But we don't provide that stuff either. Most prisoners have to pay for basically everything but the bed they sleep on, prison clothing, and food - which is sometimes bad. Need soap? Tampons? Underwear? Be prepared to buy it. We don't provide halfway houses for everyone either [1]. No job placement after getting out. No help finding housing nor any money to start a life. Parole officers often won't work around work hours, so folks have to take off work to see them.

I don't really mind prisoners doing basic upkeep in prisons (housekeeping, laundry, food prep, and things like that) for a few hours a week. This sort of thing is normal in a household, after all, and part of being a productive member of society. Anything outside of that is slave labor if you aren't getting paid anything but a pittance for it and have nothing to show for it when you leave. I don't mind it being reduced minimum wage (25-33% less, for example), but it should be more than it is.

If anything, prisoners would have a fund saved up for when they leave. We wouldn't have to make the prisoners families suffer if they can send money home for food and such. And they could buy basic toiletries.

[1] https://www.lawyers.com/legal-info/criminal/criminal-law-bas...

> I’m not sure prisons should offer gainful employment to prisoners.

> Teaching, training, therapy, yes, please, absolutely. Humane conditions and treatment from the guards most definitely.

> But minimum wage? I’m not sure. I like the idea of innates being able to complete their sentence with some funds they’ve saved up to help get back on their feet. But that’s what halfway houses are supposed to support I guess?

So, don't let people save on their own and instead force them into a new aspect of the justice system upon "release"? Didn't they serve their time in prison? Why prolong the sentence and force them to remain in the system?

Prisons should absolutely offer gainful employment because that's one of the best ways they can be reintegrated into society which I would hope is the goal of prison!

If prisoners could be given a living wage then I would bet you would have less of them returning to selling drugs etc in order to survive because they leave prison with literally nothing to their name.

Well, that's the core of the disagreement -- some people think prisons should be purely punitive.

Those people are spiteful twats.

I'm not defending the position but it is, for example, officially the position of the state of Florida.

Isn't that a problem with modern society in general that sustenance equals employment, barring some exceptions, that are more or less hated depending on the current political climate?

Also, what if they cannot find jobs paying living wage? Wouldn't they just be more motivated to return to prison?

what constitutes a "living wage" when you don't have to pay rent or buy food?

hmmm, about this not having to pay rent - prisoners with partners and children currently can't pay their chunk of the rent, but I bet many would, if they could.

Either you like a rule for minimum wage or you dont, if you start choosing who gets it you subvert the very core principle that people deserve a sustenance wage.

It would be reasonable to devote 10-20% of the wages to prison maintenance or victims reparations, but saying their labor is worth 1$ is preposterous.

There are a lot of rules and regulations which do not apply to prisoners. Likewise there are a lot of rules and regulations which only apply to prisoners.

It’s not unreasonable to treat prisoners as a unique population / special case. They are not incarcerated so that they can continue gainful employment.

Prisoners should not be getting paid to cook, clean, do laundry, etc. to help operate the prison, for example.

My understanding was jobs that provided for options to work outside the prison (like cleaning up roadside garbage) were coveted chances to get outside and maybe earn some time off for community service.

Court ordered community service can also be a reasonable punishment instead of incarceration.

The prisons are a service for the free people to have safety, they should paid by them. It is insidious to make prisoners pay for the prison, they are not the recipients of the service, its just adding a layer of oppression.

But if you dont like a moral argument, make it an economic one. Each prisoner in california costs like 100k a year: if you paid them reasonable salaries, and they reduce re-incarceration rates you will be saving orders of magnitude more money.

How is making prisoners pay for the prison any different than a court fining someone convicted of a crime?

Lowering the cost to society for a huge prison population is Dangerous.

Forcing prisoners to pay for their incarceration creates the same incentives as slavery.

Going to prison is the fine. Its more like the court giving a fine and a bill for the costs of maintaining the court.

> Prisoners should not be getting paid to cook, clean, do laundry, etc. to help operate the prison, for example.

Why not?

Because it's part of the day to day upkeep of life in general. You don't get paid for cooking, cleaning, or doing laundry (unless you're a middle class child earning pocket money from your parents). It's just stuff that has to be done.

Part of daily upkeep if it's just for yourself (possibly plus partner/roommate/whatever). I think we're talking about cooking/washing/whatever for a couple hundred people. As a job.

You also dont get to go to the toilet in, be confined in a small room, barred from using the internet and generally deprived of your freedom in life in general.

This is true, but that's the punishment that's been handed down having been convicted of a crime.

Not being paid for things that you're otherwise also not paid for isn't a punishment, that's just normal every day life in general.

Why should prisoners not get minimum wage when everyone else does? How is forcing people to work for less than is levally allowed, in dangerous conditions as well, any different from slavery?

The Constitution explicitly permits slavery as a punishment for crime, to be fair.

Right, it does, but I think this discussion is a moral one, not legal one. Constitution can be changed, like any law, it's just a hell of a lot harder.

Something being the law doesn't make it justifiable.

> I’m not sure prisons should offer gainful employment to prisoners.

Why?

Don't try to rationalize prisons don't really work for anything other than physical separation.

So why try to restrict it beyond physical separation?

I very much share this sentiment, I often think of prisons as quarantine. But that’s the descriptive dimension, not the normative.

Crime victims seem to crave “revenge”. It’s a very human thing. In fact psychological studies have shown it turns out that revenge feels quite fulfilling to the perpetrator. Societies without an institutionalized punitive systems (like much of western society has historically) tend to have family feuds which can last for generations.

I don’t think that should be a norm, bit plenty seem to think so, often quite strongly.

Exactly, but those feelings don't make revenge rational.

Trying to rationalize irrational behavior is an uphill battle. So instead of rationalizing the prison system we should aim to minimize it - and over time (likely generations) phase it out completely.