Re:Working in a Prison Goat Milk Farm
by icebraining on Friday July 21, 2017 @03:34AM
(#14818730)
the problem is that many (or most?) of the prisoners are now in private prisons
It's actually around 8%: http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2017/04/11/u-s-private-...
http://time.com/4596081/incarceration-report/ 39% of prisoners shouldn't be in prison. Per Time magazine, not exactly the most liberal news publication I can think of.
Prison labor transfers wealth from prisoners by paying them less so that the companies that employ them can save money.
The labor issue isn't a clear cut ethical no-no. Working to a productive end is one of the few rehabilitative avenues available. I'm pretty sure these type of jobs are seen as sought after privileges.
Private prisons are most often jails (ie. short term, not places that do this) and do not represent the majority of prisoners.
Sometimes advocates publish misleading figures about this by focusing on prisoners staying in contracted out facilities. The majority of those are prison beds in county jails. These are used to relieve over crowding, house prisoners closer to trial location or otherwise reduce transport. In some places, counties run these as a revenue generator.
1) Just because you're in prison, doesn't mean you deserve to be treated like a work animal. Some people are in there for serial murders, while the vast majority are there for theft, tax fraud, smoking marijuana, etc - maybe even for "resisting arrest".
2) Even if what you said made "economic sense", while disregarding any human rights the prisoners might have, the problem is that many (or most?) of the prisoners are now in private prisons. That means those prisons get both the taxpayer money and the free labor. So both the taxpayers and the prisoners lose, while the private prisons score a double-win. Do you think that's how it should work, too?