Re:Maids trafficked and sold to wealthy Saudis on black market
by hjanssen on Thursday December 29, 2022 @05:37PM
(#34179042)
This does ignore the damage done to the free market though. Every job that a prison inmate takes up, is a job that could be taken by a non-criminal and which would pay for at least federal minimum wage.
I'd call the difference of prison wage and the minimum wage lost money.
Re:Maids trafficked and sold to wealthy Saudis on black market
by naasking on Friday December 30, 2022 @09:00AM
(#34185031)
I agree there are externalities to consider for a proper proposal, my purpose here was only to argue that compelled labour without minimum wage compensation isn't intrinsically wrong, it depends on the specific implementation.
That said there are multiple ways to do this. One is compelled labour the proceeds of which they'll never see, but perhaps work can go to lowering their sentence. Another can be deferred compensation, where they get a fixed stipend once out based on their work while incarcerated.
I can think of a bunch of other ways, but I'm not sure I agree that the compensation should be minimum wage. People fund the government via taxes, but criminals aren't just not paying into the system, they are actively draining it. I'm not sure garnishing wages they'd otherwise earn is in principle unjust anymore that income tax is unjust.