9 ms·

In Maine, prisoners are thriving in remote jobs

245 points by voxadam 1y ago

Apocryphon 1y ago
> Preston Thorpe is only 32, but he says he's already landed his dream job as a senior software engineer and bought a modest house with his six-figure salary. It was all accomplished by putting in long days from his cell at the Mountain View Correctional Center in Charleston. Gives new meaning to working in Mountain View.
cl0ckt0wer 1y ago
On the one hand, prisoners being coerced to work is payment for their crimes. On the other hand, that job would have gone to someone else at market rates. This kind of thing drags down the market rates. We really need to get rid of the exception in the 13th amendment.
- _qua 1y ago
  The number of prisoners who are capable of this type of work are minuscule and unlikely to affect wages at large.
  - schaefer 1y ago
    just wait...
    - djohnston 1y ago
      lol indeed anyone can vibecode right?
  - faitswulff 1y ago
    Ah, but the number of people who are capable of this type of work who could be imprisoned is quite large!
    - _qua 1y ago
      It's rather difficult to do enough bad things to get a lengthy prison sentence these days. Usually requires a violent offense in the context of significant priors. If you're interested in doing hard federal time, I would suggest you consider interstate trafficking of distribution quantities of drugs.
      - jMyles 1y ago
        > It's rather difficult to do enough bad things to get a lengthy prison sentence these days. ...there are two million people in prison. Several million more in various stages of the carceral cycle who be be easily subbed in when more labor is required. Slavery of this variety is alive and well.
      - johnnyanmac 1y ago
        >It's rather difficult to do enough bad things to get a lengthy prison sentence these days If you're white, maybe. There's still stories of some states having the book thrown at recreational drug usage.
        _qua 1y ago
        At the state level, by far the most common reason for long sentences are violent offenses. At the federal level it is more often trafficking at distribution scale. There are always stories, but the majority are the above. If you have a state in mind we can look at the data together.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - SuperShibe 1y ago
    The obvious solution to this are harder sentences so you can imprison more people that are capable of this kind of work
- lovich 1y ago
  The loss of rights should be the payment for their crimes. Having volunteer job opportunities for reform or having them maintain their own facilities is the max that should be mandated. It’s just slavery with all the perverse incentives that come with it, and I think we’d all be better off if this was a lever that no one in society had access to pull on
  - malcolmgreaves 1y ago
    Sounds nice, until you're robbed, they catch and prosecute the guy successfully, and then you're unable to be made whole again because the criminal doesn't have any money to pay you back. What then? If they're not forced to produce something of value to give to you, then how can you ever be made whole again? Does the state pay? If so, why do taxpayers who didn't commit a crime foot the bill? If it's insurance, then why do non-criminals paying insurance premiums foot the bill? If there's nothing linking the action (_theft_) to the needed outcome (_restitution_), then there's this unmoored loop of perverse incentives wherein some folks can continue to commit crimes with very limited consequences. Doesn't mean that everyone should be forced to work while in prison. But surely for any and all crimes that have a clearly defined dollar amount, shouldn't that criminal be forced to pay that amount back? Garnishing future wages can be circumvented (_just don't get a real job when you get out, keep stealing things to support yourself_). And even at best, it's very much _delayed_ restitution. Justice delayed is justice denied.
    - margalabargala 1y ago
      > What then? If they're not forced to produce something of value to give to you, then how can you ever be made whole again? To be clear, in the present day, when a prisoner works, how much money do you think they make, and who do you think keeps the value produced?
      - WaltPurvis 1y ago
        The article says the software developer is making a six-figure salary and the prison system withholds 10%.
- WaltPurvis 1y ago
  >prisoners being coerced to work is payment for their crimes. On the other hand, that job would have gone to someone else at market rates. This kind of thing drags down the market rates. That's a different problem, for different inmates -- the inmates covered in this story are paid market rates. It mentions the software developer has a six-figure salary.
- charcircuit 1y ago
  >This kind of thing drags down the market rates. Why would the prison / prisoner charge below market rates for their labor?
  - toomuchtodo 1y ago
    https://www.epi.org/publication/rooted-racism-prison-labor/ https://www.epi.org/publication/rooted-racism-prison-labor/ https://www.walkfree.org/news/2025/13th-amendment-loophole-fuels-forced-labour-in-us-prisons-violating-human-rights-and-benefiting-the-government-and-companies/ https://www.walkfree.org/news/2025/13th-amendment-loophole-f... https://www.npr.org/2023/11/13/1210564359/slavery-prison-forced-labor-movement https://www.npr.org/2023/11/13/1210564359/slavery-prison-for... https://www.aclu.org/news/human-rights/captive-labor-exploitation-of-incarcerated-workers https://www.aclu.org/news/human-rights/captive-labor-exploit...
  - jacobr1 1y ago
    The prison could, for grift reasons. They can undercut competition because their costs are lower. If a union, or even a market-rate shop needs to pay, say, $20-hour for labor, and the prison can pay $1-hour (or day) they can charge much less, and then pocket the difference. Their advantage isn't a higher quality product just a cheaper one.
    - t-3 1y ago
      Most jobs in prisons and jails pay less than $1/day, last I heard, maybe they got the inflation adjustment the rest of missed though.
    - charcircuit 1y ago
      Why not charge the same and pocket a larger difference?
      - jacobr1 1y ago
        Why would someone buy services from a prison vs an established company. Presumably the quality would be worse and there is a potential risk to reputation. The answer would be because the prison is substantially cheaper due to not needing to abide by labor laws. There are plenty of services where I'd be willing for forgo (some) quality for significant costs decreases.
- charlieyu1 1y ago
  It was not. Working in prisons started as part of rehabilitation, so the prisoners could learn life skills to survive. Now it devolved to power tripping and control.
- tamimio 1y ago
  As intended, companies will do everything to lower wages and have borderline slaves work for them, either through immigrants, hiring mostly co-op workers, and now prisoners, and a lot of people are okay with it for some reason, so gullible! The "engineer" job in 2025 is like sewing in a prison a couple of decades ago, crazy.
lovich 1y ago
> Costa says he was also surprised to learn that Thorpe was eligible for remote work while he was in prison. He hired him in June. He figured Thorpe might have trouble clearing the company's background check and he says he prepared himself for that. But since it only searches back seven years and since Thorpe has been in prison for more than a decade, "He is actually our cleanest background check," Costa says. This just makes me feel like the entire modern process of matching workers to employers is a kafkaesque hell that has negative value. The boss doesn’t even care that the guy obviously violates the intention of his companies process. Stay in jail long enough and you’ll pass one of our arbitrary steps!
- Apocryphon 1y ago
  Maybe it's a statute of limitations thing. It sounds like his crimes were non-violent.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago
  > boss doesn’t even care that the guy obviously violates the intention of his companies process What's the intent of the process? I remember hiring a few years ago, where a deep background check uncovered an assault charge on a candidate I liked. The charges had been dropped. But they were violent in nature, and this spooked my team. Fortunately, our GC once did family law. Between me pointing out this was a remote position and our GC showing that the facts of the case looked incredibly like domestic dispute in the midst of divorce, we wound up hiring her. And she was great!
  - potato3732842 1y ago
    >the facts of the case looked incredibly like domestic dispute in the midst of divorce, >we wound up hiring her. And she was great! Did you try firing her just to be sure? Within the default biases of the american law enforcement and court systems an assault charge on a woman in divorce dropped usually means almost the opposite of assault charges on a man in divorce being dropped.
- throwmeaway222 1y ago
  Heck, we might as well just limit jail sentences to 7 years! That will solve a fuck ton of problems, right guys?
taurath 1y ago
If we get serious about actual rehabilitation in prisons instead of punishment there’s never been a better time to be able to learn just about anything on your own time. But we’d have to stop dehumanizing criminals. Dehumanization seems to be the trend that the US is leading on right now. We can also be concerned about the incentives for prison labor - for profit prisons and all the many service providers that get paid a mint. Phone calls in many prisons are like $10. Labor gangs and the such. It’s just horrible how badly we treat people in the US for some middleman to make money.
- coolestguy 1y ago
  >Dehumanization seems to be the trend that the US is leading on right now. Criminals have to want to stop doing crime before they can be rehabilitated.
  - tomrod 1y ago
    Les Mis is a great treatment of exactly this, even if fictional. It takes more than justice to reform the soul. It takes making room by society to forgive the repentant. We call this mercy, and it is the higher ideal.
    - ryandrake 1y ago
      If it's too much for society to forgive someone who has done their time, the very least society could do is to stop actively fighting their rehabilitation. Whenever a read a story about someone who's been to prison and then ends up a solid, productive member of society, I can't help but think: "This person must have extraordinary grit and determination!" Because when a criminal gets out of prison, the entire system and the entire society is set up to try to oppose his rehabilitation and get him back into prison. Overcoming this active hostility must take a remarkable person.
      - BjoernKW 1y ago
        > "This person must have extraordinary grit and determination!" Because when a criminal gets out of prison, the entire system and the entire society is set up to try to oppose his rehabilitation and get him back into prison. Overcoming this active hostility must take a remarkable person. This is precisely the story of Les Misérables - that remarkable person being Jean Valjean.
oldpersonintx2 1y ago
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VoodooJuJu 1y ago
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bluefirebrand 1y ago
Oh cool so all I have to do in order to keep my job fully remote in the future is go to jail. Awesome. So so so awesome
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
citizenpaul 1y ago
Wow. Just wow. The US really is on a trajectory back towards slavery between this and re-legalizing child labor in some states. This stuff truly is a disturbing view of the future of the US. >earn above a certain amount, 10% goes to the Department of Corrections for room and board Yep. There it is. Sounds nice now right? Until in 5 years they decide, well it really needs to be 20%. Then it 5 more years. Well they are in prison so 30% should be resonable. Then as tax deficits grow .....weeeellllll maybe 70%..... Then it will be well prisoners shouldn't really be getting rich in prison so we take 100% but when they get out they will still have that job to fall back on. Just wait and see. To be clear I'm not against giving people a chance to reform. This is not that. If a person is reformed enough or behaved enough at a chance for reform then they should be on probation at worst. Not propping up a industrial prison complex for nonviolent crimes like 20+ year sentence selling drugs.
- tantalor 1y ago
  "trajectory back towards"? Simpler explanation: "slavery" never ended, it's just called something else now
  - citizenpaul 1y ago
    I know. You know. Tried to avoid the downvotes but to no avail lol. HN is a bit naive.
  - potato3732842 1y ago
    There was state run prison slavery before the institution of chattel slavery in North America, there was state slavery after it. Why wouldn't there be? The government always exempts itself from laws of that sort. What was gross margin per average (because the cook picks no cotton) of your typical plantation? I'd bet it's a whole lot less than the federal .gov's margin on someone in one of the 20+% brackets. State .govs are probably all over the place. Hard to account for because the .gov "doesn't show a profit" in the same way that "we're totally a nonprofit <wink>" hospitals don't but should be a doable calculation.
- throwmeaway222 1y ago
rammer 1y ago
For profit prisons are the worst, it should be a state responsibility not a for profit company. Especially with all the race issues in imprisonment.
- voxadam 1y ago
  All prisons in Maine are state or federally operated, none are private or operated for profit.
  - citizenpaul 1y ago
    >Wages are garnished for child support, victim restitution and other fees. And for those who earn above a certain amount, 10% goes to the Department of Corrections for room and board. So they take a cut of your pay. Totally not profit? They deserve it? Why not 20% why not 95%.
    - deleted 1y ago
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    - deleted 1y ago
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    - nickff 1y ago
      This criticism 'proves too much', as the same critique can be made of taxes, which doesn't seem like your intent, unless you believe that prisoners are just the 'tip of the iceberg' when it comes to state-slavery.
      - citizenpaul 1y ago
        This is not rehabilitation. Its a politics long con to get free state money. Anytime someone has no rights and is getting money it goes to their captors. There is no exception. This guy in the link should be on probation at the very least. Also this headline is yellow AF. "Prisoners are thriving" oh yeah? "THRIVING" In f-ing prison? I bet if you asked them 100% would rather not be doing their full time job in prison. I'd stake my life on it in fact.
umvi 1y ago
This... seems like it has the makings of a really great idea. So often prisoners are repeat offenders because they have no skills, no support system after getting out of prison so they revert to their old ways. Imagine already having a job and a large nest egg in your savings account because you got a remote job in prison. Or imagine going to prison as an 18-year-old, learning some skills through a prison educational system, and then getting a remote job and actually start contributing back to society. I'm not sure about Maine's implementation specifically, but something about this idea resonates strongly with me.
- terminalshort 1y ago
  Yeah, I guess it's a good idea given the state of our current system. But it seems like prisoners fall into two basic categories - 1. people who very few employers would hire for remote work due to their criminal history. 2. people who really shouldn't be in prison at all.
  - boston_clone 1y ago
    Where do you get that idea? The article paints a pleasantly different picture: > "We had 87 assaults on staff in 2017. Last year, we had seven assaults on staff [...] the officers that go to work everyday and don't feel like their life is at risk."
    - hackable_sand 1y ago
      How is that pleasant? Y'all disgust me. Free them.
      - boston_clone 1y ago
        Sorry, I think we may be misaligned - such a significant decrease in violence that is almost inherent to such a dark system is something worth noting. I only highlighted that decrease as counter to the false dichotomy of the parent - clearly, an improvement in our prison practices can benefit not only incarcerated people, but the wellbeing of the staff and surrounding community.
lawlessone 1y ago
blockchain gang? As long as they're paid fair rates i think it should be allowed. and my definition of a fair rate for them is what people outside the prison are paid, assuming they're paid a fair rate of course.
gpi 1y ago
A wild Glove80 appears
RickJWagner 1y ago
Wow, that’s fantastic. I bet recidivism rates plummet when the cons exit after having a good job.
atlgator 1y ago
So they work remote jobs and keep the money while tax payers foot the bill for their housing, food, medical, and utilities? Is that right? Why aren't we all doing this?
- prawn 1y ago
  Give it a shot and report back. You could try this tactic: "Lopez admitted that she waited in front of the county jail for hours, intent on assaulting an officer. She reportedly explained that her goal was to get arrested and be put in jail so she would be forced to stop smoking cigarettes." https://www.cbsnews.com/news/calif-woman-allegedly-slaps-cop-to-quit-smoking/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/calif-woman-allegedly-slaps-cop...
deleted 1y ago
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tolerance 1y ago
Meanwhile on the outside… https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45340442 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45340442
deleted 1y ago
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cwoolfe 1y ago
When I visited a local prison through the https://www.douglassproject.org/ https://www.douglassproject.org/ I had this exact thought: why not allow remote work? I'm glad it is being done somewhere! I hope it becomes more commonplace.
jholdn 1y ago
This program sounds great and I think we should incentivize it. Unfortunately, I think it requires a constitutional amendment to work. We can’t rely on well meaning administrators to overlook the slave labor exemption for criminal punishment; these things will be exploited. I guess with knowledge work there is some protection because it’s hard to force. Though, it would be desirable to extend such programs into other forms of work.
deadbabe 1y ago
I always wonder why didn’t we ever do something like this with something like Amazon Mechanical Turk? Use prisoners for small frequent human cognition tasks. I guess with AI that ship has sailed though… Perhaps high trust prisoners could be used for things like controlling delivery bots. Or maybe for content moderation!
aogaili 1y ago
Because remote job for corporation is a form of prison..
amiga386 1y ago
Remember when Pennsylvania judges took kickbacks to send teenagers to for-profit detention centers? They ruined thousands of people's entire lives, but hey they made a quick buck! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal How many others are profiting from keeping prison populations topped up? Perverse incentives, ensuring the US has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, with only the People's Republic of China rivalling it for prison population. Make slavery legal again with this one weird trick called the 13th amendment's "except as punishment for a crime" I am OK with prisoners being rehabilitated, this includes them working. I am not OK with their jailers profiting. Nor am I OK with employers profiting by having unfair power over pay and conditions they wouldn't have with free citizens.
- jihadjihad 1y ago
  > Remember when Pennsylvania judges took kickbacks to send teenagers to for-profit detention centers? They ruined thousands of people's entire lives, but hey they made a quick buck! And one of the judges [0] in the “kids for cash” scandal had the remainder of his federal sentence commuted by President Biden before he left office. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Conahan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Conahan
  - zzrrt 1y ago
    Dang, TIL. Not that it really excuses it, but for more information: that convict was one of many given clemency who were already on home release due to COVID and had behaved well. Seems he had about 2 years left.
- downrightmike 1y ago
  It wasn't a quick buck, it was a slow and methodical many year effort of corruption. Everyone should sue that judge for everything he's worth and send him to jail for the rest of his life.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
twobitshifter 1y ago
This reminded me of a more extreme version of the primeagen’s story, which made me wonder if there are any prisoners running coding youtube channels. So I searched and THEN I found the blog of the inmate from the article! https://pthorpe92.dev/ https://pthorpe92.dev/
downrightmike 1y ago
This is still slavery. Not chattel slavery, but the same thing that came up in reconstruction where minorities and poor whites become indentured servants
cyanydeez 1y ago
Remote slavery?
tamimio 1y ago
> senior software engineer There we go again, and then people wonder why they can't find engineering jobs anymore, or low wage/no job security if any, when anyone and everyone can be an "engineer" when they get bored and have some time on their hands. I still don't understand why there is no collective engineering committee and effort to gatekeep the profession like literally all other professions out there, because companies will NEVER initiate that since it's in their interest to keep it as is. Why would someone spend time and money to become an engineer when he or she is competing with the whole world and prisoners now? The reward is just not worth the effort anymore, this is what will kill engineering innovation on the long term for short term gains.
- Nasrudith 1y ago
  A title isn't what causes engineering innovations, nor is gatekeeping a source of them (just the opposite really). So how would that kill engineering innovations long-term?
  - tamimio 1y ago
    > how would that kill engineering innovations long-term? Bright brains are no longer interested in investing time and money to become engineers when the reward isn't worth it anymore, even immigrants by the way. They are okay with the low wages until they get permanent residency or citizenship, then after that they would need higher wages to simply live a comfortable life with family and such, but they won't even have that, and they get to taste the outcome they caused even if they are not realizing it.
elzbardico 1y ago
[flagged]
- sour-taste 1y ago
  > the sad reality is that the majority of the criminals are not amenable to rehabilitation What evidence do you have for this?
  - elzbardico 1y ago
    I was not born living in a nice place making mid to high six-figures. I lived in places where being shot for a cell phone was always a possibility. I went to school with people that have been in the revolving doors of the jail system more times than any of us can count. I won't care looking for stats, but last time I saw them, most inmates in American Prisons are not in their first tour. There are as many people doing time for the sixth time as there are for the first time. Yeah, the criminal justice system is not perfect, there are people there that shouldn't be there, but liberals have this annoying tendency of believing every sad history criminals are specialists in telling. As a cousin who became a policeman likes to say, there are no guilty people in jail if you ask the inmates.
- tfourb 1y ago
  You are committing the same fallacy that you are prescribing to others. If rehabilitation is taken seriously and provided the required resources, recidivism is a „statistical minority“. As with many social issues, the US happens to be very bad at this currently, with recidivism rates double those of the UK, for example. UK prisons are notoriously bad by European standards and they have plenty of violent crime. But criminals are in the vast majority of cases not criminal by nature. Most people want to live a socially conforming life, given half a chance.
  - elzbardico 1y ago
    UK prisons are almost as bad as American or Brazilian prisons because UK is almost as unequal as the US or Brazil. You can rehabilitate folks as much as you wish, most of them will leave and find no job in a society that cares more destroying jobs and disruption, so VCs can make another billion with another stupid SaaS exit than we care about have industry and a healthy lower middle class with social mobility.
jalapenos 1y ago
I like the wording here: > is a certified recovery coach, a scholar and a teaching assistant who's serving a 40-year sentence for the murder of her husband. I feel like "husband murderer" probably ought to come first in your little list of titles there. This system is a joke. If someone's committed a real crime (with a victim), and you allow this, you're forgetting prison is supposed to be a punishment. I guess it'd be fair if the government kept half of what they make though.... Oh wait...
1970-01-01 1y ago
Apparently software eats everything including recidivism; It's the antithesis of "crime doesn't pay"

245 points by voxadam 1y ago

> Preston Thorpe is only 32, but he says he's already landed his dream job as a senior software engineer and bought a modest house with his six-figure salary. It was all accomplished by putting in long days from his cell at the Mountain View Correctional Center in Charleston. Gives new meaning to working in Mountain View.

cl0ckt0wer 1y ago

On the one hand, prisoners being coerced to work is payment for their crimes. On the other hand, that job would have gone to someone else at market rates. This kind of thing drags down the market rates. We really need to get rid of the exception in the 13th amendment.

_qua 1y ago
The number of prisoners who are capable of this type of work are minuscule and unlikely to affect wages at large.
- schaefer 1y ago
  just wait...
  - djohnston 1y ago
    lol indeed anyone can vibecode right?
- faitswulff 1y ago
  Ah, but the number of people who are capable of this type of work who could be imprisoned is quite large!
  - _qua 1y ago
    It's rather difficult to do enough bad things to get a lengthy prison sentence these days. Usually requires a violent offense in the context of significant priors. If you're interested in doing hard federal time, I would suggest you consider interstate trafficking of distribution quantities of drugs.
    - jMyles 1y ago
      > It's rather difficult to do enough bad things to get a lengthy prison sentence these days. ...there are two million people in prison. Several million more in various stages of the carceral cycle who be be easily subbed in when more labor is required. Slavery of this variety is alive and well.
    - johnnyanmac 1y ago
      >It's rather difficult to do enough bad things to get a lengthy prison sentence these days If you're white, maybe. There's still stories of some states having the book thrown at recreational drug usage.
      - _qua 1y ago
        At the state level, by far the most common reason for long sentences are violent offenses. At the federal level it is more often trafficking at distribution scale. There are always stories, but the majority are the above. If you have a state in mind we can look at the data together.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]
- SuperShibe 1y ago
  The obvious solution to this are harder sentences so you can imprison more people that are capable of this kind of work
lovich 1y ago
The loss of rights should be the payment for their crimes. Having volunteer job opportunities for reform or having them maintain their own facilities is the max that should be mandated. It’s just slavery with all the perverse incentives that come with it, and I think we’d all be better off if this was a lever that no one in society had access to pull on
- malcolmgreaves 1y ago
  Sounds nice, until you're robbed, they catch and prosecute the guy successfully, and then you're unable to be made whole again because the criminal doesn't have any money to pay you back. What then? If they're not forced to produce something of value to give to you, then how can you ever be made whole again? Does the state pay? If so, why do taxpayers who didn't commit a crime foot the bill? If it's insurance, then why do non-criminals paying insurance premiums foot the bill? If there's nothing linking the action (_theft_) to the needed outcome (_restitution_), then there's this unmoored loop of perverse incentives wherein some folks can continue to commit crimes with very limited consequences. Doesn't mean that everyone should be forced to work while in prison. But surely for any and all crimes that have a clearly defined dollar amount, shouldn't that criminal be forced to pay that amount back? Garnishing future wages can be circumvented (_just don't get a real job when you get out, keep stealing things to support yourself_). And even at best, it's very much _delayed_ restitution. Justice delayed is justice denied.
  - margalabargala 1y ago
    > What then? If they're not forced to produce something of value to give to you, then how can you ever be made whole again? To be clear, in the present day, when a prisoner works, how much money do you think they make, and who do you think keeps the value produced?
    - WaltPurvis 1y ago
      The article says the software developer is making a six-figure salary and the prison system withholds 10%.
WaltPurvis 1y ago
>prisoners being coerced to work is payment for their crimes. On the other hand, that job would have gone to someone else at market rates. This kind of thing drags down the market rates. That's a different problem, for different inmates -- the inmates covered in this story are paid market rates. It mentions the software developer has a six-figure salary.
charcircuit 1y ago
>This kind of thing drags down the market rates. Why would the prison / prisoner charge below market rates for their labor?
- toomuchtodo 1y ago
  https://www.epi.org/publication/rooted-racism-prison-labor/ https://www.epi.org/publication/rooted-racism-prison-labor/ https://www.walkfree.org/news/2025/13th-amendment-loophole-fuels-forced-labour-in-us-prisons-violating-human-rights-and-benefiting-the-government-and-companies/ https://www.walkfree.org/news/2025/13th-amendment-loophole-f... https://www.npr.org/2023/11/13/1210564359/slavery-prison-forced-labor-movement https://www.npr.org/2023/11/13/1210564359/slavery-prison-for... https://www.aclu.org/news/human-rights/captive-labor-exploitation-of-incarcerated-workers https://www.aclu.org/news/human-rights/captive-labor-exploit...
- jacobr1 1y ago
  The prison could, for grift reasons. They can undercut competition because their costs are lower. If a union, or even a market-rate shop needs to pay, say, $20-hour for labor, and the prison can pay $1-hour (or day) they can charge much less, and then pocket the difference. Their advantage isn't a higher quality product just a cheaper one.
  - t-3 1y ago
    Most jobs in prisons and jails pay less than $1/day, last I heard, maybe they got the inflation adjustment the rest of missed though.
  - charcircuit 1y ago
    Why not charge the same and pocket a larger difference?
    - jacobr1 1y ago
      Why would someone buy services from a prison vs an established company. Presumably the quality would be worse and there is a potential risk to reputation. The answer would be because the prison is substantially cheaper due to not needing to abide by labor laws. There are plenty of services where I'd be willing for forgo (some) quality for significant costs decreases.
charlieyu1 1y ago
It was not. Working in prisons started as part of rehabilitation, so the prisoners could learn life skills to survive. Now it devolved to power tripping and control.
tamimio 1y ago
As intended, companies will do everything to lower wages and have borderline slaves work for them, either through immigrants, hiring mostly co-op workers, and now prisoners, and a lot of people are okay with it for some reason, so gullible! The "engineer" job in 2025 is like sewing in a prison a couple of decades ago, crazy.

lovich 1y ago

> Costa says he was also surprised to learn that Thorpe was eligible for remote work while he was in prison. He hired him in June. He figured Thorpe might have trouble clearing the company's background check and he says he prepared himself for that. But since it only searches back seven years and since Thorpe has been in prison for more than a decade, "He is actually our cleanest background check," Costa says. This just makes me feel like the entire modern process of matching workers to employers is a kafkaesque hell that has negative value. The boss doesn’t even care that the guy obviously violates the intention of his companies process. Stay in jail long enough and you’ll pass one of our arbitrary steps!

Apocryphon 1y ago
Maybe it's a statute of limitations thing. It sounds like his crimes were non-violent.
JumpCrisscross 1y ago
> boss doesn’t even care that the guy obviously violates the intention of his companies process What's the intent of the process? I remember hiring a few years ago, where a deep background check uncovered an assault charge on a candidate I liked. The charges had been dropped. But they were violent in nature, and this spooked my team. Fortunately, our GC once did family law. Between me pointing out this was a remote position and our GC showing that the facts of the case looked incredibly like domestic dispute in the midst of divorce, we wound up hiring her. And she was great!
- potato3732842 1y ago
  >the facts of the case looked incredibly like domestic dispute in the midst of divorce, >we wound up hiring her. And she was great! Did you try firing her just to be sure? Within the default biases of the american law enforcement and court systems an assault charge on a woman in divorce dropped usually means almost the opposite of assault charges on a man in divorce being dropped.
throwmeaway222 1y ago
Heck, we might as well just limit jail sentences to 7 years! That will solve a fuck ton of problems, right guys?

taurath 1y ago

If we get serious about actual rehabilitation in prisons instead of punishment there’s never been a better time to be able to learn just about anything on your own time. But we’d have to stop dehumanizing criminals. Dehumanization seems to be the trend that the US is leading on right now. We can also be concerned about the incentives for prison labor - for profit prisons and all the many service providers that get paid a mint. Phone calls in many prisons are like $10. Labor gangs and the such. It’s just horrible how badly we treat people in the US for some middleman to make money.

coolestguy 1y ago
>Dehumanization seems to be the trend that the US is leading on right now. Criminals have to want to stop doing crime before they can be rehabilitated.
- tomrod 1y ago
  Les Mis is a great treatment of exactly this, even if fictional. It takes more than justice to reform the soul. It takes making room by society to forgive the repentant. We call this mercy, and it is the higher ideal.
  - ryandrake 1y ago
    If it's too much for society to forgive someone who has done their time, the very least society could do is to stop actively fighting their rehabilitation. Whenever a read a story about someone who's been to prison and then ends up a solid, productive member of society, I can't help but think: "This person must have extraordinary grit and determination!" Because when a criminal gets out of prison, the entire system and the entire society is set up to try to oppose his rehabilitation and get him back into prison. Overcoming this active hostility must take a remarkable person.
    - BjoernKW 1y ago
      > "This person must have extraordinary grit and determination!" Because when a criminal gets out of prison, the entire system and the entire society is set up to try to oppose his rehabilitation and get him back into prison. Overcoming this active hostility must take a remarkable person. This is precisely the story of Les Misérables - that remarkable person being Jean Valjean.

oldpersonintx2 1y ago

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VoodooJuJu 1y ago

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bluefirebrand 1y ago

Oh cool so all I have to do in order to keep my job fully remote in the future is go to jail. Awesome. So so so awesome

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citizenpaul 1y ago

Wow. Just wow. The US really is on a trajectory back towards slavery between this and re-legalizing child labor in some states. This stuff truly is a disturbing view of the future of the US. >earn above a certain amount, 10% goes to the Department of Corrections for room and board Yep. There it is. Sounds nice now right? Until in 5 years they decide, well it really needs to be 20%. Then it 5 more years. Well they are in prison so 30% should be resonable. Then as tax deficits grow .....weeeellllll maybe 70%..... Then it will be well prisoners shouldn't really be getting rich in prison so we take 100% but when they get out they will still have that job to fall back on. Just wait and see. To be clear I'm not against giving people a chance to reform. This is not that. If a person is reformed enough or behaved enough at a chance for reform then they should be on probation at worst. Not propping up a industrial prison complex for nonviolent crimes like 20+ year sentence selling drugs.

tantalor 1y ago
"trajectory back towards"? Simpler explanation: "slavery" never ended, it's just called something else now
- citizenpaul 1y ago
  I know. You know. Tried to avoid the downvotes but to no avail lol. HN is a bit naive.
- potato3732842 1y ago
  There was state run prison slavery before the institution of chattel slavery in North America, there was state slavery after it. Why wouldn't there be? The government always exempts itself from laws of that sort. What was gross margin per average (because the cook picks no cotton) of your typical plantation? I'd bet it's a whole lot less than the federal .gov's margin on someone in one of the 20+% brackets. State .govs are probably all over the place. Hard to account for because the .gov "doesn't show a profit" in the same way that "we're totally a nonprofit <wink>" hospitals don't but should be a doable calculation.
throwmeaway222 1y ago

rammer 1y ago

For profit prisons are the worst, it should be a state responsibility not a for profit company. Especially with all the race issues in imprisonment.

voxadam 1y ago
All prisons in Maine are state or federally operated, none are private or operated for profit.
- citizenpaul 1y ago
  >Wages are garnished for child support, victim restitution and other fees. And for those who earn above a certain amount, 10% goes to the Department of Corrections for room and board. So they take a cut of your pay. Totally not profit? They deserve it? Why not 20% why not 95%.
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  - nickff 1y ago
    This criticism 'proves too much', as the same critique can be made of taxes, which doesn't seem like your intent, unless you believe that prisoners are just the 'tip of the iceberg' when it comes to state-slavery.
    - citizenpaul 1y ago
      This is not rehabilitation. Its a politics long con to get free state money. Anytime someone has no rights and is getting money it goes to their captors. There is no exception. This guy in the link should be on probation at the very least. Also this headline is yellow AF. "Prisoners are thriving" oh yeah? "THRIVING" In f-ing prison? I bet if you asked them 100% would rather not be doing their full time job in prison. I'd stake my life on it in fact.

umvi 1y ago

This... seems like it has the makings of a really great idea. So often prisoners are repeat offenders because they have no skills, no support system after getting out of prison so they revert to their old ways. Imagine already having a job and a large nest egg in your savings account because you got a remote job in prison. Or imagine going to prison as an 18-year-old, learning some skills through a prison educational system, and then getting a remote job and actually start contributing back to society. I'm not sure about Maine's implementation specifically, but something about this idea resonates strongly with me.

terminalshort 1y ago
Yeah, I guess it's a good idea given the state of our current system. But it seems like prisoners fall into two basic categories - 1. people who very few employers would hire for remote work due to their criminal history. 2. people who really shouldn't be in prison at all.
- boston_clone 1y ago
  Where do you get that idea? The article paints a pleasantly different picture: > "We had 87 assaults on staff in 2017. Last year, we had seven assaults on staff [...] the officers that go to work everyday and don't feel like their life is at risk."
  - hackable_sand 1y ago
    How is that pleasant? Y'all disgust me. Free them.
    - boston_clone 1y ago
      Sorry, I think we may be misaligned - such a significant decrease in violence that is almost inherent to such a dark system is something worth noting. I only highlighted that decrease as counter to the false dichotomy of the parent - clearly, an improvement in our prison practices can benefit not only incarcerated people, but the wellbeing of the staff and surrounding community.

lawlessone 1y ago

blockchain gang? As long as they're paid fair rates i think it should be allowed. and my definition of a fair rate for them is what people outside the prison are paid, assuming they're paid a fair rate of course.

gpi 1y ago

A wild Glove80 appears

RickJWagner 1y ago

Wow, that’s fantastic. I bet recidivism rates plummet when the cons exit after having a good job.

atlgator 1y ago

So they work remote jobs and keep the money while tax payers foot the bill for their housing, food, medical, and utilities? Is that right? Why aren't we all doing this?

prawn 1y ago
Give it a shot and report back. You could try this tactic: "Lopez admitted that she waited in front of the county jail for hours, intent on assaulting an officer. She reportedly explained that her goal was to get arrested and be put in jail so she would be forced to stop smoking cigarettes." https://www.cbsnews.com/news/calif-woman-allegedly-slaps-cop-to-quit-smoking/ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/calif-woman-allegedly-slaps-cop...

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tolerance 1y ago

Meanwhile on the outside… https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45340442 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45340442

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cwoolfe 1y ago

When I visited a local prison through the https://www.douglassproject.org/ https://www.douglassproject.org/ I had this exact thought: why not allow remote work? I'm glad it is being done somewhere! I hope it becomes more commonplace.

jholdn 1y ago

This program sounds great and I think we should incentivize it. Unfortunately, I think it requires a constitutional amendment to work. We can’t rely on well meaning administrators to overlook the slave labor exemption for criminal punishment; these things will be exploited. I guess with knowledge work there is some protection because it’s hard to force. Though, it would be desirable to extend such programs into other forms of work.

deadbabe 1y ago

I always wonder why didn’t we ever do something like this with something like Amazon Mechanical Turk? Use prisoners for small frequent human cognition tasks. I guess with AI that ship has sailed though… Perhaps high trust prisoners could be used for things like controlling delivery bots. Or maybe for content moderation!

aogaili 1y ago

Because remote job for corporation is a form of prison..

amiga386 1y ago

Remember when Pennsylvania judges took kickbacks to send teenagers to for-profit detention centers? They ruined thousands of people's entire lives, but hey they made a quick buck! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal How many others are profiting from keeping prison populations topped up? Perverse incentives, ensuring the US has one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, with only the People's Republic of China rivalling it for prison population. Make slavery legal again with this one weird trick called the 13th amendment's "except as punishment for a crime" I am OK with prisoners being rehabilitated, this includes them working. I am not OK with their jailers profiting. Nor am I OK with employers profiting by having unfair power over pay and conditions they wouldn't have with free citizens.

jihadjihad 1y ago
> Remember when Pennsylvania judges took kickbacks to send teenagers to for-profit detention centers? They ruined thousands of people's entire lives, but hey they made a quick buck! And one of the judges [0] in the “kids for cash” scandal had the remainder of his federal sentence commuted by President Biden before he left office. 0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Conahan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Michael_Conahan
- zzrrt 1y ago
  Dang, TIL. Not that it really excuses it, but for more information: that convict was one of many given clemency who were already on home release due to COVID and had behaved well. Seems he had about 2 years left.
downrightmike 1y ago
It wasn't a quick buck, it was a slow and methodical many year effort of corruption. Everyone should sue that judge for everything he's worth and send him to jail for the rest of his life.
- deleted 1y ago
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twobitshifter 1y ago

This reminded me of a more extreme version of the primeagen’s story, which made me wonder if there are any prisoners running coding youtube channels. So I searched and THEN I found the blog of the inmate from the article! https://pthorpe92.dev/ https://pthorpe92.dev/

downrightmike 1y ago

This is still slavery. Not chattel slavery, but the same thing that came up in reconstruction where minorities and poor whites become indentured servants

cyanydeez 1y ago

Remote slavery?

tamimio 1y ago

> senior software engineer There we go again, and then people wonder why they can't find engineering jobs anymore, or low wage/no job security if any, when anyone and everyone can be an "engineer" when they get bored and have some time on their hands. I still don't understand why there is no collective engineering committee and effort to gatekeep the profession like literally all other professions out there, because companies will NEVER initiate that since it's in their interest to keep it as is. Why would someone spend time and money to become an engineer when he or she is competing with the whole world and prisoners now? The reward is just not worth the effort anymore, this is what will kill engineering innovation on the long term for short term gains.

Nasrudith 1y ago
A title isn't what causes engineering innovations, nor is gatekeeping a source of them (just the opposite really). So how would that kill engineering innovations long-term?
- tamimio 1y ago
  > how would that kill engineering innovations long-term? Bright brains are no longer interested in investing time and money to become engineers when the reward isn't worth it anymore, even immigrants by the way. They are okay with the low wages until they get permanent residency or citizenship, then after that they would need higher wages to simply live a comfortable life with family and such, but they won't even have that, and they get to taste the outcome they caused even if they are not realizing it.

elzbardico 1y ago

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sour-taste 1y ago
> the sad reality is that the majority of the criminals are not amenable to rehabilitation What evidence do you have for this?
- elzbardico 1y ago
  I was not born living in a nice place making mid to high six-figures. I lived in places where being shot for a cell phone was always a possibility. I went to school with people that have been in the revolving doors of the jail system more times than any of us can count. I won't care looking for stats, but last time I saw them, most inmates in American Prisons are not in their first tour. There are as many people doing time for the sixth time as there are for the first time. Yeah, the criminal justice system is not perfect, there are people there that shouldn't be there, but liberals have this annoying tendency of believing every sad history criminals are specialists in telling. As a cousin who became a policeman likes to say, there are no guilty people in jail if you ask the inmates.
tfourb 1y ago
You are committing the same fallacy that you are prescribing to others. If rehabilitation is taken seriously and provided the required resources, recidivism is a „statistical minority“. As with many social issues, the US happens to be very bad at this currently, with recidivism rates double those of the UK, for example. UK prisons are notoriously bad by European standards and they have plenty of violent crime. But criminals are in the vast majority of cases not criminal by nature. Most people want to live a socially conforming life, given half a chance.
- elzbardico 1y ago
  UK prisons are almost as bad as American or Brazilian prisons because UK is almost as unequal as the US or Brazil. You can rehabilitate folks as much as you wish, most of them will leave and find no job in a society that cares more destroying jobs and disruption, so VCs can make another billion with another stupid SaaS exit than we care about have industry and a healthy lower middle class with social mobility.

jalapenos 1y ago

I like the wording here: > is a certified recovery coach, a scholar and a teaching assistant who's serving a 40-year sentence for the murder of her husband. I feel like "husband murderer" probably ought to come first in your little list of titles there. This system is a joke. If someone's committed a real crime (with a victim), and you allow this, you're forgetting prison is supposed to be a punishment. I guess it'd be fair if the government kept half of what they make though.... Oh wait...

1970-01-01 1y ago

Apparently software eats everything including recidivism; It's the antithesis of "crime doesn't pay"