I went to high school in Belmont MA in the early 90's. For extra credit in our drafting class, we could volunteer to help build a playground at one of the elementary schools. The adults that were also "participating"? Prisoners. Nobody told us, and when I offered my pocket knife to one of the adults, he laughed and said "I don't think you want to give me that!" I learned weeks later that they were inmates.
Generally speaking you never want to make enemies who are richer than you are and for teachers in rich school districts that is all the parents. Some parents will not like it if their kids come home talking about how they worked with prisoners. Considering that wealthy suburbs have basically the highest density of "can I speak to a manager" types there's no way that can end well for the teacher(s).
Your teacher was right in deciding that keeping their mouth shut had the best risk:reward. Blame here lies on parents for getting bent out of shape over dumb "my kid isn't old enough for that information" type stuff too often. Sucks but that's the society we live in.
Considering the demographics most of HN is apart of I don't expect this to be well received here but the reality is that teachers are "disposable" to a school district on an individual level and the people who last in wealthy suburbs (ie. "good" schol districts) tend to be the ones that do not create any controversy among the customers.
Edit: I used to work developing software for education. I am very aware of the workplace dynamics that govern how these people do their jobs (gotta understand that in order to actually build products that they can use).
Edit2: Ask any teacher. Rich suburb jobs are coveted because they pay well but the customers are very demanding.
> Ask any teacher. Rich suburb jobs are coveted because they pay well but the customers are very demanding.
In my mid-sized midwestern city, the notoriously-bad inner city schools pay the best, by far. The pay's not why most teachers prefer to work in the better suburban schools.
Lack of heartbreaking stories and hopeless cases is one reason. Everybody likes to feel like their job makes a difference, and in some places it just feels like nothing you could possibly do will ever matter, because the meat grinder never stops making the same old sausages.
Also, the suburban schools likely have more opportunities for extra pay, such as by coaching an athletic team or being faculty sponsor for a student club.
That doesn't square with my understanding but my knowledge is totally limited to New England and some of New York. Here the rich suburbs are where you go when you just want to teach the subject and only the subject in exchange for your check (which can get quite big if you put in many years).
Anecdotal data point: The "upscale but not quite Belmont/Lexington/etc" town in MA in which my parents live had a little bit of drama over the number of teachers (some of whom had been teaching there 30+yr) who were drawing salaries on par with software developers in the Boston area. Having been educated in that town years earlier that squares with my expectations. Sure the teachers taught but the overwhelming majority were older and just looking to teach what they needed to to cash checks until retirement.
They're not blaming the teacher for keeping their mouth shut, they're blaming the teacher (or administrator) responsible for putting kids and convicts together on a work project.
I read it as blaming the teacher for not explaining the situation, especially regarding weapons. There's nothing to suggest that the prisoners and the teens would have any trouble getting along.
> when I offered my pocket knife to one of the adults, he laughed and said "I don't think you want to give me that!"
What did they use for tools then? Pocket knives are rather low on the scale of damage one could do with what's in the average toolbox. A chisel or a hammer would be more of a problem. Or were they concerned with them smuggling the stuff back into the prison?
Nothing at all wrong with using prison labor for something related to supporting the public, particularly a school. Taxpayer money keeps them locked up and by dint of this, we should get return on investment.
Here in Texas, prison labor is widely used, widely supported, and widely liked. At my last job, we used prison labor often (move furniture, mow lawns, warehouse work). The only prisoners in Texas allowed to be out working around the public are low-grade, non-violent prisoners who also have less than 6 months to go on their sentence. Texas has many programs designed to help prisoners re-enter the market as useful people: farm, mechanical, electronic, etc.
Paying a debt to society should involve doing something for society, not just sitting a cell for 23 hours a day. Texas prisons demand every able-bodied prisoner work. They raise their own chickens, cows, horses, and garden food. If you refuse to work, you go into segregation. Fair enough.
I find this repugnant at best. A society that uses prisoners as a slave labor force is a society that always has a need for prisoners. Keeping prisoners should be fundamentally unprofitable for society, so that there is always a clear incentive to reduce recidivism rates and to decriminalize acts that don't actually hurt people.
Since you asked, complaining about getting downvoted tends to acquire more downvotes.
I would also suggest not simply sharing your opinion and stating it as fact, this site lives on productive discourse. You simply posting your opinion doesnt benefit anyone. What answer would you have expected, except people agreeing or disagreeing with you? Your edit sounds rather similar.
You might want to take a look into the community guidelines.
> Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It destroys intellectual curiosity, which the site exists for.
Thank you for your civil reply. Nothing political or ideological in stating that prison labor for the public good is a good thing. It is. That's a fact. Prisoners owe the public for their malfeasance, hence their serving time to pay back society for breaking the social compact.
I will say, however, that this site appears and acts disproportionately left in its operation. And while I am a very far right ultra-traditionalist, I can happily exist around others with differing opinions. Notice, if you will, that I never vote anyone down. People are entitled to opinions. The left seems militantly opposed to any viewpoint that challenges their narrative. Voltaire applies...
Slavery was a democrat policy. Fact. And I'm not a Republican--they are too liberal and too soft. I've always been opposed to slavery. Just because some prisons and policies have been wrong doesn't mean prison labor is wrong.
Just because I'm a traditionalist doesn't in the slightest equal support for slavery. I'm a traditionalist in that I'm a strict constructionist as regards the Constitution, natural marriage (man/woman), pro-military/pro-conscription (or equal civil service), low-tax, small government.
I'm OK with your thoughts, opinions, and ideas. They don't offend me. I'm not a snowflake, soft, or easily offended. I thrive in challenging environments, but I loathe how others cannot accept my opinion when I accept theirs. I work with all manner of people, and I disagree with most of them, but I never get bent out of shape over the fact that some of them voice things that I find disheartening or abjectly stupid. I just smile and let them go about their merry way.
Slavery was a Constitutional policy. Article 1, Section 9 contains:
"The Migration or Importation of such Persons as any of the States now existing shall think proper to admit, shall not be prohibited by the Congress prior to the Year one thousand eight hundred and eight, but a Tax or duty may be imposed on such Importation, not exceeding ten dollars for each Person."
It had nothing to do with the Democratic party or the Republican party.
If your linking of slavery with the Democratic party is somehow connected to Lincoln being a Republican, so of course the Republicans freed the slaves, then I'd suggest reading about the presidencies of FDR, LBJ, a bit regarding Nicon's "Southern Strategy", and Clinton. The geographic south of the U.S. was conservative Democratic prior to them, and shifted to conservative Republican. The parties changed. The people in place (for the most part) didn't.
> but I loathe how others cannot accept my opinion when I accept theirs.
Your belief that gays should not allowed to marry illustrates that you believe some people are Less Than bases on things out of their control (their sexuality, in this case).
To hold this opinion is not a problem. To defend it, or espouse it, however, you have no choice but to step forward and say "gays are not as much People as me." That's an attack on someone's humanity, and totally unacceptable, totally untenable.
People being upset with you for attacking someone's very worth as a human isn't them being snowflakes, it's them fully rejecting a prejudiced person, and showing them the door.
When fact always gets trotted out (along with "Abe Lincoln was Republican"), the fact that the Republicans/Democrats were essentially opposite parties compared to now is always omitted.
Does the prison labor cost the company as much as normal labor would cost or is this a subsidy that drives down wages for all workers in that region who do the same sort of work?
This point of view seems ignorant of history and human nature. For example, after slavery was abolished in the south, prison wardens realized they could just rent out their prisoners to former slave owners to make some extra cash. In support of this, the state governments came up with all kinds of nonsense like truancy laws so they could put black people in jail for any reason, even being unemployed. They just made them slaves again, legally.
Using prisoners for profit means there is profit in imprisoning more people.
>Texas prisons demand every able-bodied prisoner work.
i wonder whether the Texas penalty code says "... punishable by N years in prison" or "... punishable by N years of slave labor" and whether the latter would pass the muster of constitutionality.
It would be constitutional to literally mandate slavery. Section 1 of the 13th Amendment [1]:
> Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
It depends on the program. Some are voluntary. Some are “voluntary” with the prisoner receiving time off their sentence in exchange, which is effectively punishing them by imprisoning them longer if they refuse. Some are just outright involuntary.
The waffling on ethics demonstrated in the article doesn't seem as ambiguous to me.
Is it ok to pay below minimum wage, if the prisoners are gaining useful skills? No. It's not ok.
1. We have no system of accountability measuring worth of useful skills against amount under minimum wage the prisoner is getting paid. Is upholstery worth 3$ less an hour, or 4$? Are they actually learning upholstery? How do we know? Is upholstery actually a valuable skill? How do we know?
2. We have not allowed other people to be paid less than minimum wage, why prisoners? "Useful skills" is not a valid excuse (except for interns sometimes, which I also disagree with). I don't agree that it should be considered part of the punishment as the jury and judge had no say in the amount under minimum wage the prisoner would be paid. There's no transparency or accountability.
3. It doesn't make economic sense. Why pay someone minimum wage to upholster, when you can buy the work on the cheap from the prisons? The prisons have thus evaded our imposed market controls and have an unfair advantage.
4. Prisoners are humans and (generally) US citizens. It is not cool to devalue them by paying them less.
I'd add to that list the fact that the US already imprisons more people that any other nation. The last thing we need to incentivize longer prison sentences by granting prisons lucrative contacts for slave labor. It's not just the private "for profit" prisons that take money in exchange for making prisoners work for private companies, public prisons do as well.
> Offset tax-burden incurred by their incarceration.
I don't agree that this is a valid justification. I pay taxes that go to funding the department of education despite never "participating" in any direct department of education activity. We don't make parents "offset" that cost when they send kids to public school (no, we make the teachers do that by forcing them to use their own money to buy chalk), why should we make a prisoner suddenly be more responsible for a tax burden carried by all of society? This is creating a "separate tax class," in my mind, which defeats the purpose entirely. We all pay in, we all benefit, we all use what we can/need/want of the system (minus the glaring deficiencies).
> They're prisoners. Society has already devalued them.
> I don't agree that this is a valid justification. I pay taxes that go to funding the department of education despite never "participating" in any direct department of education activity. We don't make parents "offset" that cost when they send kids to public school (no, we make the teachers do that by forcing them to use their own money to buy chalk), why should we make a prisoner suddenly be more responsible for a tax burden carried by all of society? This is creating a "separate tax class," in my mind, which defeats the purpose entirely. We all pay in, we all benefit, we all use what we can/need/want of the system (minus the glaring deficiencies).
There are a number of separate tax classes as well as fees. Income tax, property tax, sales tax, registration fees, etc. We implement these for policy reasons. I'm guessing that the previous poster believes it's good policy to have the incarcerated pay for themselves where you do not. I think the idea of "separate tax classes" being bad on its own is pretty thoroughly disagreed with in most countries.
Does a jail in California require a greater rent than one in Alabama? What if the minimum wage doesn't match, do we make the prisoner go into debt to continue uh, their "lease?" Do they get better conditions if they pay more? Can they just not work and leverage their pre-incarceration assets to pay? Now that they're renters, do they get renter's protection under law? Via what mechanism - who enforces? What if there's cockroaches, they're paying, do they get to Lodge a complaint? Who decides the rent? What's to stop a prison setting a rent price that requires 18 hours hard labor to match?
Why do you think it's acceptable to devalue a human? What measures do you apply to that devaluing algorithm? In your mind, who is the most "valuable," and least "valuable" human?
They find themselves without spare income and a constructive usage of their time.
I do believe some prison systems, I want to say Angola has something along these lines, use work-history as a test for certain privileges and or use punitive measures. These are probably not quite productive, particularly the punitive, but at the same time I think finding a way to incentive work is a good thing.
To be honest, I can't quite understand why something as benign a wage garnishment (tax?) against convicted criminals income is a controversial subject. Is the current system optimal? No, prisoners could probably use a bit of an increase in earnings such that they could establish a reasonable "nest egg" for their return to the real world.
I'm sorry that I don't see this as a moralistic boolean as you appear to, but levying penalties on a criminal is not wrong. Doing so in an overly punitive manner that doesn't serve society's best interest is another matter.
The penalties levied on the criminal are encapsulated in the prison sentence itself. Anything beyond that has been added at the whim of the state, not by the legal actions of a judge or jury.
> Offset tax-burden incurred by their incarceration.
Prisoners should be a tax burden. That way, there's no incentive to conveniently round up more prisoners every time the local town needs more free labor.
> The living conditions of leased convicts are documented in dozens of detailed, firsthand reports spanning decades and covering many states. In 1883, Blackmon writes, Alabama prison inspector Reginald Dawson described leased convicts in one mine being held on trivial charges, in “desperate,” “miserable” conditions, poorly fed, clothed, and “unnecessarily chained and shackled.” He described the “appalling number of deaths” and “appalling numbers of maimed and disabled men” held by various forced-labor entrepreneurs spanning the entire state.
Yes, it very much it is okay. They're living cost-free at the taxpayer's expense because of crimes they committed against society. It's absolutely okay to pay them nothing for their labor since the cost to society they've already incurred greatly dwarfs the value of any stolen wages.
They're not "living cost free at taxpayer's expense," they're being locked in a small room with a vast majority of their autonomy removed. That's the punishment.
They're not the only ones at fault. Society failed them as well, and must carry that burden as well. It would have been more efficient to do so by funding excellent education programs but instead we decided to do so by creating a bloated justice system. So it goes.
What cost to society did the man jailed with 3g of marijuana incur? The one that robbed a Walmart of a flat screen? Enough to justify all the things I illustrated above? Nope, because the jury and judge and legislators set down and handed down the sentence and have no visibility into a further form of punishment arbitrarily set by the prison in the form of lesser wages.
How about this: via what framework shall a prisoner's working hours and pay be set? Let's say the man jailed for a DWI, and the woman jailed for selling marijuana. Shall the DWI be paid 1$, or 2$ per hour, and the dealer 3$ because the "cost to society" was less? How did you calculate that? Oh also, can the prisoners be forced to work? How shall we fit that into sentencing?
Most prisoners want something to do than sit and do nothing, and are happy to be paid even if its below minimum wage. We cant have them accumulating tons of money while in prison with no outside bills, that's just not fair to the taxpayer. You also don't want to incentive's going to prison as some sort of decent alternative lifestyle on the taxpayers dime. They should be free to sign up and work if they want to. On the other hand, there should be no incentive to incarcerate simply for the labor pool. That's the part that's amoral, not the labor.
> We cant have them accumulating tons of money while in prison with no outside bills, that's just not fair to the taxpayer.
Actually, as being able to leave prison with a small nest egg would almost certainly reduce recidivism, it would probably be more fair to the taxpayer than the current system.
> You also don't want to incentive's going to prison as some sort of decent alternative lifestyle on the taxpayers dime.
Living in a cell while earning minimum wage isn't a "decent lifestyle", it's merely slightly less awful than prisons in the US currently are.
>Actually, as being able to leave prison with a small nest egg would almost certainly reduce recidivism, it would probably be more fair to the taxpayer than the current system.
Or it would give people bankrolls to go out and jumpstart their dealing, buy a weapon for their next string of robberies, get spent at a bar/strip club the first week out, get spent on sex workers after a few years of abstinence, used to immediately buy drugs for personal use after forced sobriety.
Or just strengthen the gangs inside prisons "hey bubba, we know you've got to have a few thousand dollars in that account, you'd better give it to us or you might not live very long. Congrats you've got a new girlfriend her name is Jane Smith, add her to your visitor list then transfer the funds to her on the outside"
Prisoners should be paid the same wage as everyone else. There is no reason to deny them minimum wage because that is effectively slavery.
And prisoners should be able to accumulate money because it makes their reintegration into society easier. What's unfair to the taxpayer is a system designed to punish and not rehabilitate because that makes repeat offenders out of prisoners.
Right now we punish prisoners and give them nothing once we kick them out of prison. It should come as no surprise that they return to selling drugs or crime to survive.
I personally don't have any issues with prison labor as long as its optional and safe (and done by the government. I don't know how I feel about private prisons being able to accept outside contracts). I disagree with making visitations paid.
Are there any reasons against using prison labor? It gives inmates something to do and the ability to learn a new skill.
"Are there any reasons against using prison labor? It gives inmates something to do and the ability to learn a new skill. "
There are lots of reasons that I find compelling-- I'm generally in favor of the abolition of prisons. I'm also aware that there are plenty of people who think I am a wingnut because I think that.
But even if you think prisons are a "good" thing, here is a reason that you could find compelling for preventing prison labor from interacting with the larger market:
it lowers the pay for other non-prison workers by throwing unpaid labor into the labor pool.
If you have a chair factory and the local prison starts using very low paid labor to produce chairs, how could you compete with that?
Okay, I'll bite-- what would you propose as an alternative to prisons? I'm intrigued, and frankly amused, at the idea that there aren't individuals who must be sequestered from society due to past behavior.
since you're actively laughing, I'll just tell you to google the wiki page for prison abolition.
Surely you're creative enough to think of at least 3 or 4 other modes where we sequester people "from society due to past behavior"... there are a lot of other modalities than, say throwing people in an oubliette or conscripting them into an army. Some are actually ethical (in my opinion, which is far from the only legitiamte one), unlike prison in the US (also,, I do understand that this is my opinion as well).
I understood that exactly zero were provided that allowed them to not still roam free. Forcing a child rapist or murder into the military is not a viable option.
Is this a binary issue? Reforming the criminalization and overprosecution of numerous victimless activities does not require abolishing prisons entirely, which would be completely asinine.
This effect is dwarfed by irregular immigrants who don’t have working papers. But yes, I agree they should be paid prevailing wages and escrow that for when they leave or use it to pay any debts they might have outstanding if they have judgements against them.
Being in prison is fundamentally coercive, so "optional" is not easy to get, and it's compensated as little as the prisons can get away with (because, again, the prisoners not in a position to negotiate). This produces a perverse incentive: imprison people to acquire a population that will work for peanuts in terrible condition.
Easy create 2 factories one inside the prison and one outside. When someone from the work program gets out and there’s an opening they can get a job right away in the outside factory. By factory I mean a building with workspaces they could build themselves.
Preferably not in the remote vicinity. Also you need to separate the inmates from the released people to prevent smuggling.
Set a cap on the inside or outside whatever you think will reduce recidivism. Call exprisoners back if there’s a new project where you need more people.
This comes up in the article. The school board had the choice between prison labor and a group hiring former prisoners. They chose prison labor. Why? It was cheaper.
The second company is just a private company that happens to hire former prisoners. Having 2 factories owned by the state would mean they can offer one price using both types of labor.
Pay the prisoners minimum wage but withhold 75% of it until they are released. Allow the 25% to be added to commissary and legally abolish chargebacks to prisoners.
It’s not a good idea to let inmates have access to more money than they need. I can see situations where their family might need it but it will certainly be exploited by inmates and their family.
There’s a lot of inmates that claim it’s easier to get drugs on the inside than the outside. Whatever you want is available for a price.
So if the prisoners aren't paid but the prison is, that creates motive to (have more prisoners|create more non-voluntary workers) with an illusion of volunteering because otherwise those non-voluntary workers would be involuntarily staring at a wall all day.
All fine and good until you're in that 1%. Then you might have a slightly different opinion on forced unpaid labor for someone else's profit, otherwise known as slavery.
But seriously, I see that 1% and it solidifies why prison populations should not be subject to forced labor for profit. That is not a low number.
I would rather have them working, following rules to keep their work privileges, than sitting around being bitter about being incarcerated or learning new methods of committing crime from others incarcerated with them.
The unfortunate truly innocent people in prison aside, if you break the law you deserve to serve a sentence proportional to the severity of the crime.
As long as you aren't using them to break rocks, do dangerous jobs that normally pay very well, etc then I'm completely fine with it. Stuff like manufacturing, basic construction, food prep, even order fulfillment I have no issue with whatasoever and if I were incarcerated I'd actually prefer to be doing something 40 hours a week instead of sitting around reading the same handful of books wondering what's going on with my friends, wondering if there's any new cool tech, wondering if I'll be able to cut it when I get out, wondering if the new guy is going to try and kill himself etc.
Last year it came out California was using prisoners at 1$ an hour to fight wildfires, but it was completely voluntary and they did NOT have a shortage of volunteers. I believe there was a thread on here (possibly reddit though) where a commentor mentioned how a family member had done this sort of work and was happy to be out doing it. While those individuals were denied the ability to get firefighting licenses when released I imagine mentioning in your job interviews "look, yes I messed up and went to prison, I did my time, while there though I volunteered to fight wildfires. I risked my own life to do backbreaking work to try and limit the spread of the fires, I could have easily sat back at the prison watching tv of playing cards but..." is going to also help you considerably, as will most prison work programs to various degrees.
They should get paid the same as anyone else. If they're not good enough to get paid a fair wage, then you don't need their labor, and they don't need you.
Want to keep people out of prison? Teach people that they're valued and that their work has value.
According to the Vera Institute of Justice, incarceration costs an average of more than $31,000 per inmate, per year, nationwide.
I'd call the amounts they get paid to work are more than generous since they do not have to repay the cost of their incarceration.
---
And not directed specifically at you, but those in general in this thread griping about how little they get paid and how expensive stuff is in prison commissaries... commissaries aren't there to provide basic needs in most cases, they are there to provide rewards/amenities like canned foods and vending machine type foods, radios, televisions, mp3 players, soda, ice cream etc depending on the facility. There are numerous prisons in the united states that have cable/satellite tv in-cell or in common areas (the company Correctional Cable TV alone serves more than 140 facilities across 21 states).
Getting paid ANYTHING for the labor is a reward. Never mind that in many prisons being allowed to get a job is again, a reward, that you can get for following the rules and not causing problems.
Try seeing it in another light: that is our punishment for failing to create a society that removes the need for crime.
How much of those 30k/year inmates are we wasting tax dollars incarcerating because we refuse to acknowledge that marijuana is not worthy of a schedule 1 certification? How many because we failed to provide an equal opportunity education system?
The prisoners are already being "punished" by having their freedom taken away. I don't see why they should have to pay for the mechanisms that remove their freedom at the same time. They're still citizens. They have paid and will continue to pay taxes. They still participate in the system despite being a prisoner of it.
We don't make people pay per usage of the existence of the FDA. Why make them pay for their own prison?
> I'd call the amounts they get paid to work are more than generous since they do not have to repay the cost of their incarceration.
Prisoners do not have any control over how much their incarceration costs, therefore have no obligation to pay any of it back. The idea is that the loss of liberty alone is atonement, no judge ever sentenced an inmate to 'n days of incarceration + repayment of expenses incurred by the state in a negotiation process in which the defendant played no part'.
I'm not sure what you're trying to achieve with your comments, whatever your goal is you are likely not helping it.
It sounds like you may be coming from a different law system than the person that you're replying to as there are many places in the US where such days of incarceration also mean incurring costs for housing and supervision.
It's hard for someone to control the costs of something that they've already committed, but I don't think there's any way around that. If it turns out that destroying a painting costs more or less depending on who does the restoration, that's not in the vandal's control.
For what it's worth, I think he made a valid point along with a fact that contributed to the discussion.
You say this, and I agree with you, and yet the system works the way it works for a reason.
Like if I were an amoral shitbird with lots of money and familiarity with law enforcement, I'd probably start opening a chain of for-profit prisons while also lobbying for "tough on crime" laws and politicians. Then I'd use my for prisoners to produce goods which I could then sell back to someone for a profit.
But I'm sure no amoral shitbirds like that exist and the 80s/90s saw this happen purely by coincidence.
Prison labor has a long tradition as been seen as a source of income in form of a cheap involuntary labor. To the point that you got people imprisoned on arbitrary laws to keep that workforce large enough. Many states exploited this hard after the ban of slavery, to the degree that offenses where made up, like not being allowed to change your employer as a freemen in order to keep the slave like workforce large enough. If you look at the history its hard to pin the moment where this ought to have ended. After the worst offenders of openly racist laws aimed at forcing people into slave like conditions got revoked and three wars relying on the draft happened, the war on drugs had started with another set of arbitrary prosecutions. The history of incentives to acquire more prisoners is quite a bit older then the private prison complex.
edit: About the history of prison labor as a replacement for slavery, "Slavery by another Name" by Douglas A. Blackmon is a great book on the topic.
> Here’s how it worked. Black men – and sometimes women and children – were arrested and convicted for crimes enumerated in the Black Codes, state laws criminalizing petty offenses and aimed at keeping freed people tied to their former owners’ plantations and farms. The most sinister crime was vagrancy – the “crime” of being unemployed – which brought a large fine that few blacks could afford to pay.
> Black convicts were leased to private companies, typically industries profiteering from the region’s untapped natural resources. As many as 200,000 black Americans were forced into back-breaking labor in coal mines, turpentine factories and lumber camps. They lived in squalid conditions, chained, starved, beaten, flogged and sexually violated. They died by the thousands from injury, disease and torture.
IMO, nothing wrong as long as they're paid competitive market wages for their work and none of it is taken by the prison system for things like visitation or necessities (or anything else really, just let them have the money when they get out).
At the end of the day, work is work and should be rewarded fairly regardless of the context. Otherwise, yea, it's slave labor.
"Slavery is any system in which principles of property law are applied to people, allowing individuals to own, buy and sell other individuals, as a de jure form of property."
> Many scholars now use the term chattel slavery to refer to this specific sense of legalised, de jure slavery. In a broader sense, however, the word slavery may also refer to any situation in which an individual is de facto forced to work against their own will.
Ah, I suppose I would have less concern with this more broad definition of slavery. A child being forced to do chores would qualify as slavery in this case, right?
Human language and human behavior are both very squishy, so it's unlikely we'll come up with an objective definition that everyone can agree upon in all cases. I wouldn't define slavery strictly in terms of the law because then things like human trafficking are excluded. Cast your net wide enough and sure, children being forced to do chores would qualify.
At some point you just have to draw an arbitrary line in the sand and say "this is slavery, that is not".
Of course, that "optional" work that pays a dollar an hour or less also comes with having to pay full retail price for basics like shampoo and band-aids.
Think of all the perverse incentives that come along with the ability to access prison labor -- an ever present need for a robust population (a.k.a locking minorities up), lax regulation in terms of various labor laws and general exploitation of labor without the need to pay market costs (wages, healthcare, etc.).
People in their community were unaware of the fact that prison labor was being used to complete school needs. These journalists wrote an article about it and the community at large took notice of the issue.
What exactly is your point? That this (prison labor in this community being used for this purpose) is common knowledge? Or that these kids didn't go far enough?
Journos shined light on something, the community took issue with it and things changed because of it. Sounds like the 4th estate is still alive and well on this one my dude.
My point is that being forced to do labor should fall under the whole 'deprived of liberty' part of being imprisoned. It should be common knowledge and unsurprising that prisoners are not free. That's sorta the definition...
Nice job, teacher.