It feels instinctively wrong to tie prison time to pay - it should be tied to rehabilitation. And asking someone to risk their lives so they can gamble on reduced prison time just seems... I dunno, isn't that the thing that's usually done by villains in the story books? I mean, maybe I'm naive about it, but I have a fairly strong cultural background telling me that using people's desperation to convince them to do terrible jobs is kind of on the evil side?

Is there additional nuance I'm missing? My first thought is: suppose they were payed a real wage, but independently the prison system had a vending machine where you could exchange wages for reduced prison time. I wouldn't be OK with a system like that.

My objection also wouldn't be about the details. It wouldn't be, "Oh, maybe it'll get abused or someone might threaten a prisoner for money." If I was forced to describe why a system like that felt so wrong, I would probably say something like, "Rehabilitation isn't transactional, and a debt to society isn't something that can be repaid with cash."

So this feels like an abstraction to me that doesn't ultimately change anything about the underlying mechanics being kind of messed up.

If that's not the case, if fighting fires is purely a rehabilitation strategy and the reduced sentence isn't a substitute for money -- then shouldn't we be paying them as well as reducing their prison sentence? If we're not treating freedom as equivalent to wages, then why are they being denied wages?

I’m also guessing the reason the “opportunity” exists is in part because those laws don’t apply and you can get firefighters for $1/hour.

Presumably they don’t offer the option to reduce sentences from other prison jobs like laundry or cooking, and these firefighter jobs are seen as providing a form of service to the greater community, and at a risk.

Also, keep in mind that much of our economic system and policy is predicated on the idea of using people’s desperstion to get them to do horrible jobs.

As others have said, though, it definitely is unjust that they face discrimination when attempting to do the same work as civilians.

You seem to be reasoning under the assumption that prison exists for rehabilitation. It doesn't. Incarceration serves to punish. And forced labour is an additional punishment.

Therefore substituting prison time with extra work seems a fair trade-off, and one well aligned with the intended goals of the prison system.

The most likely reason we're offering to knock off prison time is because we really stinking need firefighters. It's not a punishment, we're exchanging prison time for a service that we want very much. If there wasn't a forest fire, we wouldn't be offering it.

If punishment was actually the purpose of these programs, we would be a lot more creative and a lot more specific in how we reduced prison sentences: "Okay, here's a bottle of sterilized urine. Drink it, and we'll knock a day off." But in practice, you don't see stuff like that. Forced labor is nearly always phrased by its proponents as something that's good for the prisoner's character, and as an effective way to repay a social debt. Look over the comments on this very article and you'll find more than a few people saying that getting to work outside is a privilege for prisoners and they should be happy just with that as a reward.

The rephrasing of work as a direct punishment (especially when it's tied to money) manages to somehow makes the entire situation feel even worse to me. At least when it was transactional you could talk about it as being something that's good for both parties. I don't think that argument holds up, it's at least a reasonable starting point.

But it seems obvious to me that the state shouldn't have a financial incentive to punish people. If punishment is our goal, the way we're going about it is super corrupt.

The same applies to a lot of other sectors. All the basic utilities and universal healthcare should be public-sector, because any benefits relating to market efficiency are more than offset by distortions to the political process resulting from lobbying.

Still, the basic point stands that incarceration is a form of punishment, and it is legitimate for it to include a component of hard labour.

well said. concise and correct, IMO.

It’s not like a billionaire (quibble about billionaires being in jail) can load up a commissary card and buy time off.

On the contrary, the billionaire would have to work the same hours as the guy who robbed the booze store and get 1 day off for every one worked.

I’m much more troubled by having private companies buying cheap prison labor to make goods or do customer service.

It’s interesting to note as well that I think I share the same underlying thesis that prisons are fucked, with terrible incentives and I am in favor of revamping the entire system — however this one program does not bother me the same way it does others.

If I was to guess, I’d imagine I have much more progressive views about prison reform than most opposed to this program. This is fascinating to me.

For example, I’ve been speaking with VCs about doing a “prison startup” with the right incentives - including things like cooperative ownership by the prisoners themselves.

In my view crime is a context not a characterstic of an individual.

The perverse incentive of increasing prison times to generate more cheap labor.

But this subsystem is being presented in a skewed way. Yes it’s $1/hour; but you also earn a day of freedom for each day you work.

Maybe the sentence was too long to begin with that suggests? If releasing that person in exchange for some simple work is ok (e.g. does not make us less safe, keeps victim whole etc ), why the sentence could not be like that to begin with?

I dont mean to make it general rule, I see why you want shorten sentences in exchange of good behavior to motivate prisoners. But, sentences are very long in America to begin with.

The practical difference between "if you dont work for 80cents an hour you get twice as much sentence" and "your sentence gets halved if you do" is rather small given that the number we are halving/doubling is arbitrary.

That's one way to look at it. Another way to look at it is for every day you don't work you have to spend a day in jail.

That sound more like coercion than volunteering to me.

No. This is false.

When you land in prison, the duration of your sentence is fixed. You can't increase it, except by committing additional crimes while behind bars. But you can mitigate it by working as a volunteer.

But you’ve already got your sentence from a judge after being convinced of a crime.

What would you prefer?

Interesting. You could conceivably rationalize that as being equivalent to a fair wage--every day you work gets you one extra day closer to getting out and starting a real job.

Of course that still ignores the obvious problem of how hard it is for a broke ex-con to find work. But it's better than nothing, I guess.

You get better visitation, you are outside, I’d imagine that though dangerous, fighting fires is rewarding. Plus you earn a day of freedom for every day worked.

They ought to give them the training to become fire fighters when they get out though, and work to change laws preventing felons from firefighting work.