
National prison strike launches over underpaid labor and prison conditions - eplanit
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/08/national-prison-strike-launches-over-underpaid-labor-and-prison-conditions.html
======
TaylorAlexander
A relevant snippet:

“California inmates were sent off to fight what has become the largest
wildfire in the state’s history for just $1 an hour. These firefighters, who
volunteered for a vocational training program offered by the California
Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, are often disqualified from the
work after release because a required credential is denied to anyone with a
criminal record.

Hundreds of thousands of prisoners are also employed in jobs outside and
inside the prisons, most commonly doing work to maintain the prisons.
According to the Prison Policy Initiative, the average prison worker makes
around 85 cents an hour. In 2017, inmates in Alabama, Arkansas, Florida,
Georgia, and Texas were not paid for most of their work. Proponents of these
low-paying jobs have argued that inmates benefit from the work experience and
that prisons, which are already often cash-strapped, cannot afford to pay
more; opponents have argued that prisoners do need real wages to be able to
buy basic necessities other than food in the prisons.”

Arguing that it’s good for them is paternalistic bullshit. The same argument
could justify slavery. If prisons are cash strapped, whose responsibility is
that? I believe society put these people away and we should pay for it. Either
it’s worth it to us or it’s not.

~~~
rayiner
> Arguing that it’s good for them is paternalistic bullshit. The same argument
> could justify slavery. If prisons are cash strapped, whose responsibility is
> that? I believe society put these people away and we should pay for it.
> Either it’s worth it to us or it’s not.

I'm somewhat sympathetic to the argument, but why is the focus solely on what
is "good for them?" Discussions of over-incarceration aside, there is a
legitimate place for prison. These people are already a burden on society--
housing a prisoner costs tens of thousands of dollars--why shouldn't they be
forced to take on some of their own upkeep?

Note that we do this with another class of people who are wards of someone
else: children. Nobody is arguing you should have to pay kids minimum wage for
doing chores...

~~~
rosser
> _Nobody is arguing you should have to pay kids minimum wage for doing
> chores..._

"Chores" and "labor" are categorically different things, and the motivation
for the former isn't usually "offsetting their upkeep", so much as it's
"instilling a sense of personal responsibility".

This is a specious comparison.

~~~
uxp100
What's the difference between a teenager mowing the lawn for their parents and
someone paid to mow a lawn?

Furthermore, when a farmer's child does chores alongside a paid laborer,
what's going on?

~~~
rosser
The kid getting paid to mow neighborhood lawns has:

1\. The right to say "no" without repercussions beyond "not getting paid".

2\. Significant statutory protections regarding exploitative treatment.

EDIT: There's also a large body of statute defining what is and isn't okay in
the family farm situation.

~~~
a1369209993
> 1\. The right to say "no" without repercussions beyond "not getting paid".

Have you ever _had_ parents? I realize it's outside the Overton window to _do_
anything about it, but age-based slavery[0] is ubiquitous and the legal
default in essentially (I think _literally_ ) every country on Earth. It's an
even more pervasive affliction than copyright, so I find your ignorance
implausible.

0: in the ownership sense; actually using them for forced labor is less common

~~~
rosser
My comment was about kids mowing _neighborhood_ lawns, not their own.

Please try to address the argument I actually made.

~~~
a1369209993
I was; my comment was about the purported lack of repercussions for
disobediance.

Also, you were responding to:

> a teenager mowing the lawn for their parents

which _was_ about their (owner's) own lawn.

~~~
rosser
The full quote I was responding to is:

>>>> _What 's the difference between a teenager mowing the lawn for their
parents and someone paid to mow a lawn?_

In response to which, I said:

>>> _The kid getting paid to mow neighborhood lawns has:_

Selective quoting tends to change the context a bit, don't you think?

------
makecheck
I never understood the idea of paying prisoners absurdly little “because
prison”. Why, because they’re not paying rent? And there’s no _way_ they will
find a job on Day 1 after release, meaning they essentially have not enough
money _while_ in prison, no way to save money, and poverty at release. Given
that, they’ll probably be forced to steal to survive after release and...end
up back in prison.

It’s inhumane garbage, and I’m amazed at how much people protest things like
Netflix price increases when we have _way_ worse problems that warrant our
time and money.

~~~
pmarreck
I don’t disagree but just wanted to say something:

The whole point of money was to make it possible for 2+ good actors to do
legal (and different) work/goods/services for each other while profiting.

Most people who end up in prison were “bad actors” by definition. The system
was not benefiting from them. And thus I can’t help thinking that they don’t
really deserve any of the system’s monetary medium of exchange.

~~~
ZainRiz
Except they're not really "bad actors"

Most people in prison today are there because of "drug offenses" which usually
means they got caught doing drugs themselves (not dealing drugs or being
involved in drug induced crimes).

~~~
ghostbrainalpha
This is a REALLY common misconception.

Including "drug offenses" the U.S. incarceration rate is 693 per 100,000.

Excluding "drug offenses" the U.S. incarceration rate is still 625 per
100,000.

[https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/releasing-drug-
offender...](https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/releasing-drug-offenders-
wont-end-mass-incarceration/)

I agree with you that we should get the drug offenders out. But the
characterizations that "most people are in prison for drug offenses" should be
updated.

~~~
jaccarmac
Is incarceration rate not somewhat deceptive though? A more interesting
statistic would be how many of each 100,000 had ever spent time in prison.

From here on is only speculation and I'll do a deeper dive when I'm not on a
phone. I'd like to see the rest of the statistics broken down by offense.
Additionally I suspect that drug offenses would lead to repeated incarceration
and perhaps eventually worse offenses.

Most violent offenses are committed in the context of existing relationships
though, so there are certainly non-policy and certainly non-drug-policy ways
to address crime in the United States.

~~~
jaccarmac
The linked article is interesting but also slightly misrepresented. The 693
number is incarcerations without _federal_ drug offenses. The change would be
from 725/100k to 625/100k across state and federal, which is a slightly more
significant change.

------
andrewla
For reference, here is the linked list of demands by the national organizers
[1]:

> 1\. Immediate improvements to the conditions of prisons and prison policies
> that recognize the humanity of imprisoned men and women.

> 2\. An immediate end to prison slavery. All persons imprisoned in any place
> of detention under United States jurisdiction must be paid the prevailing
> wage in their state or territory for their labor.

> 3\. The Prison Litigation Reform Act must be rescinded, allowing imprisoned
> humans a proper channel to address grievances and violations of their
> rights.

> 4\. The Truth in Sentencing Act and the Sentencing Reform Act must be
> rescinded so that imprisoned humans have a possibility of rehabilitation and
> parole. No human shall be sentenced to Death by Incarceration or serve any
> sentence without the possibility of parole.

> 5\. An immediate end to the racial overcharging, over-sentencing, and parole
> denials of Black and brown humans. Black humans shall no longer be denied
> parole because the victim of the crime was white, which is a particular
> problem in southern states.

> 6\. An immediate end to racist gang enhancement laws targeting Black and
> brown humans.

> 7\. No imprisoned human shall be denied access to rehabilitation programs at
> their place of detention because of their label as a violent offender.

> 8\. State prisons must be funded specifically to offer more rehabilitation
> services.

> 9\. Pell grants must be reinstated in all US states and territories.

> 10\. The voting rights of all confined citizens serving prison sentences,
> pretrial detainees, and so-called “ex-felons” must be counted.
> Representation is demanded. All voices count!

[1]
[https://www.dropbox.com/s/r5cr546jlscgkhj/Prison%20Strike.pd...](https://www.dropbox.com/s/r5cr546jlscgkhj/Prison%20Strike.pdf?dl=0)

~~~
fraudsyndrome
As someone from Australia who doesn't understand the prison thing in the US.
Is it essentially modern slavery? They choose non-white demographics, send
them to prison for minor offences, and use the for cheap/free labour. Is this
right?

~~~
ObsoleteNerd
Yes. Pretty much exactly that.

------
throwaway0x7647
My brother just went to jail and I’m just learning how crazy some things are
there. They keep the bright lights on until midnight, and turn them back on at
4am (and require the inmates to get up).

No one can properly function after repeated nights of less than 4 hours of
sleep. I seriously think the jail just wants to push people to misbehave so
they stay there longer and the jail can reap more profits.

~~~
reaperducer
_They keep the bright lights on until midnight, and turn them back on at 4am
(and require the inmates to get up)._

It's one of several measures to keep the inmates docile. See also: feeding
them low-quality food, and only enough for survival.

A hungry, sleep-deprived prisoner isn't going to revolt, and after release may
think twice about going back.

~~~
RIMR
Just because torture might work as a deterrent is absolutely no excuse.

Sleep deprivation and malnourishment are forms of torture, and constitute
human rights violations.

It's supposed to be a correctional system. How are we supposed to reduce
recidivism when the system is designed to destroy lives?

------
Animats
Yes.

I went to the Design2Part show in Santa Clara a few months ago. The California
Department of Corrections had a booth there, offering slave labor as a
service.

~~~
prolikewh0a
It's technically not illegal under the 13th amendment.

> Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime
> whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the
> United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

It's immoral and unethical, but it's legal. Not saying I agree with that part
of the 13th amendment, I abhor it personally.

~~~
troupe
> It's immoral and unethical, but it's legal.

Do you think it is reasonable for people in prison to work to offset some of
the cost of their room and board or do you think it should all be paid for by
taxpayers?

(I have a problem with creating an economic incentive to keep people in
prison, but less of a problem with giving people something to do that helps
pay for their food.)

~~~
jbob2000
Nobody should be in prison longer than their rehabilitation takes and the
focus of their stay should 100% be rehabilitation. The prison system should be
structured around reducing costs by getting people out of the system, not
reducing costs by getting those in the system to do work.

~~~
lightbyte
>Nobody should be in prison longer than their rehabilitation takes and the
focus of their stay should 100% be rehabilitation

That would be nice, but our current justice system is not even remotely close
to being anything like this. That will take generations of change. You're
trying to say we should be at step Z when we haven't even gotten to A yet.

~~~
kiliantics
That kind of argument is used to justify a lack of action towards progress
though. Similar arguments were made by many about slavery at the time:

"It would be nice to abolish slavery but our current economic system isn't
even remotely close to being anything like this. It would take generations of
change..."

So we should prefer generations more people be subjected to these horrors than
take a risk and make an effort to do better?

~~~
lightbyte
You misunderstand. I'm not saying you can't try and change things, that's
exactly what I _am_ saying. You can't demand everything has to perfect right
now, you need to actually start the change somewhere.

>"It would be nice to abolish slavery but our current economic system isn't
even remotely close to being anything like this. It would take generations of
change..."

This is more like you saying we need to have equal rights for everyone in 1800
before you start working on abolishing slavery in the first place.

~~~
fzeroracer
You should read up the history of Thaddeus Stevens if you haven't yet already.

There comes to a point where you need to make strong demands if you want to
make any progress at all for certain things. Demanding incremental progress
for things like slavery in the 1800s leads to half-baked compromise that
ultimately led to even more issues later down the line.

------
kevmo
"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime
whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the
United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

\- 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution

Whenever anyone says slavery no longer exists in America, I point them to
this. The foundational document of our system of government expressly allows
slavery.

We house 25% of the world's prisoners in part because it's how we are still
legally producing slaves.

~~~
noobermin
Can any lawyer comment? A reading of the 13th amendment seems to justify
involuntary servitude as a punishment for a crime, does this mean prison labor
that isn't included in a sentence a violation of the 13th amendment? Just
reading of this seems to allow one to make an legal argument along those
lines, so I imagine there must have been some case that lead to a
clarification of the 13th in the intervening century or so.

~~~
TheSoftwareGuy
Except there is over a century of precedent, and no court is going to overturn
that now. The 13th amendment is not some new discovery that the courts are
waiting for someone to make an argument based on

~~~
RIMR
You couldn't be more wrong.

The supreme court could reinterpret this, and require forced labor to be a
part of the sentence, not just allowed to be used against anyone in prison.

Precedent changes over time. This idea that the current interpretation of the
Constitution is immutable is defeatist and foolish.

~~~
goobynight
The supreme court _could_ reinterpret anything.

The trend at the moment is that they aren't interfering with past rulings and
that's not about to change with the new addition.

~~~
DenisM
Remember the recent gay marriage ruling? They re-interpreted centuries of
tradition.

------
tryitnow
Paying prisoners absurdly low wages teaches them that honest labor doesn't
pay. Isn't this exactly the opposite of what we want them to learn?

I readily that my emotional side wants to prison to be as punitive as
possible. But my rational side just wants to live in a society with less
crime. And teaching prisoners that honest labor pays is an important lesson in
getting them to behave themselves when they get out.

~~~
Barrin92
>. Isn't this exactly the opposite of what we want them to learn?

I don't think anybody who is involved in what can only be described as a
prison industry at this point is interested in teaching them anything.

------
chuckgreenman
On the one hand, you don't really want there to be much of an economy in
prison. The more money inmates make the more they have to bribe corrections
workers and create an unsafe environment.

On the other hand, we can't keep wages so low in these institutions that basic
hygiene items require a hours on hours of work. How do you expect someone to
go from incarcerated to living in the world with no money? I swear we just
love to create problems in this country and then wonder out loud how those
problems came to be.

~~~
SahAssar
If you keep people in a prison you are also obligated to feed them and keep
them supplied with basic necessities like basic hygiene items.

Nobody in prison should need to work to wash themselves or brush their teeth.

------
jancsika
> 1\. Immediate improvements to the conditions of prisons and prison policies
> that recognize the humanity of imprisoned men and women.

This probably ought to include something like the following: "...including an
immediate ban on solitary confinement as a disciplinary measure."

Otherwise we will have a multi-decade "conversation" about whether "time in
the hole" actually constitutes torture.

Remember, this is the country that brought you "enhanced interrogation
techniques" and marijuana as a schedule I controlled substance.

------
hackermailman
The US prison system will probably be the first way somebody fulfills the one
million jobs RFS
[https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/#million](https://www.ycombinator.com/rfs/#million)

Find a way to sell a service the prisoners can learn to do through
apprenticing with experienced prisoners (b2b sales, data analysis, ect), find
a way to get companies to contract your inmates, find a way to proof it from
bad inmates making politicians look embarassed by limiting the scope of the
service to something they can't use for crime, find a way to get prisoners to
agree by paying them the state min wage,find a way to get prison workers and
public to agree by making it as non disruptive to set up as possible, hire
former inmates who worked for you to manage the on site operations, counter
'this is slavery' criticism by hiring prisoners themselves to be your company
PR. Prisoners can pay off their conviction fines and at the same time save
money for release to land soft. Pitch this to YC and get funding to conduct
some kind of data gathering to guage what politicians and public would be
comfortable with (types of offenses permitted to work, industries that are
least adversarial to this model so willing to work with your prisoners, ect).

------
BucketSort
I'm very impressed that we don't actually bill prisoners for rent, food, etc
and if they can't pay, loan them money through a high interest loan that they
can never pay off. Maybe they could do this and reduce interest on the loan if
you work in prison. Whatever story works to keep people blind to the fact that
the state abuses the shit out of its people.

~~~
kevmo
We do.

[https://money.cnn.com/2015/09/18/news/economy/prison-fees-
in...](https://money.cnn.com/2015/09/18/news/economy/prison-fees-inmates-
debt/index.html)

------
jakeinspace
A common argument against offering minimum wage work or advanced technical
training to prisoners is that this reduces the disincentive of prison time.
From a purely logical standpoint I can see how that makes some amount of
sense, but in reality I don't think anybody committing petty or significant
crimes would be swayed one way or the other over the opportunity for $7/hour
in prison. The lack of freedom - to see family, friends, live an actual life -
that's the disincentive. Not to mention the employment and housing prospects
of a convicted felon, which are terrible.

------
ForrestN
As much as I wish for incremental reform of prison conditions for prisoners,
it's important never to forget the fundamentally unethical premise of prisons
and state punishment, which derives from religious fantasies about good and
evil.

Human beings behave according to the combination of their neurology and their
conditions. We should do what we can to prevent dangerous behavior and do our
best to treat the people who do dangerous things.

Deciding that some people, mostly people who come from historically oppressed
groups and from poverty, are bad and deserve to suffer has a toxic effect on
the core of our society.

------
twothamendment
I worked with a guy who was on a state fire crew (not California). The pay was
super low, but he didn't care. Being outdoors in the smoke was way better than
being in a cell and the time off for being good was worth quite a bit to him.
He was totally happy with the arrangement and it sounded like many others were
too. The state had lots of similar programs, roofing government buildings,
etc.

I thought I'd share how he felt because it wasn't all all what I expected to
hear. I expected he'd rip on it and all I heard was good.

------
a-fried-egg
I think the inhabitants of the white collar prisons should be put to work
fighting the fires and get paid nothing in return. Most of them are serving
hard time for fraud anyway.

------
Friedduck
Has everyone forgotten that these people are all convicted of a crime and
serving their sentences?

For all the issues that exist (gouging for common services, violence, the
judicial process, etc.) complaining about the terms of their punishment is
absurd.

To be sure there should be rehabilitation, and a component of that is
incentives. There should be no expectation, though, that those incentives
should correlate to what they may receive in the free market.

------
shevek_
US inmates in 2018 are paid worse than prisoners in Soviet gulags in the 1950s
[https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Leonid_Borodkin/publica...](https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Leonid_Borodkin/publication/237588373_Compensation_Versus_Coercion_in_the_Soviet_GULAG/links/0c960528c68e4999f4000000/Compensation-
Versus-Coercion-in-the-Soviet-GULAG.pdf)

------
conner_bw
Attica, Cinda Firestone, 1973
[https://vimeo.com/272464205](https://vimeo.com/272464205)

------
secult
You cannot visit slate unless you accept the privacy policy. Which third
partners they share the data with, and how to opt out? You never know, as you
have to accept the privacy policy first before accessing the Third Party
Partners page.

~~~
dublinben
[https://outline.com/fCXvYT](https://outline.com/fCXvYT)

------
oh_sigh
One thing they are demanding is to get rid of the ability to sentence someone
to life without parole. For some reason, I don't think the public is going to
get behind that one.

------
kraftman
Title should add 'in USA'

~~~
trumped
The default is USA... dang should add a country if it isn't

------
eli_gottlieb
Ok, everyone sing along!
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBpUniD7VGE&feature=youtu.be](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pBpUniD7VGE&feature=youtu.be)

Solidarity over slavery!

------
scarecrowbob
Inside, Outside: all on the same side.

------
appleflaxen
this is modern slavery.

the minimum wage should apply to all labor, including that performed by
inmates.

------
drivingmenuts
If they’re not being paid and the work they’re doing is not helping them to
get a job afterwards, then they have every right to protest. In theory at
least, they are supposed to be working towards rehabilitation, but it’s
turning out to be slave labor in practice.

------
c141charlie
I have always felt that not paying prison guards enough would encourage
corruption. If you’re a prison guard and are barely scraping buy, would you be
tempted to smuggle in drugs for the inmates if that meant lining your wallet
with a few hundred bucks? This must happen at some level. How else do people
get access to drugs in prison?

