6 ms·

Coming soon to everywhere! https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/aug/23/uk-food-firms-beg-ministers-to-let-them-use-prisoners-to-ease-labour-shortages https

Coming soon to everywhere! https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/aug/23/uk-food-firms-beg-ministers-to-let-them-use-prisoners-to-ease-labour-shortages https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/aug/23/uk-food-fir...

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
danpalmer 5y ago
Good to mention, but the UK prison release programme is paid, albeit often at minimum wage and subject to a 40% additional tax. As far as I understand it, it is optional for prisoners to engage with though.
- elliekelly 5y ago
  > As far as I understand it, it is optional for prisoners to engage with though. I think we often use “optional” in the wrong way when we’re talking about choices we give to prisoners. When the other option is a dangerous prison it really starts to feel more coercive. The California inmates fighting wildfires for $1.45/day also comes to mind.
  - denton-scratch 5y ago
    $1.45? A day? Really? That's pretty shocking.
    - SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
      As of 2018, yep. https://www.aclu.org/blog/prisoners-rights/prisoners-are-getting-paid-145-day-fight-california-wildfires https://www.aclu.org/blog/prisoners-rights/prisoners-are-get... (I saw an earlier one in 2015 that was 1$/day to boot!)
    - namelessoracle 5y ago
      Even at 1.45 they fight and compete over slots to participate. They'd have prisoners volunteer to do it for free even. You have to realize how draining and soul destroying prison is. By doing the fire fighting they get to leave the prison occasionally, and do something with their life that people compete to do outside the prison system. Also parts of fire fighting training is pretty cool to be honest. People want something/anything to give their life meaning and purpose, and fire fighting does that in a very prestigious way. Ideally they'd get full wages, (at least minimum wage, sense their food and housing is taken care of) and be able to use their fire fighting certification to immediately enter the work force on release. But I believe they are barred from becoming fire fighters afterwords.
  - danpalmer 5y ago
    Prisons in the UK are much safer than in the US, and minimum wage with the additional 40% tax would be more like £4/$5.50 an hour. While I accept that there can be coercion here, I think we're talking about a very different scenario in the UK to the US.
- avs733 5y ago
  Institutional review boards (IRBs) take a very tight view of doing research in prisoners specifically for this reason. The environment is inherently coercive and when someone wields this much power of you there is very little that you would see as optional.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]

danpalmer 5y ago

Good to mention, but the UK prison release programme is paid, albeit often at minimum wage and subject to a 40% additional tax. As far as I understand it, it is optional for prisoners to engage with though.

elliekelly 5y ago
> As far as I understand it, it is optional for prisoners to engage with though. I think we often use “optional” in the wrong way when we’re talking about choices we give to prisoners. When the other option is a dangerous prison it really starts to feel more coercive. The California inmates fighting wildfires for $1.45/day also comes to mind.
- denton-scratch 5y ago
  $1.45? A day? Really? That's pretty shocking.
  - SamoyedFurFluff 5y ago
    As of 2018, yep. https://www.aclu.org/blog/prisoners-rights/prisoners-are-getting-paid-145-day-fight-california-wildfires https://www.aclu.org/blog/prisoners-rights/prisoners-are-get... (I saw an earlier one in 2015 that was 1$/day to boot!)
  - namelessoracle 5y ago
    Even at 1.45 they fight and compete over slots to participate. They'd have prisoners volunteer to do it for free even. You have to realize how draining and soul destroying prison is. By doing the fire fighting they get to leave the prison occasionally, and do something with their life that people compete to do outside the prison system. Also parts of fire fighting training is pretty cool to be honest. People want something/anything to give their life meaning and purpose, and fire fighting does that in a very prestigious way. Ideally they'd get full wages, (at least minimum wage, sense their food and housing is taken care of) and be able to use their fire fighting certification to immediately enter the work force on release. But I believe they are barred from becoming fire fighters afterwords.
- danpalmer 5y ago
  Prisons in the UK are much safer than in the US, and minimum wage with the additional 40% tax would be more like £4/$5.50 an hour. While I accept that there can be coercion here, I think we're talking about a very different scenario in the UK to the US.
avs733 5y ago
Institutional review boards (IRBs) take a very tight view of doing research in prisoners specifically for this reason. The environment is inherently coercive and when someone wields this much power of you there is very little that you would see as optional.