I guess I’ll put my personal opinion on the record here. I think that penal labour is generally an exploitative industry, if you want to call it that. And I do think that prisoners who perform work should be paid for that work. At the same time, I’m also sensitive to the fact that it costs a great deal of money to pay for room and board and security for prisoners, and that it’s also fair that their labour be used to offset some of the cost of their own imprisonment rather than laying the burden entirely on the public purse.
So while I don’t support solitary confinement as a punishment (for anything), I do think that prisoners should have to at a minimum cook and clean for themselves. If they don’t want to cook, then nobody else should have to do it; they just won’t have dinner that night if they don’t cook and serve it themselves. If nobody wants to wash the dishes, then it’s not the administration’s problem if there aren’t any clean plates to use for the next meal. If nobody wants to clean the shower, then it’s not the administration’s problem if grime starts to build up on it. The State should not force the prisoners to work, but it also shouldn’t be the State’s responsibility to provide janitors or cooks to look after them.
Which means I agree that “extra” work beyond what’s necessary to maintain the basic needs of the prisoners should be paid and optional. “Optional” meaning there’s no punishment if you choose not to do it, but if you don’t, you won’t have money to pay for services like postage stamps, extra phone calls, or the prison commissary. Even if prisoners are only paid half of minimum wage, that’s still an improvement, because it recognises that their labour has value and this money can also be used to pay for fines and restitution. A pretty common problem among the newly-released is that they are saddled with an obscene amount of debt because the State makes them pay court costs, room and board, fines, parole monitoring fees, and restitution but only pays them fifty cents an hour for their work, meaning they leave prison thousands of dollars in debt with the threat of parole revocation if they can’t pay. That just drives people to resort to crime in order to find the money.
If nobody wants to clean the shower, then it’s not the administration’s problem if grime starts to build up on it.
Some of these examples amount to de facto collective punishment by introducing a tragedy of the commons.
“The new arrival didn’t clean up the ancient infested shower of disease, so she too consents to never getting a shower.”
Paying some prisoner a pittance to clean the shower every week would be insignificant compared to the cost of containing them. And it reduces the incentive for a gang to privatize the showers.
Let’s not experiment on clever new prison ideas. Let’s just copy Finland.
I guess I’ll put my personal opinion on the record here. I think that penal labour is generally an exploitative industry, if you want to call it that. And I do think that prisoners who perform work should be paid for that work. At the same time, I’m also sensitive to the fact that it costs a great deal of money to pay for room and board and security for prisoners, and that it’s also fair that their labour be used to offset some of the cost of their own imprisonment rather than laying the burden entirely on the public purse.
So while I don’t support solitary confinement as a punishment (for anything), I do think that prisoners should have to at a minimum cook and clean for themselves. If they don’t want to cook, then nobody else should have to do it; they just won’t have dinner that night if they don’t cook and serve it themselves. If nobody wants to wash the dishes, then it’s not the administration’s problem if there aren’t any clean plates to use for the next meal. If nobody wants to clean the shower, then it’s not the administration’s problem if grime starts to build up on it. The State should not force the prisoners to work, but it also shouldn’t be the State’s responsibility to provide janitors or cooks to look after them.
Which means I agree that “extra” work beyond what’s necessary to maintain the basic needs of the prisoners should be paid and optional. “Optional” meaning there’s no punishment if you choose not to do it, but if you don’t, you won’t have money to pay for services like postage stamps, extra phone calls, or the prison commissary. Even if prisoners are only paid half of minimum wage, that’s still an improvement, because it recognises that their labour has value and this money can also be used to pay for fines and restitution. A pretty common problem among the newly-released is that they are saddled with an obscene amount of debt because the State makes them pay court costs, room and board, fines, parole monitoring fees, and restitution but only pays them fifty cents an hour for their work, meaning they leave prison thousands of dollars in debt with the threat of parole revocation if they can’t pay. That just drives people to resort to crime in order to find the money.
Some of these examples amount to de facto collective punishment by introducing a tragedy of the commons.
“The new arrival didn’t clean up the ancient infested shower of disease, so she too consents to never getting a shower.”
Paying some prisoner a pittance to clean the shower every week would be insignificant compared to the cost of containing them. And it reduces the incentive for a gang to privatize the showers.
Let’s not experiment on clever new prison ideas. Let’s just copy Finland.