Turns out teaching criminals to write web code keeps them out of prison
- Reference: 1714042810
- News link: https://www.theregister.co.uk/2024/04/25/prison_coding_skills/
- Source link:
Boffins at MIT CSAIL and University of Massachusetts Lowell report that their [1]Brave Behind Bars program, a 12-week college-accredited web design course for incarcerated individuals, has a demonstrable effect on the self-efficacy of people in prison.
Self-efficacy is [2]a term used in psychology to describe "an individual's belief in his or her capacity to execute behaviors necessary to produce specific performance attainments." In less academic terms, it might be described as self-confidence or as the paper puts it, "the belief in one’s ability to execute behaviors necessary to meet a goal." And it turns out to be correlated with lower recidivism rates.
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The US-based researchers – Martin Nisser (MIT CSAIL), Marisa Gaetz (MIT), Andrew Fishberg (MIT), Raechel Soicher (MIT), Faraz Faruqi (MIT CSAIL), Joshua Long (University of Massachusetts, Lowell) – describe their findings in [4]a paper [PDF] titled "From Prisons to Programming: Fostering Self-Efficacy via Virtual Web Design Curricula in Prisons and Jails."
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"Studies show that higher self-efficacy scores are correlated with lower recidivism rates for crimes including driving under the influence (DUI), sex-related crimes, and drug-related crimes," the paper states, adding that research also shows academic achievement from taking college-level courses improves self-efficacy more for incarcerated students than those not behind bars.
Recidivism – reoffending and being sent back to prison – is one of the reasons the Land of the Free has the [7]highest per capita incarceration rate in the world, according to Nisser, a PhD candidate at MIT CSAIL. "In 2021, 0.7 percent of the US population was in a prison or jail, while over 2 percent of the population was under some form of carceral supervision, including probation or parole," the paper states.
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The US prison population at the end of 2022 was 1,230,100, up two percent from year end 2021, according to the [9]US Bureau of Justice Statistics . That's roughly the number of people who live in Cyprus.
[10]If Britain is so bothered by China, why do these .gov.uk sites use Chinese ad brokers?
[11]Apple releases OpenELM, a slightly more accurate LLM
[12]US Chamber of Commerce to sue FTC for banning noncompetes in most jobs
[13]Waymo robotaxi drives down wrong side of street after being alarmed by unicyclists
The MIT and UMass research paper summarizes surveys conducted in 2022 and 2023 to assess the impact of the web design curriculum on the incarcerated.
"Our qualitative study in 2022 involving thematic analyses of post-course surveys from 34 students revealed overwhelmingly positive feedback, with students reporting increased self-confidence, motivation, and a sense of empowerment from learning web programming skills," said Nisser in a statement. "The themes we uncovered highlighted the powerful effect of the program on students' self-beliefs."
The program is taught synchronously and remotely via Zoom at five US correctional facilities. It runs for three months, meeting twice a week for class and once each week for office hours. It's accredited through three partner institutions: Georgetown University, Benjamin Franklin Institute of Technology, and Washington County Community College.
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Six websites from the Brave Behind Bars program - Click to enlarge
The first six weeks of the program focused on web fundamentals: HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. During the second six weeks, students worked on their capstone project: building a website.
The web design course was complicated by numerous considerations. It was carried out at low, medium, and high security facilities, among a population with diverse racial and educational backgrounds. And atypically, some of the sessions were mixed gender. Nonetheless, participants generally found the experience empowering.
April Pattavina, a professor at UMass and chair of the School of Criminology and Justice who is not affiliated with Brave Behind Bars, praised the program in a statement.
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"By providing incarcerated individuals with an opportunity to develop digital literacy, the Brave Behind Bars program facilitates self-efficacy through a novel education model designed not only to expand access to the internet for individuals but also to teach them the navigation and web design skills needed to connect and engage with the communities to which they will return," said Pattavina. ®
Get our [16]Tech Resources
[1] https://bravebehindbars.org/
[2] https://www.apa.org/pi/aids/resources/education/self-efficacy
[3] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/devops&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=2&c=2Zip@H9uYnZ58lon0tcgp@QAAAJI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D2%26raptor%3Dcondor%26pos%3Dtop%26test%3D0
[4] https://groups.csail.mit.edu/hcie/files/research-projects/bbb/From_Prisons_to_Programming.pdf
[5] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/devops&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Zip@H9uYnZ58lon0tcgp@QAAAJI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[6] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/devops&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Zip@H9uYnZ58lon0tcgp@QAAAJI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[7] https://www.prisonpolicy.org/profiles/US.html
[8] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/devops&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=4&c=44Zip@H9uYnZ58lon0tcgp@QAAAJI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D4%26raptor%3Dfalcon%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[9] https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/prisoners-2022-statistical-tables
[10] https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/24/ads_on_gov_uk_websites/
[11] https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/24/apple_openelm_ai/
[12] https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/24/noncompetes_ban_ftc/
[13] https://www.theregister.com/2024/04/23/waymo_selfdriving_car_unicycle/
[14] https://regmedia.co.uk/2024/04/24/bravebehindbarswebsites.jpg
[15] https://pubads.g.doubleclick.net/gampad/jump?co=1&iu=/6978/reg_software/devops&sz=300x50%7C300x100%7C300x250%7C300x251%7C300x252%7C300x600%7C300x601&tile=3&c=33Zip@H9uYnZ58lon0tcgp@QAAAJI&t=ct%3Dns%26unitnum%3D3%26raptor%3Deagle%26pos%3Dmid%26test%3D0
[16] https://whitepapers.theregister.com/
Re: Yea, a big improvement
"The American prison activity for years has been only to punish everyone"
The American prison activity for years has been only to make money for the companies that run the jails, so it helps to keep their 'customers' in a position that they become regular visitors, e.g. by not attempting to rehabilitate or educate them or giving them anything to survive on when they leave.
Re: Yea, a big improvement
You forgot to mention the prison labour angle. When slavery was abolished in the US, to avoid any issue with hard labour sentences a provision was left in that you could still be sentenced to slavery if you committed a crime. This is still used today as a justification for assigning convicts to work in exchange for a fraction of a normal wage, with the profits from their labour going directly to the companies that operate the prisons.
Re: Yea, a big improvement
I hope they do some more of this work. Education is good. Literacy of uk criminals is poor. Improving literacy in criminals would be good.
Re: Yea, a big improvement
"But teaching everyone how to work honestly, and earn money to live on, is going to help."
It's a necessary first step. It also needs to be followed up with getting them into work.
I disagree
" one of the reasons the Land of the Free has the highest per capita incarceration rate in the world "
That is not the reason.
The reason is that prisons are private companies who have primed the law to send them people that other countries would use rehabilitation programs to get back on track.
The War on Drugs is just one good excuse to condemn users to jail instead of going after dealers - there's more of the former.
Then you have police entrapment with "hookers" who are just there to entice men to commit, then get cuffed.
That is why the Land of the Free has the highest incarceration rate. It's a business.
Re: I disagree
It is all due to fake hookers? My mind is boggled.
Maybe they did not see the public service announcement on how to deal with fake hookers:
https://youtu.be/ivkJIm79x18?si=4-fgjpQ0wP9TtlQt
Who'd have thought giving prisoners skills they can use on the outside to help them live and be part of society would have helped reduce re-offending rates?
Sure, prison has to have some element of punishment too - but helping give prisons options that don't revolve around crime are just as important.
Came to say pretty much this.
How come it comes as a surprise to learn that if you give people useful skills where they can be used to get a job and be self-sufficient, and with it, have greater self esteem, you see lower levels of recidivism?
Yes, punishment is a necessary component.
But treating prisoners like they are subhuman only goes on to perpetuate the issues.
You only have to look at places such as Norway to see how a prison system that is run properly can change the trajectory of a criminal's life.
Coding made me want to kill!
30+ years at the keyboard and the number of times I've wanted to smash the place up or kill irritating users, project managers and everyone who thinks they can do my job better than me....deep breaths....just a few more years to retirement.....
Re: Coding made me want to kill!
I mean that is true of everyone in every role in IT... :-)
Re: Coding made me want to kill!
Whenever someone tries to argue that FPS games lead to violence, I just have to think about the immense urge to go fully berserker that Microsoft Office can create.
An excess of self-efficacy might have been behind some offenders. "We're clever and they're just mugs."
Advanced education in prisons
Maybe passing advanced exams should reduce their prison time. A great motivator and win-win for society.
Jail, jail, the gang's all here, what the heck do we care. . .
Just don't teach them about cryptocurrencies, NFTs, and blockchain.
On the other hand, maybe Sam Bankrupt-Fraud will learn some useful skills while in stir for the next couple of decades or so. . .
Yea, a big improvement
The American prison activity for years has been only to punish everyone, not help the prisoners learn to avoid all criminal activity once they are released. But that has made it hard for a released prisoner to earn any money (they often just become "homeless") so the crime rates stay up in the US. But teaching everyone how to work honestly, and earn money to live on, is going to help.
This is based on watching the US situation for 40 years now and recently helping a homeless former pensioner who was trying to live but only being offered $10 a day for a job. His imprisonment was a result of being in a bar with a fight starting and then he worked to stop the fight, when the police arrived he was arrested but the court case had jailed him for 10 years, destroying his home life.