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Comment by Ardit20 | Hacker News Reader

Why does this comment keep being downvoted? I think he is making a fine point, would you rather prisoners sit around do nothing all day, or are given some work to do which improves them and improves the country in a way paying back their dues.

Seeing as there was this article which said that keeping busy makes us happy, the least the downvoters can do is state as to why prisoners should not be made to work?

If you are going to compare prison with slavery, how about starting with the one thing they have in common, they both are denied their right to liberty!

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If the point is to make the men work, then pay them a fair wage. Until then, no intellectually honest person can call it anything but slavery.

> If the point is to make the men work, then pay them a fair wage.

I agree they should be paid a fair wage. They should be given a bill for their housing and their debt to society and their victims which they can pay off with their wage. The vast majority of prisoners owe society (and their victims) more than they could ever hope to earn in a lifetime.

The whole idea of being a prisoner is to take away rights of someone who have done harm to others. This is done by taking away his freedom (i.e. by locking him up in a prison cell), taking away his right to vote (in many countries) and removing his right to freedom of association.

Locking a prisoner up is not the same as kidnapping (since you make false equivalences). Since a prisoner’s time is already wasted (by locking up in a cell), that time could just as well be used for something productive.

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You know what is slavery though? Forcing the taxpayer to pay for the housing and maintenance of a criminal. The taxpayer doesn’t have any say in the matter and doesn’t have a choice. Each person in jail had a choice.

The point here is that prisoners are used to fill entire factories with labor for private benefit, while taxpayers foot the bill and prisoners work without fair wage. You're turning this into a prisoner's rights issue when it isn't anything of the sort.

> used to fill entire factories with labor for private benefit, while taxpayers foot the bill and prisoners work without fair wage.

How would taxpayers foot the bill if the prisoner's wage is used to finance his stay? At worst, it would lessen the cost of his stay.

> You're turning this into a prisoner

You turned it into a prisoner's rights issue by claiming that forcing a criminal to do some actual work (like every taxpayer does) amounts to slavery. Your opposition to letting criminals work is therefore due to moral and not practical considerations.

Taxpayers foot the bill today. This is about today, not some hypothetical.

I have never claimed that forcing prisoners to work is slavery. What I did say is that forcing prisoners to work without fairly compensating them is slavery. I also do not oppose letting criminals work; I don't even know where you pulled the "moral and not practical considerations" from.

Are you reading my posts before you respond to them? Are you confusing my posts with somebody else's? What's going on here?

Exactly the point. Most prisoners today are sentenced in relation to drug crimes. A majority of those crimes are victimless, but violations of state or federal laws. As such these prisoners are without a debt to "Victims' and society becomes a de facto victim by having to divert tax dollars to their continued incarceration. Huge US Corporations are now "partnered" with prison industries throught the federal Prison Industries Enhancement Certification Program (PIECP) to use inmate labor to manufacture their products then sold to the general consumer. It is important for these corporations to maintain an available work force to fulfill their needs. While tax payers support prisoners through tax contributions, corporations take money out in profits. Visit piecp-violations.com for more information on this issue.

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