Outside of prison, a video call with your family is free because you use Skype or Zoom. Inside of prison, a 30 minute call can have a double digit price tag. Even basic necessities like menstrual products and tampons for women often have to be purchased at prices far above what normal consumers pay.
There's no competition or prisoner autonomy over which businesses they give their money to, and there's no commercial incentive for businesses that are authorized to sell to prisoners to lower prices; they literally have a captive market. State-approved monopolies are allowed to restrict access to those supplies and "privileges" unless prisoners pay up.
This has also led to really perverse policy incentives. Video call companies have lobbied states to restrict and/or remove in-person visiting, meaning that if you want to have any contact with your family or the outside world, you need to pay for the privilege. Often, books and entertainment will have a single company you can purchase through. Prisoners don't get access to the free market and even completely noncontroversial, obviously positive rehabilitative measures like family visits are being restricted for the sake of monetary exploitation.
So short answer, we're not giving prisoners a minimum wage and we're already charging them and their families an artificially inflated amount of money for basic necessities.
Florida comes up a lot in these conversations about prisoner rights:
> Each state prisoner shall pay from such income and assets, except where such income is exempt by state or federal law, all or a fair portion of the prisoner's daily subsistence costs, based upon the inmate's ability to pay. An order directing payment of all or a fair portion of a prisoner's daily subsistence costs may survive against the estate of the prisoner.
And Florida does not pay prisoners a minimum wage. So while I disagree with the overall premise (more on that below), giving prisoners a real wage for their work would still be an improvement over the current system, which is the worst of both worlds.
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But ignoring that and just talking about the policy on its own merits, I would ask the same question about whether those room and board costs are fair. I can choose where I live, a prisoner can't. Prison accommodations are not a free market.
So should prisoners be allowed to "shop around" for which prison they want to be incarcerated in based on the prices of room and board? Should prisoners be allowed to decide when they turn lights on and off in their cells to save power? Prisoners have no say in how much their accommodations cost. In multiple states they don't even have voting rights, so they lack the bare minimum of input into the policy behind how those costs are determined.
To me, it's a little problematic to charge someone for something that they are legally forced to purchase from a single source. We should generally try to avoid that. But it's extra problematic to force someone to work to pay for that charge. That's when we start getting into direct comparisons with slavery. Slaves were also provided living accomodations on plantations. But like prisoners, they couldn't leave or execute any choices about their arrangement.
In practice, what really is the difference between charging a prisoner for tampons and charging them for the electricity in their cell block? Both are required purchases by a captive market.
[0]: https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/char...
This is indentured servitude.
Jail/prison should be for rehabilitation, not to line the pockets if every-greedier corporations.
The abuses of private prisons, etc is a tangential issue. As a high level, it's all still funded by taxpayer money.
Yes, as long as a reasonable amount for food and housing is deducted from their paycheck.