Inmates Are Using VR To Learn Real-World Skills 36
Corrections systems are using simulators to provide incarcerated individuals with more lifelike instruction. But is it working? From a report: Atorrus Rainer, 41, is standing in the center of a stuffy room wearing a virtual-reality headset. Every so often, he extends his arm, using the VR controller to pick up garbage bags, a toothbrush, and toilet paper during a simulated trip to the supermarket. The self-checkout station overwhelms him: those didn't exist in 2001, when Rainer, then a teenager, was sentenced to more than 100 years in prison. His first experience with one is this virtual interaction taking place inside Fremont Correctional Facility, a medium-security prison about two hours south of Denver. Rainer is practicing in the hopes of stepping into a real store in the near future through an initiative launched in Colorado in 2017 in response to US Supreme Court rulings that deemed juvenile life without parole sentences unconstitutional. People who meet certain requirements -- for example, if they were under 21 when they committed felony crimes and have been incarcerated for a minimum of 20 to 30 years -- can apply to work through the three-year Juveniles and Young Adults Convicted as Adults Program (JYACAP) in an effort to earn early parole.
The premise of JYACAP is that learning the basic skills they missed the chance to acquire while incarcerated will provide these juvenile lifers with their best chances for success upon release. That's a formidable challenge. Because of safety concerns, they have had limited access to the internet. Though they're now adults, many have never used, or even seen, a smartphone or a laptop. Or had a credit card. "We had to figure out a way of giving them these opportunities in a restricted environment," says Melissa Smith, interim director of prisons for the Colorado Department of Corrections. Though its use is not yet widespread, a handful of state corrections departments, from Ohio to New Mexico, have turned to virtual reality as an answer. The goals vary from helping reduce aggressive behavior to facilitating empathy with victims to, as in Colorado's case, reducing recidivism. Though the state's prison budget sits close to $1 billion, Colorado has one of the worst return-to-prison rates in the country, at around 50%. Nationally, as many as two-thirds of the 600,000 people released from state and federal prisons each year will be rearrested within three years.
The premise of JYACAP is that learning the basic skills they missed the chance to acquire while incarcerated will provide these juvenile lifers with their best chances for success upon release. That's a formidable challenge. Because of safety concerns, they have had limited access to the internet. Though they're now adults, many have never used, or even seen, a smartphone or a laptop. Or had a credit card. "We had to figure out a way of giving them these opportunities in a restricted environment," says Melissa Smith, interim director of prisons for the Colorado Department of Corrections. Though its use is not yet widespread, a handful of state corrections departments, from Ohio to New Mexico, have turned to virtual reality as an answer. The goals vary from helping reduce aggressive behavior to facilitating empathy with victims to, as in Colorado's case, reducing recidivism. Though the state's prison budget sits close to $1 billion, Colorado has one of the worst return-to-prison rates in the country, at around 50%. Nationally, as many as two-thirds of the 600,000 people released from state and federal prisons each year will be rearrested within three years.
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will they learn how to shoplift at one of them?
Re:Yawn. (Score:4)
will they learn how to shoplift at one of them?
Just because someone is a murderer doesn't make them a thief.
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will they learn how to shoplift at one of them?
Considering that prisons are basically a graduate school for crime, they'll probably figure out how to do things like improve their safe-cracking skills with them.
Re:Yawn. (Score:4, Interesting)
Most people "on the outside" don't use them
I guess, for various definitions of "most".
it's not actually faster than going through a normal checkout line
Speak for yourself.
I still don't understand the vitriol for self-checkouts. I love them, and would MUCH rather use one than go through the "normal" line. They've gotten pretty good, to the point of needing assistance is rare. I'm faster than most of the checkout clerks. And I don't have to deal with some underpaid overworked retail drone beating the crap out of my produce.
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I never voluntarily go through the "regular" checkouts. Self checkout is faster and easier. No one judging me if I buy 20 cans of chunky soup. Although I do miss the looks you could get buying a cucumber, extra large tub of vaseline, and duct tape.
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Although I do miss the looks you could get buying a cucumber, extra large tub of vaseline, and duct tape.
It's not quite the same as the good old days when Walmart had a pet department and you could buy a gerbil, a box of condoms, some rope, and a ski mask.
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You can still get some interesting looks if you buy a pregnancy test kit and a pack of wire coathangers.
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I still don't understand the vitriol for self-checkouts.
Makes no sense to me either. Self-checkout is almost always faster, I can verify the prices as I scan, and there is no cashier to cough on me and wipe boogers on my groceries.
During the pandemic, some people praised cashiers and said they risked their lives for us. No. They were risking their lives because some people are a-holes who refuse to self-checkout.
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Eh, when they start paying me to do it I'll be happy to check my own groceries. Otherwise I'm not interested in doing a job people are paid for for free just so a major corporation can boost their profits.
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To each their own. You look at is something you have to do, I look at is something I'd rather do. Honestly, I will rarely go to a non-self-checkout, even if there's no line for the checker. Just my preference.
...just so a major corporation can boost their profits.
Normally I'd agree with you, but this one isn't 100% about profits. Yes, that is absolutely part if it, but people (meaning the general public/shoppers) are fuckin assholes. As a whole, we've turned into a bunch of whiny, narcissistic, entitled assholes, who have no respect for people. People just
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Absolutely to each their own on the first part but your last part I dont think is correct. I do IT for a small chain of employee owned grocery stores and outside of that window of time when the entire service industry was having a labor shortage (which happened several years after the big roll outs of self checkout stands at major retailers) we have no problems getting checkers as far as I have ever heard. Self checkout is definitely just a means to shift work to major retailers customers to save on payroll
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Well yes, from everything I heard and saw customers were indeed worse during COVID. Something about having to put a piece of cloth over ones face makes some people absolutely insane and these types don't seem to have any problem abusing employees who are just implementing policy they are legally required to implement. COVID is more or less over though.
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"when they start paying me to do it I'll be happy to check my own groceries"
When they start paying me to stand in line I'll be happy to let someone else check my groceries.
"a job people are paid for for free just so a major corporation can boost their profits"
If they eliminated the self-checkouts they wouldn't add more cashiers, they'd just let the lines get longer.
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If they eliminated the self-checkouts they wouldn't add more cashiers, they'd just let the lines get longer
Then they better offer really good pricing because people will shop elsewhere if the lines are always bad at a business.
Kids are using GTA to learn... (Score:3)
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What's wrong with using fire-trucks to extinguish blazes, and using taxies to transport NPCs? They seem like real world skills to me.
and where is the VR prison so they do 700 years (Score:2)
and where is the VR prison so they do 700 years that some have to serve off.
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and where is the VR prison so they do 700 years that some have to serve off.
Maybe you're already in it right now.
It's turtles all the way down, man!
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I don't care if he was a juvenile, they should still throw away the key on these people.
Not long back, in New Orleans...4 juveniles car jacked an elderly lady, I think she was in the 70's range.
They were so brutal...they drug her out, leaving her arm tangled in the seatbelt and drug her in the car till her arm severed....and she bled to death in the street.
They have vi
Re:and where is the VR prison so they do 700 years (Score:4, Funny)
> and where is the VR prison
We prefer the term "cubicle". VR prison makes the workers anxious.
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Hahah, I forgot that meme actually exists. It's the Wage Cage 9000:
https://knowyourmeme.com/photo... [knowyourmeme.com]
Surprisingly real issue (Score:5, Interesting)
I was in a restroom that had automatically flushing toilets, some kind of IR sensor that notices when you leave. I had someone ask me how to flush the toilet. He explained that he had recently been released from a long prison stay and didn't know how to flush a modern toilet. He commented on how many simple things like that had changes while he was inside. I kind of felt sorry for him, good news is that most things got easier and all he had to do was walk away.
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some time the IR sensors don't work that well even in places where you think they can do better like Las Vegas casinos
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He seemed nice enough, genuine, probably in his early 60s. More comfortable sparking up conversation at the urinal than me for sure, somehow I avoided publi-pee-a-phobia.
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True enough. Knew of a guy that got released from prison in the early 2000s. He had been in since the Kennedy administration. He might as well been released to Alpha Centauri. That's several generations of technology just placed in his lap.
Difficulty being prisons are havens for graft and corruption (not only inmates but the prisons themselves). Most can't even get bare minimum health care. I see several boondoggles arising from this.
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It's a bad technology. It won't flush unless you step away. If you stand there trying to figure out how to flush it, it will never flush.
Here are some great ideas (Score:1)
What if (Score:2)
I don't pay back the virtual pod boss the virtual soups and virual honey bun that I owe him? Will I get virtually shanked?
top course (Score:2)
It seems that the top course was "locksmith training."