https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2017/07/20/538062911/wh... [What's It Really Like To Work In A Prison Goat Milk Farm? We Asked Inmates]
But what do the workers themselves think?
I find Jeremiah Pate in the milking barn, attaching milking machines to the goats' udders.
"This job, how do you feel about it?" I ask him. "A bad thing? Good thing?"
"It's a great thing," Pate tells me. "It beats the alternative. Rather than sitting in your tiny little cell, you get to come out here."
Every man I meet echoes that thought. They aren't thinking about what was fair on the outside. They were just thinking about their options in prison, and in that perspective, the farm looked pretty good.
>> "It's a great thing," Pate tells me. "It beats the alternative. Rather than sitting in your tiny little cell, you get to come out here."
>> They were just thinking about their options in prison, and in that perspective, the farm looked pretty good.
You're making the point of OP. When the only other option is "sitting in your tiny little cell", there's not much choice in it. It's less volunteering, and more escaping a psychologically untenable situation.
Given other options, I doubt many inmates would be willing to 'volunteer' or work for peanuts.
There is no free choice in that question. Just an illusion of one.
Just FYI, most of the non-prisoner firefighters in California are also volunteers. In my district (north Solano county), 90% of firefighters are volunteers. We don't get paid.
It's not like they're forced to work; and if they take the option, they're still under punishment doled by the justice system. So it's not immoral forced labor as long as neither the work or the jail cell constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment".
Well, I would say, the lines get blurry. And when you have private prisons, where the owners have a incentive to exploit prison labour, while also keeping their costs low - you end up in something, too close to slavery for my taste.
I think it's reasonable to hold the belief that the punishment, especially in today's prison system, is not just.
By your logic, the Uighurs are experiencing "just" punishment under the laws of the People's Republic of China.
Since the Uighurs have committed "crimes" (as defined by the government under which they live) against the state, they are subject to whatever punishment is prescribed by the law.
This is, of course, ridiculous on its face. And is just as ridiculous anywhere else.
There are valid reasons to separate some folks from the rest of society (think John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, etc.), as they've shown themselves to be unable/unwilling to respect the rights of others within that society.
Incarceration as a tool of punishment, while widely used, often poses more risk of harming society than any benefit from "punishing" offenders.
It's a complex issue, and simplifying it to "Law and order! Lock 'em up!" is reductive and often detrimental to the societies it's supposed to improve.
I was aware of that when responding. In fact, when I said:
"There are valid reasons to separate some folks from the rest of society (think John Wayne Gacy, Jeffrey Dahmer, Ted Bundy, etc.), as they've shown themselves to be unable/unwilling to respect the rights of others within that society.
Incarceration as a tool of punishment, while widely used, often poses more risk of harming society than any benefit from "punishing" offenders.
It's a complex issue, and simplifying it to "Law and order! Lock 'em up!" is reductive and often detrimental to the societies it's supposed to improve."
I was specifically referring to my home, the USA.
You're making the case that it is involuntary. "Do this or we shall do to you something worse against your will" is textbook coercion.
Firefighting jobs are the most coveted because you get to leave prison grounds, and as of 2020, can now be employed as a firefighter upon release (in CA).