会见曾被监禁的软件工程师，他们为911打造了没有警察的替代品

Our society has been deeply wounded by mass incarceration. The way we will heal is by centering the skills, experiences, and work of those that most intimately know its impacts. That’s why at Emergent Works, all our engineering teams are made up of at least 50% justice-involved software engineers.

大规模监禁使我们的社会深受伤害。 我们将通过集中最了解其影响的人员的技能，经验和工作来进行治疗。 因此，在Emergent Works，我们所有的工程团队都由至少50％涉及司法的软件工程师组成。

Emergent Works (previously Code Cooperative) is a nonprofit software company that trains and employs formerly incarcerated people. Our learning model is unique. We pair formerly incarcerated apprentices with senior software engineers on client projects so that our apprentices learn through paid, real work experience. Our senior software engineers get to do work that they believe in and our clients get exceptional software while knowing they are contributing to a cause that they care about.

Emergent Works (以前称为Code Cooperative)是一家非营利软件公司，负责培训和雇用以前被监禁的人员。 我们的学习模式是独一无二的。 我们将以前被监禁的学徒与高级软件工程师配对进行客户项目，以便我们的学徒通过有偿的实际工作经验学习。 我们的高级软件工程师可以从事他们认为值得信赖的工作，而我们的客户可以在知道他们为自己关心的事业做出贡献的同时获得出色的软件。

After the killing of George Floyd, we felt compelled to use our skills to respond to this critical moment. We asked our engineering team to build a vision for the change that they wanted to see in the world. And they did.

在乔治·弗洛伊德(George Floyd)被杀之后，我们感到不得不运用自己的技能来应对这一关键时刻。 我们要求我们的工程团队为他们希望在世界上看到的变化建立愿景。 他们做到了。

Not911 is a mobile app for resolving community-level issues without police involvement. Not911 allows users to choose from a variety of city, state, federal, and nonprofit agencies to address issues ranging from domestic violence to homelessness, without police intervention.

Not911是一款无需警方介入即可解决社区级问题的移动应用程序。 Not911允许用户从各种城市，州，联邦和非营利性机构中进行选择，以解决从家庭暴力到无家可归的各种问题，而无需警察干预。

The team that built Not911 was led by Ross Patton, a 33-year-old software engineer with a graphic design background, and Tomás, 38, who grew up on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and spent some time away at the Otisville Correctional Facility before finding his way to Justice Through Code, a ten-week coding boot camp at Columbia University.

创立Not911的团队由拥有图形设计背景的33岁的软件工程师Ross Patton和38岁的Tomás带领，他在曼哈顿下东区长大，并在Otisville惩教所度过了一段时间。在找到通向《通过代码进行正义》 ( Justice Through Code)的方式之前，这是哥伦比亚大学为期十周的编程新手训练营。

For Tomás, building Not911 was deeply personal. “Being able to circumvent the police and still get your needs met is a beautiful thing. The first thing that comes to mind is a person on parole. If they were to fall off a bike and need assistance and call an ambulance, the police would come and they could have their parole violated for police contact.”

对于Tomás而言，构建Not911深深地属于个人。 “能够规避警察并仍然满足您的需求是一件很美好的事情。 首先想到的是假释人员。 如果他们从自行车上摔下来，需要帮助并打电话给救护车，警察会来，他们可能会因假释而与警察联系。”

Ross joined Emergent Works as a senior software engineer earlier this year. “Part of the reason I quit my job was because I didn’t think I was doing any good. I’ve liked my jobs, I’ve liked my teams, I’ve even liked my bosses, but at the end of the day I was always cognizant of the fact that I wasn’t making the world a better place.”

Ross于今年年初加入Emergent Works，担任高级软件工程师。 “我辞职的部分原因是因为我认为自己没有做任何事情。 我喜欢我的工作，喜欢我的团队，甚至喜欢我的老板，但最终，我始终意识到我没有使世界变得更美好。

It has been incredibly meaningful for Ross to mentor Tomás. “I haven’t been in jail; I don’t know what that experience is like. But one thing I do relate to is this feeling that the tech industry is really hard to break into, and that the industry is for a certain type of person. There’s value in taking people that have been told that they can’t do this or it’s not for them and actually showing them that anyone can do this. This industry wants you to believe that it’s only for super-geniuses, but it’s really for anybody that wants to do it.”

对于Ross指导Tomás来说，这意义非凡。 “我还没有入狱； 我不知道那是什么样的经历。 但是我涉及的一件事是这种感觉，认为技术行业确实很难闯入，而且该行业是针对特定类型的人的。 让那些被告知他们做不到或不是为他们做的人有价值，并向他们展示任何人都可以做到这一点。 这个行业希望您相信这仅适用于超级天才，但实际上适用于任何想要这样做的人。”

We fund our work on projects like Not911 with revenue earned through working with clients, like the Brooklyn-based startup Smallhold. Our team at Smallhold was led by Johann Diedrick, a 33-year-old Brooklyn-based software engineer and sound artist.

我们通过与客户合作(例如位于布鲁克林的创业公司Smallhold)获得的收入来资助Not911等项目的工作。 我们在Smallhold的团队由33岁的布鲁克林软件工程师兼录音师Johann Diedrick领导。

For Johann, who spent several years as a software engineer for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, working on the Emergent Works team has been an experience like no other. “We’re not just focused on criminal justice reform, we’re also trying to center Black engineers in the process. In my career, with very few exceptions, I have been the only Black engineer in the room. Here, my voice is heard, my opinion matters in a way that it hadn’t previously.”

对于曾在大都会艺术博物馆(Metropolitan Museum of Art)担任软件工程师数年的Johann而言，与Emergent Works团队合作一直是无与伦比的经历。 “我们不仅专注于刑事司法改革，我们还试图在此过程中以黑人工程师为中心。 在我的职业生涯中，除少数例外，我一直是会议室中唯一的黑人工程师。 在这里，我的声音被听到了，我的意见以前所未有的方式发挥了作用。”

Antwan, who apprenticed with Johann on Smallhold, is 52. Originally from Baltimore, Antwan spent four years in the Marine Corps and was studying Electrical Engineering when the police came knocking at his door in 2004. He had served time previously for dealing drugs but was now facing 35 years to life in prison for three armed robberies he hadn’t committed. “I took the plea, but now I have violent felonies on my record. Violent crime is looked at very differently.”

安特旺(Antwan)在约翰·史密斯(Smallhold)的学徒班，现年52岁。他最初来自巴尔的摩，在海军陆战队工作了四年，2004年警察来敲他的门，当时他正在研究电气工程。现在因未曾犯下的三起武装抢劫罪而被判入狱35年。 “我恳求，但现在我的记录中有暴力重罪。 暴力犯罪的看法截然不同。”

Antwan hasn’t been able to find stable employment since he came home in 2009. He fell in love with code earlier this year and was also connected to Emergent Works through the Justice Through Code program. “I’ve always had a technical mind. That’s what’s driving me, that memory of who I was before incarceration.”

自2009年回家以来，安特旺(Astwan)一直找不到稳定的工作。今年早些时候，他爱上了规范，并通过“通过规范司法”计划与Emergent Works保持联系。 “我一直都有技术头脑。 那就是驱使我的，对我被监禁之前的记忆。”

We know that the circumstances that led someone to end up in prison do not define who they are and what they can do. And our clients agree. “Emergent Works’ mission-driven, mentorship-based work-model delivered a rare and ideal combination of passion, expertise, and organization, typically a ‘pick two’ problem. The design, documentation, and implementation of our project were professional, on-schedule, and specifically tailored to our needs.” — Ed Bear, Smallhold.

我们知道，导致某人入狱的情况并不能确定他们是谁以及他们可以做什么。 并且我们的客户同意。 “ Emergent Works的任务驱动型，基于导师制的工作模型提供了激情，专业知识和组织的罕见而理想的结合，通常是“两个问题”。 我们的项目的设计，文档和实施是专业的，按计划的，并且专门针对我们的需求量身定制。” —埃德·比尔(Ed Bear)，小霍尔德(Smallhold)。

The perspectives, experiences, and voices of formerly incarcerated people are needed in the tech industry. We are all responsible for healing the wounds of mass incarceration. At Emergent Works, we are building a new kind of software company. One that is rooted in these beliefs.

科技行业需要以前被监禁的人的观点，经验和声音。 我们所有人都有责任治愈大规模监禁的伤口。 在Emergent Works，我们正在建立一种新型的软件公司。 根植于这些信念的一种。

If you believe in this dream too, we would love to work with you. Visit emergentworks.org for more information and email agency@emergentworks.org if you’d like to hire us.

如果您也相信这个梦想，我们很乐意与您合作。 如果您想雇用我们，请访问emergentworks.org以获取更多信息，并发送电子邮件至agency@emergentworks.org 。

Not911 was built by Tomás, Ross Patton, Johann Diedrick, Ashley Newcomer, Army Armstead, Lauren Wilkinson, Christina Entcheva, and Jaclyn Perrone. It is currently available for download on Android devices and as a web app at http://not911.nyc.

Not911由Tomás，Ross Patton，Johann Diedrick，Ashley Newcomer，陆军Armstead，Lauren Wilkinson，Christina Entcheva和Jaclyn Perrone建造。 当前可以在Android设备上下载，也可以作为Web应用程序从http://not911.nyc下载。

(The Apple App Store has not yet approved the app. If you have an iPhone, you can use the web app at http://not911.nyc)

(Apple App Store尚未批准该应用程序。如果您有iPhone，则可以使用Web应用程序，网址为http://not911.nyc )

This piece was written by Trevor Scotland and edited by Alex Qin. Photos by Sara Laufer.

这篇文章是由Trevor Scotland撰写并由Alex Qin编辑的。 Sara Laufer的照片。