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Comment by AlchemistCamp | Hacker News Reader

California did that during the 2014 wild fires too... and paid them $2/day.

I still can't understand how people tolerate this or how it's not a top political issue.

http://www.takepart.com/article/2014/11/20/prisoner-labor

As one who has been through both state and federal prison, I can attest that an inmate doesn't have to work if they don't want to. There are some privileges lost, and of course, if there is no alternative income, you truly know what it is to go without.

Also, you don't have to work any job they assign. An inmate can choose to be a yard or hall orderly (janitor) or work in the kitchen or laundry.

I earned enough each month to have a soda and candy bar daily, a quart of ice cream weekly, and enough disposable money to get comfortable sweat pants and shirts and then a book every month. (I played D&D, so those books were about $32 with shipping.)

I worked in the laundry, then the commissary (prison store). While in the store, I took a drafting course and upon graduation, I became a tutor for that course. At the next prison, I worked in the Electrical maintenance shop until the prison Engineer discovered I could draft, and then I drew blueprints.

The tutor and draftsman jobs were very cushy and I earned about $120/month. Plus, I had a side hustle at both of them where I could use a photocopier to make copies for other inmates that weren't allowed in the law library.

And, if you can get a hustle selling something like cigarettes you can make upwards of $10000 a month.

It depends on where you are imprisoned. In Angola prison, in Louisiana, "inmates at Angola, once cleared by the prison doctor, can be forced to work under threat of punishment as severe as solitary confinement. Legally, this labor may be totally uncompensated; more typically inmates are paid meagerly—as little as two cents per hour—for their full-time work in the fields, manufacturing warehouses, or kitchens."

It's also the case that federal prisons are usually better than state prisons. In terms of living conditions, respect for basic human rights, and access to resources for recreation and rehabilitation, federal low- and minimimum-security prisons are probably the best places to be incarcerated in the US. (although that's about as faint as praise gets)

https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2015/09/prison-...

Netflix has a documentary series called Fire Chasers that covers this. Although it sounds like you think otherwise, most of the inmates jump at this chance - to get outside and to be productive.

I don't necessarily doubt that, though I suspect critical documentaries tend to have a harder time getting access. Getting outside and doing something meaningful are both important to human happiness.

The part that's very concerning is that by not paying at least minimum wage, there are perverse incentives to incarcerate more people for longer periods of time for their labor. I've also read of prisoners being punished for not choosing to do labor that their prisons could profit off of.

Perhaps there's a moral difference here between working for CalFire and working for a private prison? California has orders of magnitude more prisoners than they need for CalFire so I cannot imagine there's any incentive there to incarcerate longer or arrest more people.

As for the pay, I'm curious on the pay idea: what the hourly cost is to try, convict, house, and feed a convicted criminal. I've been unable to find this info in a useful form for California.

I think you will not find support for your idea though as long as there are unemployed non-criminals available to work - although I get your point.

Well that money could also be restitution for the victims

Who says slavery is dead? We still allow it in the us it’s still written into the constitution its specifically allowed for those inprisoned.

Lol who down voted you? The use of prison/slave labor is probably a factor in the disappearance of millions of jobs.

And creates a perverse incentive for kickback relationships between certain industries and the judicio-prison complex to funnel more de facto slaves into the system.

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