Forced prison labor should also be outlawed. Just because we haven't fixed every problem yet doesn't mean we shouldn't cheer improvements like this.
Re:California bans private prisons
by packet_nerd on Thursday September 12, 2019 @07:30PM
(#20957601)
Agreed. However, in terms of perverse economic incentives I think the private for-profit prisons are a much much larger problem than prison work programs. They are not bringing in anything on the scale of what private prison systems bring in from the government. Also, least a few people claim to have benefited personally from the work programs.
The same criticism can be applied towards forced prison labour, and yet, it is explicitly permitted by the thirteenth amendment. (And is commonly used in state prisons.)
Just because a profit incentive falls in the hands of the state's coffers, as opposed to some corporation, does not mean the incentive is not perverse.