Prisoners Losing Jobs…Is this a bad thing?
I am honestly very conflicted about this article that I read yesterday in USA Today called Prisoner Workforce Feels the Pinch.
The article opens:
The nation’s unemployment crisis is now reaching far inside prison walls.
Since 2008, thousands of inmates have lost their jobs as federal authorities shutter and scale back operations at prison recycling, furniture, cable and electronics assembly factories to try to make up $65 million in losses.
The job cuts, prison officials say, mean a dramatic reduction in job training for inmates preparing for release, lost wages for prisoners to pay down child support and other court-ordered fines, and more tension in already overcrowded institutions.
I have always been a critic of the use of prison labor likening it to slave labor because of the tiny wages that prisoners garner for their work. I have also been uncomfortable with the idea of coercion and the sense that this labor can be forced. Finally, I really don’t like the fact that corporations rely on prison labor to deplete the wages of other workers on the outside.
But in corresponding with prisoners in the past, I have often heard from them that they really appreciate having jobs on the inside. Even the meager earnings afford extra funds sometimes for the commissary or to help support their families on the outside. Additionally others have suggested that some jobs have provided for some valuable skills like for example carpentry. Still others have mentioned that having a job while in prison is a good way to distract them from the day to day grind of prison life.
So I was very conflicted when I read the article about the fact that prisoners are losing jobs. Is this a good or bad thing? I just don’t know what I think about it.
Uncategorized | prison culture | 20 July 2010 |
By LW, July 21, 2010 @ 2:51 pm
I feel you about being conflicted on this issue. I have also generally heard from people that they want to work, it’s better to have a job and make some money than no money at all. So it seems like losing jobs–well, that sucks. But on the flip side, AGREED! Those jobs are bunk, virtual slave-labor jobs that exploit people. So I don’t know what the answer is. Nuance over neutrality…
It’s also notable that the article points out that many prisoners need the money to pay “court-ordered fines” and thinking about how much of that income is squandered on paying for soap, clothes, medical supplies, very basic needs that prisons don’t provide. My friend who has been in a prison where he can’t work for many years has about $6,000 in debt to the IDOC itself. It is so obviously messed up that they then turn around and ask people to work for $3/hour to pay back the state. ARRRRRRG.