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US prison workers produce $11B worth of goods and services for little to no pay
- markovbot 4y agoDo we have a list of companies who's products are made from American slave labor?
- Vladimof 4y agoYou are going to have to define slave labor... is someone working 12h days for minimum wage considered a slave? I would say yes.
- kube-system 4y ago"Slave labor" is not being used as hyperbole in this context. It is the conventional definition. A job that complies with the 13th amendment without exception is not slavery.
- woodruffw 4y agoI'm not aware of a list, but for most states you can Google "$state correctional enterprises" and the first result will be the "public" corporation that's using prison slave labor. For example, here are Maryland's[1] and New York's[2]. These corporations may be reselling their slave labor to other companies, so it's difficult to get a complete picture. Edit: One of the more evil aspects of NY's "corcraft" is that we send prisoners into toxic worksites to clean up asbestos and other hazmat[3]. [1]: https://www.mce.md.gov/ https://www.mce.md.gov/ [2]: https://corcraft.ny.gov/ https://corcraft.ny.gov/ [3]: https://corcraft.ny.gov/abatement-services https://corcraft.ny.gov/abatement-services
- frankharv 4y ago
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- markovbot 4y agoTypical incoherent right wing rant. What are you even trying to say? Slavery is good?
- booleandilemma 4y agoThey used slave labor to manufacture hand sanitizer in New York. https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/03/09/new-york-is-making-hand-sanitizer-with-prison-labor.html https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2020/03/09/new-york-is-making-hand-...
- FpUser 4y agoChina should ban those products. /s
- markovbot 4y agoAlso see: the first time this article was submitted with a slight title correction to avoid the disgusting euphemism for slavery used by the original site[0] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31782727 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31782727
- denimnerd42 4y agoand for the people arguing over terminology... slavery is explicitly allowed in the constitution: [n]either slavery nor involuntary servitude, as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted
- karaterobot 4y agoNo, it's not. The Supreme Court settled that argument over a hundred years ago, in Bailey v. Alabama: > The plain intention was to abolish slavery of whatever name and form and all its badges and incidents; to render impossible any state of bondage; to make labor free, by prohibiting that control by which the personal service of one man is disposed of or coerced for another's benefit, which is the essence of involuntary servitude. It may help to interpret the wording of the amendment like this: "Here is a list of two things which shall not exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction: Number one is slavery, number two is involuntary servitude (except as punishment for a duly convicted crime)." And that's how SCOTUS appears to interpret it, which means that's de facto what it says.
- johnday 4y ago> which means that's de facto what it says. ITYM that it's de jure what it says. de facto is the opposite.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- WalterGR 4y ago> used by the original site *Used by the original submission. (I think that's what you meant... The article has a title closer to what you used.)
- hunglee2 4y agowe need to boycott companies which cannot prove that they don't use forced labour
- azinman2 4y agoHow do you prove a negative?
- Karunamon 4y agoIn this case, auditor certification of the supply chain.
- msbarnett 4y agoThe phrase "you can't prove a negative" is really short-hand for "you can't prove a negative existential claim within an effectively infinite scope", ie. I can't prove that Bigfoot doesn't exist anywhere in the universe simply because absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. But I can easily prove that Bigfoot does not exist within my coffee mug, or that a particular box I have which contains 5 pennies contains no silver dollars, or that the list of suppliers with whom I directly do business does not include "Missouri Correctional Services LLC" (and I think the spirit of GP's suggestion is boycotting companies that directly do business with prison labour, not people who transitively do business with it at a 25 company remove, or something)
- mywittyname 4y agoKind of hard to do when state governments use slave labor to produce things we are essentially compelled to buy, like license plates.
- g42gregory 4y agoPresumably, most of the incarcerated people are there for a reason. What is collective economic damage that they caused? Is it more than $11B? What should we do instead? Pay them the minimum/reasonable wage while they are incarcerated, and then charge them a full rate for the economic and societal damage that they caused, so that they and their families would be in financial debt for the rest of their natural lives?
- woodruffw 4y agoFor a start, we shouldn't use them as slaves. Two wrongs don't make a right. If we determine, as a society, that convicted criminals should "pay" for their crimes, that should be a civil matter determined by civil processes, not the fancies (and profit motive) of a prison corporation.
- mdavis6890 4y agoWhy is this relevant? Are the proceeds of their labor given to the people they harmed? Who gets to measure the harm? There is, however, a very clear conflict of interest caused by allowing the justice system to benefit financially from the people they imprison.
- TheFreim 4y ago> Who gets to measure the harm? Courts do by giving different sentences based on sentencing guidelines, the nature of the crime, and the individual circumstances.
- GauntletWizard 4y agoIn an indirect way, yes. States have Victims Compensation Funds, which help defray the losses incurred by victims [1]. No, the profits from criminals' indenture do not go directly there, but they do defray the cost of holding prisoners. [1] https://www.benefits.gov/benefit/4416 https://www.benefits.gov/benefit/4416
- mdavis6890 4y ago
- hourago 4y ago> They have also asked that lawmakers amend the Constitution to abolish the 13th Amendment exclusion that allows slavery and involuntary servitude as punishment for a crime. Slavery work and for profit prisons may incentivise to send as many people as possible to prison. It seems a bad incentive if you are looking for a fair justice system.
- nickff 4y agoThere are many incentives that bias the ‘justice system’ in various ways that are unfavorable to prospective defendants, but it’s a very slippery slope. The prison guards’ unions have a very strong lobby for one. Another problem is that the way that misdemeanors and felonies work; it’s often more convenient for DAs to have people incarcerated for over a year (rather than less than a year). Even paying prosecutors money is an incentive to prosecute people. These are just a few examples that quickly came to mind; I’m not sure that it is possible to eliminate these biases without getting rid of the whole system.
- wtvanhest 4y agoWe should try to eliminate as many as possible, regardless of whether it has to be piecemeal
- elmomle 4y agoHow would people be prosecuted if prosecutors aren't paid money?
- nickff 4y agoMany countries allow private prosecution of criminal offenses (though this is infrequently used in most of those countries for a number of reasons). If you eliminate public prosecutors/district attorneys, people could privately prosecute pro-se or with the assistance of private counsel. That's just one example of many biases inherent to the current system, and I wouldn't focus on it too much.
- 4y ago
- cpursley 4y agoAmerica: The Farewell Tour (book) talked about this. There's also the issue of prisoners getting nickel and dimmed on basic supplies, phone calls, etc where many leave in debt.
- bshepard 4y agoThis wrong is subsidiary on the the prior moral wrong of kidnapping and caging humans. This practice will look very bad from the perspective of any desirable future. But many futures await with even more cages.
- TheFreim 4y ago> kidnapping and caging humans What does this refer to? It's illegal to kidnap people, if caught you'll get sent to prison for it.
- tsimionescu 4y agoNot if you're a police officer working under the law. The GP is trying to say that the whole notion of incarceration is barbaric, and that future generations will look back on it just like we look at, say, stokades.
- crackercrews 4y agoWhat will future generations do with people who kill other people?
- TheFreim 4y agoThat's really the issue with calling incarceration wrong generally. I'd understand someone opposing it for all crimes and proposing alternative punishments depending on the situation but it seems that there are going to be situations where it's immoral /not/ to lock someone in prison.
- int_19h 4y agoThe immoral part is when you lock someone up as a punishment. If we did this to ensure safety for everyone else, we'd only lock up people who are actually likely to commit another crime, and then only for as long as that remains true. Notions like "if you do X, the minimum sentence is Y", which are kinda fundamental to how we run our justice system, are not compatible with that.
- someluccc 4y agoPrisoners also cost a ridiculous amount of public funds -I’ve seen numbers in the $100k-$150k/year range-. Prison work contributes to sentence reduction and contributes to their cost of imprisonment.
- mirntyfirty 4y agoThe value they create doesn’t reduce the public fund contributions.
- colinmhayes 4y agoof course it does. The prison companies would charge more if they didn't have the prison labor.
- yywwbbn 4y agoI’m not sure if this specific market is really that free, more likely they’d continue charging as much as they can get away with. Also relatively few prisons are private.
- colinmhayes 4y agoAt public prison it's even more clear that using prisoners as slaves saves the state money.
- mirntyfirty 4y agoIf this is clear....where is the evidence?
- colinmhayes 4y agoPaying people for their work tautologically costs more than not paying them. YOu need evidence for that?
- willcipriano 4y agoIgnoring the effect on prisoners, this drives down wages for low skill people on the outside. No labor should be able to be sold below minimum wage, otherwise it really isn't one.
- bruceb 4y ago
- sumy23 4y agoThe minimum wage applies to immigrants.
- HideousKojima 4y agoOnly if they're working on the books
- bergenty 4y agoThis applies to everyone, even citizens and residents.
- kube-system 4y agoWith the significant difference that they have the ability to report their employers crimes without being blackmailed for their immigration status.
- bergenty 4y agoWhy would this be any different for a legal immigrant?
- kube-system 4y agoBecause they have no reason to be afraid of deportation for being undocumented. Employers of undocumented immigrants frequently break labor laws because they can get away with it because their employees are too afraid to do anything about it.
- matt321 4y agoThis is just capitalism minus a few steps.
- AegirLeet 4y agoWage slavery minus the wage.
- idoh 4y agoA question for the field: If working in a prison factory is completely optional, e.g. you can choose to work in the factory at $1 per hour, or the barbershop, or the kitchen, then is this OK? If executed well it seems OK, but given what we know about how well prisons are run it seems like the temptation for abuse is too great to allow.
- markovbot 4y agoWhy do you think it's okay to pay people $1 per hour? The federal minimum wage, well known to be a joke, is still $7.25
- nelsondev 4y agoFree “room and board” is a form of compensation. RA’s (Resident Advisors) at American universities, students whose job is to handle dormitory issues, are compensated via free “room and board.”
- lesuorac 4y agoFalse equivalence. Whatever crime you were committed of did not carry a penalty where you had to pay for your housing in prison. So your room in board is covered in the case where you work and where you don't and can't be deducted from wages. Now, the crime you were convicted of may have required you to pay some form of victim compensation. This is often deducted from any prison wages.
- anigbrowl 4y agoYou can quit if you get tired of being an RA. What a specious argument.
- ejb999 4y ago>>Free “room and board” is a form of compensation. and don't forget healthcare.
- inetsee 4y ago
- someluccc 4y agoA prisoner costs the same in funding ($150k/year) as 10 school children ($15k/year). The two million inmates in america cost the same as educating 20 million kids -or increasing funding foe x number of kids who need it most-. Further questions: is the work mandatory? Or is it optional for those looking to shorten their sentence?
- anonymoushn 4y agoThe work is optional. You can choose to be tortured instead.
- the_only_law 4y agoWait a minute I thought that one was illegal too!
- markovbot 4y agohere i'll read the article for you > The ACLU also found that more than 76 percent of incarcerated workers surveyed by the Bureau of Justice Statistics say that “they are required to work or face additional punishments such as solitary confinement, denial of opportunities to reduce their sentence, and loss of family visitation.”
- BeetleB 4y ago> Further questions: is the work mandatory? This is addressed in the (short) article.
- kolbe 4y agoI'll pay you $150k to watch over 10 children for 7 hours a day or one violent and mentally ill murderer 24/7. What do choose?
- yywwbbn 4y ago$150k is the average and relatively few people in prison are mentally ill murderers. So something doesn’t seem to add up.
- crackercrews 4y agoHonest question: is the wage data from imprisoned workers included in gender pay gap calculations? I could see arguments for and against. Seems like either way you'd have to make this explicit since the vast majority of prisoners are men and the pay is so very low.
- tsimionescu 4y agoThese are not "workers" in any common sense, and they are not receiving a "wage" per se. They are slaves, compelled to work under the 13th ammendment, and receive a stipend when they do so. The state could compel them to work even without this money (it's just more efficient to have a somewhat willing slave than one who is fighting you every step of the way). By contrast, a worker has a choice of who to work for, can negotiate their salary, and can choose not to work.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- ineedasername 4y agoWhen analysing data you try to compare like to like. Similar positions at similar career levels & experience in similar economic sectors. If you want to explorer gender pay gaps while including prison inmates then the proper way to do that would be male inmate pay for similar jobs compared to female inmate pay.
- anonymoushn 4y agoPeople often think that controlling for the percentage of Fortune 500 CEOs that are women, which would reduce the gender pay gap one calculates, is not reasonable, because perhaps "Women are much less likely to be Fortune 500 CEOs" is an actual part of the gender pay gap. You are suggesting controlling for the percentage of slaves that are women. It seems like we ought to control for both slave status and Fortune 500 CEO status or for neither.
- 4y ago
- failrate 4y agoPrison labor is slave labor.
- blobbers 4y agoThe slaves freed through the civil war committed no crime. They were taken or born slaves. Criminals have shown their behavior to be counter productive to the laws of our society.
- archhn 4y agoLet me guess, middle class upbringing with little to no contact with the living conditions of the poors?
- blobbers 4y agoMy country doesn't have quite the level of wealth disparity as the united states.
- therealdrag0 4y agoLet me guess, you think certain demographics are only entitled to certain viewpoints? /s
- conductr 4y agoSlavery is a broader term and concept than just referring the civil war era slaves in America
- Volundr 4y ago> Criminals have shown their behavior to be counter productive to the laws of our society. Or were wrongly convicted. Or were convicted of an unjust law. Or any number of other things. "Broke a law" doesn't justify making someone a slave. Even the "undesirables" are human.
- tacocataco 4y agoIn the USA we have plenty of (IMO) unjust laws meant to put people into the system. If Democrats really supported bodily autonomy, they would push to make all drugs legal.
- Madmallard 4y agoModern day slavery
- 88840-8855 4y agoAnd YET people who profit from that have huge opinions on China and Xinjiang. Both is bad. And both needs same treatment. And we will see again how I get downvoted, because it DOES NOT get the same treatment here.
- anonymoushn 4y agoDo you think there are any people who profit from US prison labor and comment on hacker news?
- eloff 4y agoI think that prisoners wronged society and owe society a debt. If their sentence includes work that benefits society in some way, that should be fair? I haven't thought about it too much, but it doesn't seem unreasonable on the surface.
- gretch 4y agoYeah but it creates an societal incentive to categorize people as criminals and send them to prison. I think there’s a lot of things on the fence today where view it as not immoral, but for some reason are still crimes. For example, non violent marijuana cases. Incentives like free prison labor sometimes adds to that in an unhealthy way
- eloff 4y agoNot if the judicial system is separate. I would say the problem here is stupid laws putting people in jail for being in possession of drugs for personal consumption. I think it's a separate concern.
- roflyear 4y agoLaws are a political thing not a justice system thing. The justice system enforces the laws and penalties. I guess they can choose not to enforce laws, but again, politics....
- swatcoder 4y agoAs food for thought: 1. Are you sure your vision of prison’s role is universal or even prevailing? 2. Even if so, who’s responsible for quantifying the debt? 3. Who determines the means by which the debt is paid? 4. Who benefits most directly by the payment? 5. What systems are in place to prevent corruption by the agents identified in 2-4? The debate is a live one because the current answers to those questions aren’t very convincing to people who worry about exploitation.
- efnx 4y agoBenefiting society is one thing, but padding a corporation’s profit is another.
- kache_ 4y agocan't do the time don't do the crime my dude
- archhn 4y agoSlavery is legal as a punishment in the home of the free.
- NiceWayToDoIT 4y agoOK, but what is total loss in amount of TAX dollars for keeping inmates in prisons?
- klabb3 4y agoA lot, both directly and indirectly. The US has the highest incarceration rate in the world, by far, including developing countries. Having slave labor makes it worse, arguably much worse, because there's now private interests who are incentivized to maintain that incarceration rate.
- NiceWayToDoIT 4y agoMy understanding is different: We are all slave to system, so why should I pay for the criminals? Let say there is 2m inmates, that means that if we take that it takes $10000 a year that is 20 bn. So we still pay at least 10bn to keep them alive and well, and probably price is much higher. So, there is no slavery they just paying for what they eat and spend in terms of clothing, heating, food ... And by this I am not even calculating in the damage they have done by committing the crime in the first place.
- klabb3 4y ago> So we still pay at least 10bn to keep them alive and well, and probably price is much higher. There's no question incarceration is expensive. Nobody is disputing that. > there is no slavery they just paying for what they eat and spend in terms of clothing, heating, food ... This is not how it works, you're proposing something entirely different. The best way to have criminals pay back is turning them into taxpayers. Punishment for the pleasure of it is very expensive.
- twiddling 4y agohttps://eji.org/news/history-racial-injustice-prison-labor/ https://eji.org/news/history-racial-injustice-prison-labor/ The Thirteenth Amendment, ratified in 1865, made slavery and involuntary servitude unconstitutional in the United States “except as punishment for crime.”
- telaelit 4y agoIt's insane that we allow this modern day slavery to continue.
- archhn 4y agoThis thread offers us an opportunity to understand why it does. Look at how many comments ordain the practice out of a callous disregard for those who incur the unfortunate label of "criminal." A criminal can be anything from a man who kills a child to a homeless man who was caught sleeping in the wrong place too many times, but this nuance doesn't seem to factor into the thinking of supporters of modern day slavery. I've also noticed that people carry with them a suppressed anger that comes from being forced to follow the law and perform all the duties of a functional citizen. Anyone who breaks the law is not enduring the burdens of citizenship as they are, and so the "criminal" becomes a virtuous outlet for their suppressed rage. The criminal thus becomes a kind of scapegoat.
- juanani 4y ago
- rosmax_1337 4y agoI saw that in another thread here on the frontpage Amazon were running out of people to hire. Maybe this is the solution.
- encryptluks2 4y agoDon't give Bezos any ideas. I'm sure he'd welcome the idea. Musk might even suggest sending prisoners to Mars to build the first colonies.
- giantg2 4y agoIf the prisons use the revenues for the prison and not for profit, then I don't really see a problem with it. The working and living conditions should be addressed too, but those are a wider spread issue. And a reminder for everyone that 2-10% of the incarcerated are wrongly convicted. This is where we should be starting in my opinion.
- jeffreyames 4y agoDoes anyone know of this is the case? Are the earnings from prison labor taxed?
- squarefoot 4y agoWell, weren't they warned that crime doesn't pay? /s
- aaron695 4y ago
- spicyramen_ 4y ago
- Havoc 4y agoWhats the going hourly rate for a slave?
- rootw0rm 4y agoFew years back I earned around $4 a week... Just enough to buy soap, shampoo, etc.
- aceon48 4y agoNot sure if I see the problem here. Prison time generally means you’ve been a net negative to society. This reverses some of that karma
- rcrestomods 4y agoOn a related noted, a friend Dr. Brett Derbes in History is currently compiling his graduate work into a book about prison labor, methods, and output in the Antebellum South and during the Civil War. Some of the things he shared with me in the process have been hard to stomach. Would it be legally possible in the US circa 2022 and beyond to run a "silent prison" where no talking was allowed among inmates sun up to sun down & when working? That was actually part of a movement in prison management. I just shake my head and hope for more efforts to rehabilitation and social acceptance such as the FL citizen result indicating a majority would like to restore voting rights to Felons in this modern world. Times can change!
- froh 4y agoThe loss of voting rights is another outreageous detail, breaking fundamental human rights. Just for comparison: In my home country (Germany) you can only use the right to vote for crimes against democracy (incitement to insurrecton, attempted insurrection, high treason, voting fraud, ...). This additional punishment has to be added by the judge, and it for at most 5 years. This affects, in a country with 80Mio inhabitants, about 1.4 individuals per year. For comparison, in the USA, the flagship of western democracy, the democratic human right to vote is taken from Millions (!) of citizens. Most of them black, who'd thunk... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disfranchisement#Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disfranchisement#Germany https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/deutsches-strafrecht-wahlbuerger-hinter-gittern-1.1442183 https://www.sueddeutsche.de/politik/deutsches-strafrecht-wah...
- ultra_nick 4y agoHow do we stop it?
- BurningFrog 4y agoAccording to the first Google hit on the issue¹, the US prison system cost $88.5B in 2016. So these $11B do not come close to making it profitable to lock more people up. ¹ https://www.americanactionforum.org/research/the-economic-costs-of-the-u-s-criminal-justice-system/ https://www.americanactionforum.org/research/the-economic-co...
- sosodev 4y agoThe cost of imprisoning people is subsidized by the government. Who profits off of their labor though? When my mother was in prison she worked for a private company for well below our states minimum wage. So her employer profited off of her nearly free labor.
- BurningFrog 4y agoSure, but we need someone that both profit from increased incarceration and have the power to actually increase it, to make the theory that prisons are kept full for profit to be credible. I attempted to show that the government, who clearly can fill up prisons, lose money from it, so they don't have the incentive. Your mother's prison employer would benefit from more prisoners, but hardly has enough political power to make it happen. I know prison warden unions always lobby for more prisoners, and they do have some political power, but I can't believe it's typically decisive. So who else could it be?
- carabiner 4y agoThe crazy thing is that we still criticize China's concentration camps. We have a larger proportion of our population enslaved than they do.
- zirror 4y agoNot only a larger proportion, but a larger number in absolute terms. ~2,000,000 in US vs ~1,700,000 in China. Source: https://www.statista.com/statistics/262961/countries-with-the-most-prisoners/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/262961/countries-with-th...
- carabiner 4y agoYeah, I await the “At LeAsT wE cAn TaLk AbOuT iT” crowd to say how we are still better than China, because talking ensures some restitution at some point? How many decades have we had these camps? Freedom of speech is a privilege without teeth.
- ch4s3 4y agoThere are a few things to note here the first is that China executes at least 8,000 people per year vs. 25 per year in the US. The other is that the 1.7 million number is an estimate.
- throwaway742 4y agoWell at least they aren't disproportionately ethnic minorities. /s
- ameister14 4y agoThat doesn't include the 1-3 million Uyghurs detained, I believe.
- dionidium 4y agoWhat's genuinely crazy is that you would equate the forced internment of an ethnic or religious minority with the confinement of convicted criminals. I can hardly imagine two things less alike.
- dijonman2 4y agoUnicor is a scam. You can hire them to make anything, while the prisons pay workers something like $0.10/hr.
- otikik 4y agoOf all the things that are wrong in the US, this one is the worst one for me. You didn’t end slavery, you just moved it to special buildings
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- therealdrag0 4y agoRoom and board is not cheap and working to pay for it makes sense IMO. If that’s slavery, then so be it. But that doesn’t excuse other detailed injustices in the system, such as not having medical care or basic necessities.
- otikik 4y ago> If that’s slavery, then so be it Be better.
- therealdrag0 4y agoJust so you know; that’s an entirely meaningless comment to me. If you can’t be bothered to understand the difference in our views enough to make a comment that has a chance of bridging the gap and moving the needle then don’t be bothered to write a smug comment. Just because you feel self righteous doesn’t mean you are.
- otikik 4y agoOk I will add more context. This is what your phrase looks to me: > If that’s paedophilia, then so be it Or > If that's organ trafficking, then so be it There are things that are fundamentally wrong. Slavery is one of them. If you don't agree with this basic principle, I honestly don't want to bridge any gaps, I'd rather have a big gap actually.
- therealdrag0 4y ago
- hereme888 4y agoThey're paying the penalty of crime. At least they're being given something productive to do, and easing the burden on taxpayers. Just read about an Illinois father who drowned his three young children to keep his wife from taking them. You think it's slave labor for this man to work below minimum wage while being given a roof, bed, bathroom, and food, at the expense of our taxes?
- ssalka 4y agoIf you're forced to work against your will, yeah, that's slave labor. Blame, culpability, guilt, etc is besides the point. Prison labor in practice is the enslavement of criminals. edit: people deemed criminals by the state (includes false positives)
- cactus2093 4y agoBut everything in prison is being done to you against your will. That's kind of the whole point. I don't see why being required to do a moderate amount of work under humane working conditions is so much worse than being required to sit there in a cell at other hours with no ability to leave. (If the working conditions are not humane, then that's a different story). They also do usually receive pay, just less than minimum wage. So put a different way - I don't see why the minimum wage within a prison should necessarily be the same as the minimum wage outside of prison.
- klyrs 4y agoIf the prisoner is attractive to a guard, they might as well be forced to have sex against their will. That's kind of the whole point....? Sorry, what's the whole point? Incarceration does not imply exploitation. Exploitation is an abuse of power over incarcerated people. If you want to reduce recidivism, better to pay for their work so they see value in an honest day's work. What we've got now only teaches prisoners that we've got them over a barrel.
- cactus2093 4y ago
- theropost 4y agoInterestingly enough, that's a GDP of $5500 per capita for each inmate (estimated 2 million prisoners)
- iamleppert 4y agoI'm surprised silicon valley hasn't cashed in on this yet. Just think, there could be a thriving startup ecosystem behind bars and VC's wouldn't have to pay nearly the costs for SWE's!
- holyknight 4y agoGreat
- dirtyid 4y ago>average of just between 13 cents and 52 cents per hour across the country For reference, even Uyghur coerced labour propaganda allegations cite salary above 40th percentile of PRC national income - typically subtantially higher that 600M living on 1000rmb a month. Equivalent of 40-70K USD, almost like solid poverty alleviation wages designed to minimize recidivism and not to perpetuate forever prison industrial complex that cost state/taxpayers more to intern people than they are worth as minimally paid labourers.
- rnk 4y agoYeah, those folks working in prison camps in China should be happy that us prisoners (living in the vestiges of post civil war us prison legal decisions) are worse off. In reality all those people would prefer to be free, regardless of salary.
- danielodievich 4y agoI recently read the The Story of Work: A New History of Humankind by Jan Lucassen that covered this (and all the other types) of labor in great, if also sleep-inducing depth. If you like something a bit longer than this article about "unfree labour", want to know what "corvee labor" is, learn the difference between serfdom and slavery, and be depressed about how much slavery there still is in the world, this is a great book for you. https://www.amazon.com/Story-Work-New-History-Humankind/dp/0300256795 https://www.amazon.com/Story-Work-New-History-Humankind/dp/0... for the book, https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2021/07/22/a-long-view-of-work-shows-how-little-it-has-changed-over-millennia https://www.economist.com/books-and-arts/2021/07/22/a-long-v... for the in-depth review.
- AYBABTME 4y agoThere's a lot of components to what's being bundled here together, and not much space afforded emotionally to allow for a philosophical discussion about the individual merits of an approach versus another, given each component taken by itself. If any discussion invariably reduces to "you're pro slavery and this is slavery" alike to how another one would boil down to "by the slippery slope principle: well you're basically Hitler"... well, there's no discussion happening, what we've got is angry people throwing statements past each other.
- moate 4y agoThis is not reductive. This is slavery. When you call Hitler Hitler, you're not being dramatic, you're just pointing out facts. Sometimes there's nuance, sometimes there's "the state preserving slavery".
- AYBABTME 4y agoPerhaps it's slavery, perhaps it's not. I think you're jumping the gun in calling it a done, unambiguous fact. I think I'm a sensible person, and I'm willing to entertain the idea that it might be slavery. But if I read this article, I don't find it sufficient in proving its claim. It supposes that this might be slavery, it supports its argument with claims made by prisoners. When I think back about prior information I had about this topic, I also wasn't entirely convinced that this is indeed, unquestionably slavery. In fact, I can see a reasonable world in which this might not be slavery. Perhaps a world in which there are some occasions where a judge would rule that this is slavery, but not systematic actual slavery. You might think that I'm unreasonable in being skeptic and wanting a stronger proof before accepting this claim. But this is an extraordinary claim, and it would require extraordinary proofs. Just reading an article presenting one side of the story and concluding "it's slavery" doesn't cut it to me. It's intellectually dishonest. It sounds good as a party line, as a slogan, but it's not a cold headed conclusion, in my book. * * * And I think that denying this is problematic. Because in denying that it's not clear cut, we jump to conclusions, and we make it a cardinal sin to say anything else than the party line. And this means we can't think this through and examine the situation for what it is. We can't talk about it intellectually like you'd want of an HN discussion. We can only talk about it in flames, screams and battles. And what's the point of that.
- schwinn140 4y agoAren't there companies like Televerde that 100% of the product offering is based on low cost labor supplied by prisoners? https://therealnews.com/corporations-are-making-millions-of-dollars-from-us-prison-labor https://therealnews.com/corporations-are-making-millions-of-... These companies have a well well orchestrated PR effort though that attempts to flip the narrative towards all the good they are doing for these people. In my mind, both are likely to be true. Giving prisoners a purpose and minimum wage is far better than prison laundry rates ($0.50 per hour). That said, obfuscating the fact that your customer-facing pricing and incredible margins are based on what we'd all consider to be a form of slave labor is disingenuous a best. Transparency (think home page of their site) vs. back channel PR aimed at arming lobbyists would go a long way.
- tomohawk 4y agoIts a hard problem. If the goal of prison is for people to be able to be a non-destructive part of society when they get out, they need to learn skills and be employable. That cannot be done if they are kept from working and earning. However, if they earn money, that is obviously something of value, and can be traded or used against them.
- paulpauper 4y ago$11 billion is tiny. it's like how much google makes in a month. I think pundits, activists overestimate both the cost of incarceration (it's not that expensive relative to other things like healthcare or education) and how big the prison labor industry is. That's not to say it isn't wrong, but it's hard to get people worked up about $11 billion.
- moistly 4y agoThe embarrassment of it all is this: a study of global prison systems and their efficacy tells us what our governments should be doing. If we want to improve recidivism rates, we can look around at this world and do something better. If we want to inflict more punishment, there’s no end to the examples of inhumane torture. If we want to turn it into a profitable big-business slavery farm and factory system, we can find free-market exemplars. Judges Plead Guilty in Scheme to Jail Youths for Profit: https://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/us/13judge.html https://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/us/13judge.html We, our government, need to temper the amoral economic system if we wish to avoid having slavery-adjacent for-profit businesses running amuck on our land.