Is Prison Labor Slavery -- Or Liberating?
There's an LA Times op-ed by Chandra Bozelko:
When a prison inmate prays for release from her cell, prison industries can be her first salvation. I couldn't wait to head to work in the kitchen of the maximum-security women's prison in Connecticut where I did six years for identity theft and related crimes. I was paid 75 cents to $1.75 a day to make and serve a lot of casserole. Yet I consider most of the criticism lobbed at prison labor -- that it's a form of slavery, a capitalist horror show -- unfair, and even counterproductive in the effort to reform the justice system.Among the firefighters on California's fire lines this fall, 30% to 40% are inmates, paid $1 an hour to work side by side with crews making a lot more money. Some inmate firefighters have gone on the record saying they feel the same way I do about prison jobs. It's people on the outside who rail against prison work assignments, particularly hiring prisoners to fight fires.
...My prison job made me feel like I was fulfilling my existential duty to society: I was contributing. It doesn't surprise me that prison work assignments are credited with reducing recidivism. Any change for good that happened within me while I was incarcerated grew out of my job. If I feel that way about my time making chicken a la king, an inmate who's saving lives fighting fires must feel it 10 times over.
Some call prison labor the new Jim Crow because of the outsized number of black and brown inmates in U.S. prisons. It's a facile charge, and worse, it may be keeping progressive companies away from prison projects. Socially conscious businesses and agencies are likely to pay inmates higher wages, train them for better jobs and do more to prepare them for life after prison -- if those companies aren't scared away by vociferous critics of prison labor.
...Work is more than a wage, it's an expression of humanity, and that is especially true in prison. To even consider ridding our prisons of inmate work assignments is dehumanizing to the thousands of firefighters who are risking their lives in California. Keeping them on the fire line is one of the best things the state can do for its citizens, incarcerated or not.
I know that doing things that are meaningful -- even small things -- makes a difference in whether I have energy or anomie.
It's why, when I'm writing something particularly hard, I make myself do cleaning tasks during my breaks. At least I got a stretch of baseboard de-dingied, even if I didn't figure out a coherent way to say what I was hoping to say.
It's easy to jump to the conclusion that prison labor is prisoner abuse, but I can see Bozelko's points.
A commenter, mkf0914, writes in the LAT:
Just yesterday the Prison Policy institute released figures on the numbers of women detained and incarcerated in the United States, buried in the data portion of the study is some key data "Separately, note that we did not include a breakdown of the slices by race or ethnicity, because that data does not exist.All together, however, incarcerated women are 53% White, 28.6% Black, 14.2% Hispanic, 2.5% American Indian and Alaskan Native, 0.9% Asian, and 0.4% Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander."
I am part of that 53%, I am a college educated white female.
Because I had a college degree and had a steady work history prior to my incarceration the only thing I could do was to work. It was an escape, it was mind-numbing work but I embraced it, I cleaned toilets, I mopped floors and I washed pots and pans, it was a humbling experience but I felt it was part and parcel of the experience.
The women "volunteer" in CA to fight those fires, they have to pass extensive training and a rigorous physical test to qualify for those jobs.
What is misleading and often misquoted is that they are paid $2 plus $1 an hour to fight those fires to me those women are dedicated and very passionate about the work they do and willing to risk their life to fight those fires, they are not slaves and neither was I when I was scrubbing those toilets in the officer's bathroom.
I agree with this commenter, 25th Amendment!:
All prisoners should be required to work and study. We should put them to work planting and picking crops in our fields, cleaning public spaces, and building parks. I hate the idea of prisoners pumping iron, watching TV, scheming, hanging around idle--that's a recipe for recidivism.
https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/media/publications/toxicsweatshops_unicor_recycling_2006.pdf
https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2014/mar/15/businesses-members-of-congress-not-happy-with-unicor/
Daniel at October 21, 2017 10:04 PM
As I have mentioned on previous threads - the Jewish Bible describes a form of indentured servitude rather than prison.
Call it "work-study".
Does a lot more to rehabilitate a criminal than sitting idle.
I would not be averse to paying better money so that younger offenders can build a nest egg, and training them on budgeting and money management.Better use of my tax dollar than most of the War On Drugs/War On Crime nonsense (including paramilitary equipment for street cops).
Ben David at October 22, 2017 3:52 AM
I do have some problem with this: Having prisoners work for prisons, when those prisons are private companies. A private company could be paid to manage a state-owned prison, but I don't think private entities should be imprisoning people.
As long as prisons are state-owned, yes, prisoners should work. People have to work outside of prison, in order to support themselves. I'm not seeing why it should be any different inside a prison. Developing the habit of working is a necessary part of rehabilitation, for a large part of the prison population.
On top of the obvious benefits, it also keeps prisoners busy. What else are they supposed to do all day?
a_random_guy at October 22, 2017 4:44 AM
I'll go along with a_random_guy. As long as prisons are run by the government, I see no problem with the work requirements of prison.
As for their slave wages, they get three meals a day, room and board, plus recreational activities, like television and the weight room. Plus reasonable dental and medical care.
Given all aspects of their lives that are covered by the tax payers, they should consider themselves fortunate that they get any "take-home" pay at all. And it isn't meant to be a vacation. It's punishment, rehabilitation and to protect the greater society.
Patrick at October 22, 2017 6:29 AM
I know a guy who got sent to prison two years ago when he was 80 years old because, as he puts it, "I been a bad boy." After he was in there for about three months he got offered a job that was six hours a day, five days a week, for 41 cents an hour. He jumped at the opportunity and is very happy to have a job and be able to buy stuff with money that's his.
Ken R at October 22, 2017 9:07 AM
We should rename People Against Prison Labor as SJWs For Recidivism And Butt-Rape.
mpetrie98 at October 22, 2017 9:34 AM
"I'll go along with a_random_guy. As long as prisons are run by the government, I see no problem with the work requirements of prison."
I have one problem with it, and that's when prison labor is competing unfairly with private industry. We've all seen some of those "prisoners for hire" rackets where, say, a road construction contractor can get prison labor and pay less than minimum wage for it, and not have to take out taxes or pay for benefits.
But in general, having prisoners work is a good thing. As a long-ago blogger who had a Ph.D. in criminal justice once told me, "The reason rehabilitation doesn't work is because most criminals were never habilitated in the first place." A lot of them don't know anything about "how to have a job"; they have never learned the habits of showing up for work on time, taking orders, or learning job responsibilities. They've also never learned about delayed gratification, about how to save money, or even how to open a bank account or write a check. And a lot of them, due to lack of primary schooling, are illiterate and innumerate, so they can't read printed instructions, and sums of money mean nothing to them (which means they get cheated a lot in transactions).
Clearly prison labor is a situation that provides openings for abuses, so some care in setting things up is required. I'm of two minds about whether or not it should be a requirement that prison labor be voluntary. On the one hand, requiring that it be voluntary would help keep abuses in check. On the other hand, sometimes you have to make children do stuff that they don't want to do, so that they can become adults. Same situation here.
Cousin Dave at October 23, 2017 7:03 AM
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