Why do I have to teach prisoners to learn programming-programming, programmers-IT information

Six years ago, I first entered San Quentin State prison. Before that, I never had experience working in a prison, especially in such a notorious prison.

After the arrival, went through a gate, I finally went to the main courtyard. I is to the right of Center, there lived many on death row, which is California′s most notorious criminals.

I was to the right of the Catholic Church, surrounded by manicured gardens. And I, as you say, at the junction of heaven and Hell′s Gate.

The Sun, I go on the road, through the protective Tower into a lower garden. There, hundreds of men dressed in blue are exercising, playing chess, or just walking around.

To be honest, as such I question whether my decision to come here was correct.

These people here to learn how to create better life after his released from prison

Under the leadership of others, I went to a classroom. According to the rules I should listen to this group of people to teach entrepreneurship courses.

When I started talking, I noticed that the men say to me every word are very focused, everyone was so absorbed was in no way distracted. Plus the prison does not allow use of cell phones, they are without phone interruptions.

After my speech, the venue went up in a burst of enthusiastic applause. 30-minute speech was fully discussed by them for two hours. It is clear that these men have been poised, passionate and make unremitting efforts to create a better life after their release from prison.

I never would have thought of these social misfits who was showing such little-known side.

After leaving prison that night I was excited. In my early-stage venture capital for many years, I worked in the Silicon Valley with many aspiring entrepreneurs have for a long time. So I take it in the same way and people in prisons such cooperation?

I am very excitedly told his wife, Beverly, and out of my plan.

Her first reaction was "I′m not going to spend their time in prison. ”

I let her open mind before arriving at a decision. I want her to help me with my United States prison system to do some research and go to San Quentin prison to meet my day guys.

After the investigation, learned that United States prison system faces problems, we are unusually transfixed by:

1972-2010 United States prison population increased by 700%.

United States prisoners around the world 25%.

In California, our investment in prisons than higher education.

In a California prison, in order to watch over a criminal, we spent a year 4 $ 7000 (about RMB 304,300).

In 2005, more than 67% of State prison inmates were arrested again within three years of release. Even though we are not professional investors can imagine it is a bad investment for taxpayers.

If we can reduce the 5% again, then we can save billions of expenditure over the next ten years. However, if these criminals are modified, these problems will always be there.

In 2010, we and the California Bureau of prisons (California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation) and the California prison industry authority (California Prison Industry Authority, referred to as CalPIA) organized a six-month project, called the "last mile" To take full advantage of our investment practice in some of the disciplines involved. We cooperate and those with lengthy criminal prisoners, some of them even had a history of violent crime cases. (However, we do not cooperate with death-row inmates and offenders against children. ）

Our graduates have no one person was jailed again

We tell these men to his own passion to start, instructing them on how to start your own business plan. In the first class to graduate, James Houston started a non-profit project, working on his laoshequ some criminally inclined young people have a positive impact. James started an after-school project called youth science and Technology Center, 10-14-year-olds provides application development and basic programming courses. After serving 18 years in prison sentence, James went back to Richmond, California, continue to pursue your dreams. He found a job at Richmond, and plan to launch in the fall of 2016 Youth Science Center project.

In 2014, we carried out programming in shengkunding prison. 7370 project, this is the United States prison the first computer programming projects, results achieved are remarkable. Some of our graduates will be released from prison this year, we believe that they will become a software engineer. Them by virtue of hard work, strong will to overcome a series of difficult obstacles, paving a way for the future active shining path.

This year the program. 7370 project will be carried out in five prisons promotion, including two women′s prisons. We hope that in the next five years to create a national prison project.

Beverly and I have had this as a lifelong career, "last miles" project is our lifelong pursuit. We sincerely thank those incredible people to diligently work, makes our project brings such a powerful experience. We are coming back for those graduates are proud of the work of the city, and none of them were returned to the prison. Meanwhile, they also provide a bright road was later paved.

In this regard, the "last mile" James Cavitt conducted an oral presentation, one of the founders, at TED2016 show in the John Legend show.

为什么我要教囚犯学编程 - 编程,程序员 - IT资讯

六年前，我首次进入圣昆丁州立监狱工作。在此之前，我从未有过在监狱工作的经验，尤其是在这样一个臭名昭著的监狱工作。

抵达之后，穿过一道道大门，我最终走到了主庭院。我的右侧是改造中心，那里住着众多死刑犯，其中还有一些是加利福尼亚州最为臭名昭著的罪犯。

我的右侧是天主教教堂，四周环绕着精心修剪的花园。而我，如人们所说，处在天堂与地狱之门的交界处。

太阳落山时，我走在路上，穿过防护塔，走进一个更低一点的庭院。在那里，数以百计穿着蓝色衣服的男人正在锻炼、下棋或者只是到处走动。

老实说，就这一点而言我有些质疑自己来这儿的决定是否正确了。

这些人在这里是要学习自己刑满释放后如何创造更好的生活

在别人的带领下，我来到一间教室。按照规定我应该给来听讲的这一组人讲授一些创业课程。

当我开始说话时，我注意到这些男人们对我说的每一个字都异常专注，每个人都是那么的聚精会神，丝毫不会分心。加上监狱里不允许使用手机，他们也不会受到手机的干扰。

我的演讲完毕后，会场里响起了一阵阵热烈的掌声。30分钟的演讲竟然让他们足足讨论了两个小时。很明显，这些男人们已经蓄势待发、充满激情地正在为刑满释放后创造美好生活而不懈努力。

我怎么也没有想到这些与社会格格不入的人竟然呈现出了这样不为人知的一面。

那天晚上离开监狱之后我的心情格外兴奋。在我早期从事风险投资的许多年里，我曾在硅谷与许多充满抱负的企业家合作过很长时间。那么我是否可以以同样的方式和监狱里的人们如此合作呢？

我很激动地把自己的想法告诉了妻子Beverly，并且说出了我的计划。

她的第一反应是“我不会在监狱犯人身上花费时间。”

我让她在作出决定之前先开阔一下思维。我想让她帮助我对美国的监禁系统做些研究，并且去圣昆丁监狱见一见我那天见到的男人们。

调查后，得知美国监狱系统如今面临的问题，我们异常震惊：

1972到2010年间，美国监狱服刑人数增加了700%。

美国服刑人员约占世界的25%。

在加利福尼亚，我们在监狱上的投资远远超过高等教育。

在加利福尼亚的监狱里，为了看管一个罪犯，我们每年要花掉4，7000美元（约30.43万元人民币）。

2005年，超过67%的州立监狱犯人在释放后的三年之内再次被捕。即使我们不是专业投资者也可以想象出这对纳税人来说是一笔多么糟糕的投资。

如果我们可以减少5%的再犯，那么就可以在接下来的十年节省数十亿的开支。但是，如果不对这些罪犯加以改造，这些问题将始终存在。

2010年，我们和加利福尼亚监狱管理局（California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation）以及加利福尼亚监狱工业局（California Prison Industry Authority，简称CalPIA）合作举办了一个为期六个月的创业项目，叫做“最后的里程”，以充分利用我们在投资实践中所涉及的一些学科。我们和那些多次犯罪的犯人们合作，他们中的一些人甚至有暴力案件的犯罪史。（但是我们不和死刑犯以及侵害儿童的犯人合作。）

我们的毕业生没有一人再次被捕入狱

我们告诉这些男人们要凭着自己的激情去创业，指导他们如何开创自己的创业计划。最早毕业的一个班里，James Houston开创了一项非营利项目，致力于对他所在的老社区一些有犯罪倾向的年轻人产生积极影响。James开办了一个叫做青少年科技中心的课余项目，为10到14岁的孩子提供应用程序开发和基本编程课程。在监狱服满18年刑期后，James回到加利福尼亚的里士满，继续追求自己的梦想。他在里士满市找到了工作，并且计划在2016年秋天开展青少年科技中心项目。

2014年，我们在圣昆丁监狱开展了编程.7370项目，这是美国监狱的第一项计算机编程项目，取得的成果也是非凡卓著的。我们的一些毕业生将会在今年刑满释放，我们也相信他们一定会成为软件程序工程师。他们凭借着勤奋的工作、坚强的意志克服了一系列艰难的障碍，为自己的未来铺就了一条积极向上的光明之路。

今年，编程.7370项目将会在另外五个监狱进行推广，包括两个女子监狱。我们希望在下一个五年能够创造出一个国家性的监狱项目。

Beverly和我将这当成了终生的事业，“最后的里程”项目是我们毕生的追求。我们由衷地感谢那些令人难以置信的人们能够孜孜不倦地耕耘，让我们的项目带来如此强大有力的体验。我们为那些重新回到城市认真工作的毕业生们感到骄傲，他们中没有一人再次返回监狱。同时，他们还为后来者铺就了一条光明大道。

对此，“最后的里程”创始者之一James Cavitt进行了一次口头演讲，在TED2016 John Legend的节目中有所展现。