass', I think they should be given an opportunity to find a way that allows them to become constructive members of society on release.

Learning programming wouldn't automatically mean that they will come out of prison and then step into jobs where they are programming the back end of financial institutes, they might just end up working on websites for local community centres and council projects or putting together websites for friends and family that have small businesses and a need for a local web presence. Programming might not even come in to the line of work they end up in after they're out but the skillset they used when learning programming might help them in other ways, such as understanding how to breakdown day to day problems and plan a methodical approach to solving these problems.

On a wider scale I dislike the whole mob mentality of demeaning prisoners. Yes, we know they ****ed up, that's why they are in prison. But some people like to heap it on and be alarmist about prisoners. Things like worrying about what backdoors ex-cons will programme in are laughable. As for moral integrity, I do not think anyone in the world can claim to have full moral integrity.

I'd like to see the UK prison system move closer to the Norwegian way of doing things. I firmly believe that as soon as the prisoner enters the prison that's when rehabilitation should start. They are already being punished by losing there freedom. But we have to address why they committed the crime in the first place. Uneducated? Unemployed? Stealing food to survive?

Obviously I wouldn't expect this to be rolled out to every prisoner, but I suspect the majority of prisoners could be rehabilitated if the system tried its best.

I also think CRB/DBS checks makes it incredibly hard for a ex-con to get a job. A lot of roles flat out refuse to hire ex-cons. Before CRB/DBS checks were implemented a lot of ex-cons were able to turn their life around by getting into a stable job. These days, it is much harder. So the system, to some extent works to keep them in the vicious cycle.

[Lucio]

Teaching skills that are likely going to access sensitive information, not so much. Might as well teach burglars how to bump locks

They do, Timpsons has a program to employee ex-convicts, particularly young offenders as apprentices both for their keycutting and shoe repair shops, and for their mobile locksmiths.

I'm of the mindset that offering chances to help prisoners get back into society is a good idea, to cut down on reoffending rates but worry that it means that resources are taken away from others who are out of work.

At the end of the day, with limited resources, there should be an equal chance for everyone to get additional education to help them gain employement.

[ik9000]

They do, Timpsons has a program to employee ex-convicts, particularly young offenders as apprentices both for their keycutting and shoe repair shops, and for their mobile locksmiths.

And that is why I always go to a locksmith as far away as possible, pay cash, and never ever give them my details.

there should be an equal chance for everyone to get additional education to help them gain employement.

We all get the opportunity in this country. Given how many muck around in our schools (and before you go there, I have several family teaching around the country) and dismiss that opportunity, why should we pay twice because feckless idiots throw it back in our faces?

Rehabilitation is key I think to stop re-offenders... Otherwise they'll just be another stat in the system endlessly going in and out.

Sadly this is true. But there ought to be punishment too. As I have said before (in other threads) there ought to be a two-stage process. Punishment, of a fixed term, no reductions, extended for bad behaviour. Once completed they move to a rehab unit for a fixed period too, learning skills etc. Towards the end this goes into partial release, then tagging - before full time release to the community.

A distinction between punishment and rehab is needed. And lifers don't get resources wasted on rehabilitating someone who will never be let out. As an aside I do wonder whether life imprisonment - particularly solitary - is actually more cruel than just executing someone... But anyway that's my 10p on the prison system.

I firmly believe that as soon as the prisoner enters the prison that's when rehabilitation should start. They are already being punished by losing there freedom. But we have to address why they committed the crime in the first place. Uneducated? Unemployed? Stealing food to survive?

If you've ever been the victim of crime, or seen a loved one scared to live as a result of one, you will understand the violation it brings, and the need for punishment. Whatever the reason behind it a crime has been committed, and there must be punishment. Otherwise, let's just go each man for himself and see how things turn out. Being put in prison is not punishment enough. They should not be able to sit there on their x-boxes having a cushy life. It ought to be miserable hard labour and lame food etc. The nicer bits can wait for rehab.