4 ms·

Wait a minute...you're telling me using slave labor is bad? BUT IT'S SO CHEAP! The idea that we allow FOR PROFIT prisons to "employ" prisoners for less than mi

by moate 9y ago

Wait a minute...you're telling me using slave labor is bad? BUT IT'S SO CHEAP! The idea that we allow FOR PROFIT prisons to "employ" prisoners for less than minimum wage while they make money is an embarrassment. This is not justice. This is not "repaying your debt to society". The fact that all criminals get stigmatized and penalized during and well after their incarceration is punishment. The use of them as a labor force to perform tasks to create additional revenue for the prisons is just gross. And don't get get me started about how this leads to a potential conflict of interest when you allow the prison companies to hire lobbyists who could lobby for harsher sentencing in an effort to create more slaves.

13of40 9y ago
Would you feel better about it if the prisoners' situations were identical, but the profits went to the government or to reparations for victims of crime?
- eli_gottlieb 9y ago
  No. It's still an incentive to create crime and enslave people.
- moate 9y ago
  God no. That just incentives the government (who create the laws) to put people in prison. And who is the "victim" if someone goes to jail for say, possession of drugs/paraphernalia? The only correct answer is "if you employ people, you pay them." This includes people currently serving jail sentences. Going to jail is meant to be a punishment. You're losing months/years of your normal life. If people wish to offer convicts a way to help mitigate this by offering them employment, then they shouldn't get the ability to employ them at a discounted rate, because that's punitive to people who are not in jail.
- jjoonathan 9y ago
  Absolutely not.
- Falling3 9y ago
  No, especially since such a huge percentage of US prisoners are non-violent offenders. What would make me feel better is if we made serious efforts at rehabilitation and reducing recidivism.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- sincerely 9y ago
  No no no. Money should go to the people doing the work.
- throwawayjava 9y ago
  > ...or to reparations for victims of crime? The courts already have a way of doing this that doesn't involve slavery.
  - moate 9y ago
    To that end: if there was a civil suit against someone and you wanted to allow convicts to work in prison while paying them a fair wage in order to pay off this debt, that is a logical and even noble choice. I think the biggest issue everyone seems to have is the idea of below market wages being paid to the workers.
leeter 9y ago
Forced labor is slavery, no matter how you put it. The fact of the matter is the 13th amendment needs to be fixed.
- watwut 9y ago
  Slavery was much worst, realistically. Forced labor is bad, but the comparison is whitewashing conditions under which slaves lived.
- ben509 9y ago
  Yes, it's slavery, that's the point, just as prison itself is imprisonment. We have a retributive system of justice, the point of a sentence is to punish you by harming you. You do a bad thing, society exacts retribution by doing a bad thing to you. Fines, prison, forced labor, the death penalty are all punishments, and if you don't want those to happen to you, don't commit crimes.
  - mjevans 9y ago
    The problem is those punitive actions are not considered from a more enlightened position of causing a net positive to society. A better approach retrains the individual and helps society by enforcing a mutually beneficial result rather than administering some measured form of torture.
    - ben509 9y ago
      Retraining the individual requires that the individual wants to be retrained. That's certainly something to offer, but a sentence is something you're forcing on a person.
      - mjevans 9y ago
        For it to be effective, yes. You seem to be arguing the details of the implementation rather than the goal of what the implementation should solve. Individuals (and circumstances) are different, there should be plenty of discretion and possibly review to ensure that solutions are measurably effective.
dang 9y ago
Could you please not use allcaps for emphasis in HN comments? It's basically yelling, and correlates with low-information rants. We're trying for the opposite here. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
- gumby 9y ago
  I really appreciate the role the site guidelines play in making HN a useful place to read comments (often more than the actual articles). However FWIW I appreciated this particular usage as I read it as a form of parody which i might not have caught had simple emphasis been used. It may be that there's a slippery slope problem so maybe objecting to it is still a good idea, but I thought I'd simply mention my feeling for this particular case.
  - dang 9y ago
    That's a good point and I partly agree. This might not have been the best hill to plant that flag on!
- evanlivingston 9y ago
  Man, your comment comes across as pretty classist. Would you extend the same argument against the use of italics? If not, why? Can you statistically demonstrate a disparity between information density of comments using all caps versus using italics?
  - dang 9y ago
    If that's classist then the guidelines as a whole must be classist.
    - evanlivingston 9y ago
      Yes, that's a real possibility.

by moate 9y ago

13of40 9y ago

Would you feel better about it if the prisoners' situations were identical, but the profits went to the government or to reparations for victims of crime?

eli_gottlieb 9y ago
No. It's still an incentive to create crime and enslave people.
moate 9y ago
God no. That just incentives the government (who create the laws) to put people in prison. And who is the "victim" if someone goes to jail for say, possession of drugs/paraphernalia? The only correct answer is "if you employ people, you pay them." This includes people currently serving jail sentences. Going to jail is meant to be a punishment. You're losing months/years of your normal life. If people wish to offer convicts a way to help mitigate this by offering them employment, then they shouldn't get the ability to employ them at a discounted rate, because that's punitive to people who are not in jail.
jjoonathan 9y ago
Absolutely not.
Falling3 9y ago
No, especially since such a huge percentage of US prisoners are non-violent offenders. What would make me feel better is if we made serious efforts at rehabilitation and reducing recidivism.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
sincerely 9y ago
No no no. Money should go to the people doing the work.
throwawayjava 9y ago
> ...or to reparations for victims of crime? The courts already have a way of doing this that doesn't involve slavery.
- moate 9y ago
  To that end: if there was a civil suit against someone and you wanted to allow convicts to work in prison while paying them a fair wage in order to pay off this debt, that is a logical and even noble choice. I think the biggest issue everyone seems to have is the idea of below market wages being paid to the workers.

leeter 9y ago

Forced labor is slavery, no matter how you put it. The fact of the matter is the 13th amendment needs to be fixed.

watwut 9y ago
Slavery was much worst, realistically. Forced labor is bad, but the comparison is whitewashing conditions under which slaves lived.
ben509 9y ago
Yes, it's slavery, that's the point, just as prison itself is imprisonment. We have a retributive system of justice, the point of a sentence is to punish you by harming you. You do a bad thing, society exacts retribution by doing a bad thing to you. Fines, prison, forced labor, the death penalty are all punishments, and if you don't want those to happen to you, don't commit crimes.
- mjevans 9y ago
  The problem is those punitive actions are not considered from a more enlightened position of causing a net positive to society. A better approach retrains the individual and helps society by enforcing a mutually beneficial result rather than administering some measured form of torture.
  - ben509 9y ago
    Retraining the individual requires that the individual wants to be retrained. That's certainly something to offer, but a sentence is something you're forcing on a person.
    - mjevans 9y ago
      For it to be effective, yes. You seem to be arguing the details of the implementation rather than the goal of what the implementation should solve. Individuals (and circumstances) are different, there should be plenty of discretion and possibly review to ensure that solutions are measurably effective.

dang 9y ago

Could you please not use allcaps for emphasis in HN comments? It's basically yelling, and correlates with low-information rants. We're trying for the opposite here. This is in the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.

gumby 9y ago
I really appreciate the role the site guidelines play in making HN a useful place to read comments (often more than the actual articles). However FWIW I appreciated this particular usage as I read it as a form of parody which i might not have caught had simple emphasis been used. It may be that there's a slippery slope problem so maybe objecting to it is still a good idea, but I thought I'd simply mention my feeling for this particular case.
- dang 9y ago
  That's a good point and I partly agree. This might not have been the best hill to plant that flag on!
evanlivingston 9y ago
Man, your comment comes across as pretty classist. Would you extend the same argument against the use of italics? If not, why? Can you statistically demonstrate a disparity between information density of comments using all caps versus using italics?
- dang 9y ago
  If that's classist then the guidelines as a whole must be classist.
  - evanlivingston 9y ago
    Yes, that's a real possibility.