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What would you rather have the prisoners doing besides working? This actually gives them some sort of skillset that can be used when they get out.
by billy99k 3y ago
What would you rather have the prisoners doing besides working? This actually gives them some sort of skillset that can be used when they get out.
- saagarjha 3y agoLearning? There's not much you get from doing menial work for almost zero wages.
- klyrs 3y agoNo, I think there is some learning occurring. Only, the lesson is that society isn't worth integrating into. This is a beneficial lesson for the slavers.
- burkaman 3y agoI would rather have them choosing whether or not to work so they aren't slaves.
- SkyBelow 3y agoA slave that isn't given tasks to do is still a slave. We can discuss the negative incentives of having them do labor and how that might pervert our legal system (companies that benefit lobbying for harsher penalties on victimless crimes), but they are still denied their freedom regardless of which way that discussion goes.
- lm28469 3y agoThe definitions of slave and slavery disagree with you
- SkyBelow 3y agoOxford dictionary's definition requires ownership, so if the prisons/corporations do not actually legally own the person, then technically it doesn't qualify as slavery regardless of what sort of forced labor is required. But is such a distinction really helpful to the discussion? If someone owns another person and forces them to work but doesn't force them to obey them, does it technically count as not a slave because it doesn't meet all three requirements of Oxford dictionary's definition. Will it really help if we then start comparing dictionary definitions of "forced" or "owned"? Or even what counts as work. A prisoner required to clean their cells and return their trays after lunch are forms of labor that could be done by janitor... is that work? I don't think these matter once you have locked someone in a cage, even if it is a slightly gilded. Metaphorically speaking, no actual gold leaf or gold paint in use.
- lm28469 3y agoAs you say, saying "a prisoner who work is a slave" is already wrong, but saying "a prisoner who doesn't work is still a slave" is doubly wrong. > But is such a distinction really helpful to the discussion? Yes words have a meaning, changing the meaning of words is often used for dubious ideologies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTI_–_Lingua_Tertii_Imperii https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LTI_–_Lingua_Tertii_Imperii Something can be bad and not an "holocaust", someone can be abused an not a "slave", someone can be racist and not "literally hitler", this modern perversion of language doesn't do anything besides discrediting the person who uses it. We already have very specific words for very specific situations, we don't have to reuse loaded terms
- cush 3y agoI know when I need to look up something pertaining to systemic racism, I reach for my Oxford.
- burkaman 3y agoI don't want to have a semantic argument about the definition of "slave", maybe we can agree on the term "involuntary servant". Prisoners should be denied as much freedom as is necessary to protect the rest of society and no more. Forcing people to work against their will does not protect anybody. It is not legitimate to say that if we deny one freedom we might as well deny all of them, they aren't free regardless.
- SkyBelow 3y ago>Prisoners should be denied as much freedom as is necessary to protect the rest of society and no more. I think many of those prisoners are already denied far more freedoms that necessary to keep them safe, so would that mean they are already worse off? The added labor is even worse, but I don't find that as the tipping point of good to bad yet a lot of the past discussion I've seen on if prison is slavery or not does seem to treat it as the tipping point. Getting past how we are naming things, my disagreement is that forced labor isn't what tips us from having a just prison system to an unjust one, and instead that we are mostly already over that tipping point even without forced labor being included.
- burkaman 3y ago> would that mean they are already worse off Yes. I agree that forced labor is not a tipping point, I haven't seen it described that way but I wouldn't agree with someone who said that everything we do up to forced labor is fine.
- cush 3y agoI feel like the addition of being forced to work to benefit the man, while being paid little to nothing, while being physically abused, while losing the little free time they had, might just make those two things not the same.
- EasyMark 3y agoSo are you seriously advocating that there be no consequences at all for those who would hurt others, and even kill them, just because you personally define it as "slavery"?
- brink 3y agoYeah, I don't understand why prison labor should be controversial as long as they're not being treated terribly. Give them minimum wage if weighs on your conscience, and pay it out in a lump sum when they get out.
- burkaman 3y agoPlease read the article, it addresses all of your points and should help you understand.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- sdenton4 3y agoBecause we tend not to like slave labor in the modern world. Using prisoners for slave labor creates perverse incentives to enslave more people, and keep them enslaved longer.
- brink 3y agoCall me old fashioned, but I don't think law abiding citizens should bear the burden of those who break the law. If people outside those prison walls are forced to get a job, then the people inside those walls should be no exception.
- KSteffensen 3y agoBecause it sets up incentives for whoever benefits from the labor to lobby for stricter crime laws regardless of whether those stricter laws lead to less crime in the long term.
- Supermancho 3y agoThis is a problem with crony capitalism, moreso than the philosophy of rehabilitation vs punishment.
- bobbylarrybobby 3y agoStudying, choosing whether to work, making at least minimum wage
- connicpu 3y agoIf prisoners at least got paid minimum wage then maybe when they left prison they'd have a pool of funds to get their life put back together rather than resorting to crime in order to survive, repeating a cycle that gets them put back in there.
- Beijinger 3y agoYou realize that prison is interested in getting them back? This is an industrial complex and they are the product. There are exceptions of cause, see Norway.
- connicpu 3y agoObviously the for-profit prisons would absolutely hate this kind of reform and will spend millions lobbying against it if it ever garnered serious consideration. All the more reason to push for it.
- Beijinger 3y agoYou think it is different in non for profit prisons? Wrong. And they are also making good money with it. The question is, what is prison supposed to be? Punishment? Reintegration? Deterrence?
- wang_li 3y agoPrison is supposed to keep people who are harmful to society away from their victims. Anything else is secondary and should not impinge on prison's functionality of segregating convicts from society.
- FireBeyond 3y agoNot just for-profit prisons. Correctional Officer unions are among the hardest lobbiers against ANY decriminalization of marijuana, or any general "reform" to our criminal statutes. That blows my mind. "Keep more things illegal so we have a job".
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- cush 3y agoThat’s slavery, friend.
- orwin 3y agoCan you at least pay them a correct wage? In my country they are paid at least minimum wages, and have the choice of studying instead.
- MisterTea 3y agoEducation and Socializing activities for starters. Slavery isn't exactly going to rehabilitate anyone. At best they'll be indifferent and at worst it will just make them more angry and resentful at "the system". Hard to integrate back into society with that kind of head on your shoulders.
- bill_joy_fanboy 3y agoIf someone has wronged me or my family or society at large in some kind of severe manner by committing a crime, I don't really care if they are rehabilitated. I want them punished. Why complicate things? Also, I recognize that there are a lot of people in prison in the U.S. who shouldn't be there. I think our the way people end up in prison needs reform, of course. However, once there, the point is to punish people for doing something wrong, IMHO. "Rehabilitation" is not the point of prison.
- ifyoubuildit 3y ago> I want them punished. Why complicate things? Probably because satisfying your want for revenge isn't a good enough reason to have the big expensive system that is prison. Presumably prison should be solving some wider societal problems.
- JumpCrisscross 3y ago> satisfying your want for revenge isn't a good enough reason to have the big expensive system that is prison Retribution is an important component of justice [1]. Its utilitarian purpose is to prevent out-of-the-law reprisal. You see it on HN, where certain topics attract someone who will be “sickened” or “disgusted” by some thing or other, and reflexively want something horrible to happen to everyone involved. (If you’re honest, you’ve done this too. It’s a childish impulse inherent to being human.) [1] https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/reasons-we-punish https://www.ojp.gov/ncjrs/virtual-library/abstracts/reasons-...
- 3y ago
- yunwal 3y agoKeeping someone trapped in order to force them to do work is called “slavery” and it’s generally frowned upon in the modern era. There shouldn’t be profit associated with prisoners, that’s how you get wrongful arrests and draconian drug laws.
- ecf 3y agoIt’s not slavery when the human has done things that society deemed bad enough to lose their rights for however long the sentence is.
- Loic 3y agoYou are losing your freedom of movement, not your rights, no?
- wang_li 3y agoPrisoners lose most of their rights. They have no privacy rights, they can be searched at any time without a warrant, they often don't get to vote, they don't get to own weapons, they don't have freedom of association, they don't get to choose their style of dress.
- EasyMark 3y agoNope you lose a lot of your rights as well. I don't know about European prisons, though. When you break the social contract, there are consequences.
- hotpotamus 3y agoI've never seen the social contract, let alone signed it. I suppose I used to sort of believe that it existed, but that belief, like so many others I once held, has not survived the past decade or so. Certainly I believe in consequences, but they seem little better than random, though they quite rarely touch the wealthy/connected.
- BeetleB 3y ago
- samstave 3y agoits not about them working or not, its about what companies benefit from using such labor as opposed to employing people who need to support self/family.
- mistrial9 3y agoif industry can capture labor at the lower price point, there is a lot of incentive not to hire civilians with health care and worker rights, instead get more prison labor. This is older than Egypt.
- tenebrisalietum 3y agoTo avoid two bad things, the following should be true when a company uses prison labor: - The prisoner should be able to freely choose to work or not to work. - The prisoner should be able to choose whom to work for and be able to quit. - The prisoner should be making the same wage as someone not in prison. This wage may be garnished by the jail to pay for prison (separate topic), but it should still cost the company the same as a non-prisoner laborer. The bad things that are avoided are: - being unethical - making sure corporations don't lobby to expand prison labor - which could have the side of effect of criminializing things that most people don't consider crimes.
- kyleyeats 3y agoWorking is fine but they should get paid normally so it doesn't ruin the labor market for all the non-slaves. They should start getting the paychecks they earned when they get out. If they mess up and re-offend, that's when we take that money away. The incentives now are all aligned with going back to crime, which works well for the slavers but not for anyone else.
- rqtwteye 3y agoGive them something to do that normally doesn't get done. I could think of them building trails and huts in national parks like the CCC did in the 30s. Or other charitable things. Them working for cheap for profitable corporations is a massive market distortion which costs other non-imprisoned people their jobs.
- katbyte 3y agoThe fact companies and people can make money of prisoners created an incentive to imprison more people for longer. That’s the problem.
- deadbabe 3y agoShouldn’t they be focusing on their rehab and mental health?
- BHSPitMonkey 3y agoRehabilitate our prisoners? And dry up the supply of cheap labor for the corporate interests? Come now.
- deadbabe 3y agoSad :(
- rolph 3y agoi would certainly not want, anyone in a prison situation to handle food or critical dual purpose items, at any point during manufacture. to wit; how often is prison product tested or monitored for tampering or expectorative adulterations ?
- FireBeyond 3y agoWorking as a firefighter, inmate firefighters are among the hardest workers on the fire line, and do so despite often getting the worst work to do (hoeing and clearing fire breaks in 100F+ windy days with smoke and fire). I'm very much appreciative of the fact that, though not mentioned, a growing number of fire departments are willing to overlook (certain) criminal history for hiring ex-inmate firefighters.
- rolph 3y agothat does describe voluntary employment to me.
- rtkwe 3y agoIt's not that they're working it's that they're paid basically nothing for their labor which is bad for them and also the people in surrounding areas who have to compete with the absolute pittance the prison labor forces are paid.
- Ericson2314 3y agoThey are paid far too low a wage. Even if they don't have much opportunities to spend money, they should be paid a regular wage. (To be clear, they are being paid far below minimum wage; it would be illegal if they weren't prisoners) If this makes prison labor no longer economical, so be it.