I’m absolutely in favor of providing inmates with conditional employment and education opportunities. I’ve heard of several programs where inmates are allowed to continue their previous jobs under heavy supervision (mainly in court cam videos where living brain donors of the sovereign citizen persuasion voluntarily lose said privilege). The problems start when said labour becomes compulsory.
At that sort of wage, the prisoners are doing it more for the opportunity to get out than for the money.
I’m not excusing it one way or another. I worked for a school which operated inside of a juvenile prison for a while and they had these work release programs.
The place I worked was actually rehabilitative, though, and gave the kids at least almost all of their earned money, and helped them get things like food handlers cards and useful experience for when they were released.
If only we could (would) do something like that for adults.
I’m absolutely in favor of providing inmates with conditional employment and education opportunities. I’ve heard of several programs where inmates are allowed to continue their previous jobs under heavy supervision (mainly in court cam videos where living brain donors of the sovereign citizen persuasion voluntarily lose said privilege). The problems start when said labour becomes compulsory.
So long as they are paid the same wage as non-prisoners. Anything else is slavery.
Yes, being incarcerated and working while being paid $0.50 an hour is STILL slavery.
At that sort of wage, the prisoners are doing it more for the opportunity to get out than for the money.
I’m not excusing it one way or another. I worked for a school which operated inside of a juvenile prison for a while and they had these work release programs.
The place I worked was actually rehabilitative, though, and gave the kids at least almost all of their earned money, and helped them get things like food handlers cards and useful experience for when they were released.
If only we could (would) do something like that for adults.
The problem starts when inmate labor provides others with essentially free money. Which then leads to labor being compulsory.