Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit | monniez's commentslogin

That’s fine if the state was providing these activities as unpaid or low paid hobbies in addition to actual jobs.

The problem is that the state is exploiting the prisoners for profit. The profit should go to the prisoners doing the work.


According to the article there are not enough jobs to go around, so you are not forced to do a job.

However, if you do take a job, you should be paid for it, like everybody else.

This is important to counter prisons for profit schemes as well as improving the wellbeing of the prisoners.


Prevailing market rates, at or above minimum wage, sounds about right.

Prisoners should be allowed to acquire and purchase necessities without markups with their earnings.

Prison facilities and services should be free.


There are people who work full time and after their monthly expenses are paid hardly have anything left over, but prisoners should just pocket it all?


Do we want prison to be rehabilitation or a revolving door?

If people leave with money, they can actually try to break the cycle... Perhaps try to keep some of their property/belongings for short incarcerations... Most Americans families would lose their house and/or car if one parent was in jail for 6 months... Which makes prison a family killer, encouraging more crime to continue from neglected children and single mom/dad now working 2-3 jobs to cost the gap


Sure, that's probably all true. I'm just trying to contrast the reality of living outside of prison (a substantial amount of money goes to living expenses) to living in prison (you have or should have no expenses).

To me if you pay prisoners a normal wage it would seem too much like a reward for breaking crime, given that we pay all their normal expenses as well.


Going to prison is no reward. No sane person would go to prison for the chance to earn minimum wage.

Furthermore, as the article states, prison services are substandard or entirely missing. Either fix that and we can talk deductions above normal taxes or allow the prisoners to earn minimum wage or more and to keep their earnings.


> No sane person would go to prison for the chance to earn minimum wage

It's not minimum wage. It's minimum wage plus room and board plus shitty food and healthcare. Even for someone young and healthy, albeit uneducated, a few years in prison could yield a nest egg. For someone with a chronic health condition, getting sentenced could be the smart move. (This is true even today, depending on your city and state.)

The price of prison labor, what companies and the government pay for it, should be no less than prevailing wages. Ideally, indexed to the county the prison is in. What the prisoner is paid out of that should deduct some amount, again ideally related to a local cost-of-living index, that goes into a rehabilitation fund.


Pros:

minimum wage (but not really), shitty room, shitty food, shitty healthcare

Cons:

minimum wage (yeah, not really), shitty room, shitty food, shitty healthcare,

AND

- loss of freedom,

- loss of reputation,

- loss of privacy,

- no prospect of advancement,

- no raises,

- even shittier neighbors (on average),

- holidays without your family,

- almost impossible to get a job when you're out,

- no vacation or other time off,

- no or almost no sex or intimacy with your loved ones,

- being treated like shit every day,

- the threat of solitary,

- being in solitary,

I could go on, but why bother.


Poverty is no peach either. Do you really think there aren’t Americans for whom that situation, plus the promise of tens of thousands of dollars to one’s name in a few years, would not be an insane choice?

It’s crap that’s reality. But it’s true, and between the prison population and those folks, I would argue for prioritising the latter. (Naturally, it’s better to do both.)


Still not finding this a persuasive argument. If there are such people, they are an insignificant proportion of both poor people generally and the prison population particularly.


I mean, really?

You want to trade your freedom and clean criminals record for minimum wage plus room and board?

No sane person would do that.

Prisoners should receive their wages less income taxes. Anything else creates a moral hazard, as we have seen with prisons for profit.

That doesn’t mean wages could not be garnished if there is a judgement against the prisoner.


>a substantial amount of money goes to living expenses

Then charge them for those living expenses. Pay them a normal wage for outside, and then charge them what it would cost to rent a tiny room you share with another person plus the real cost of a boiled egg plus a peanut butter sandwich. I imagine they'd end up with something like 90% of their wage left.


Ah, being forever branded as an undesirable, being abused by staff, losing your ability to walk outside when you want and have contact with regular people, having very little to do for ridiculous amounts of time, plus having to take care not to drop the soap to not get surprise sex

Truly better and more rewarding than being marginally poorer outside


It sounds pretty miserable, but there are plenty of people of have committed no crime, work, pay their expenses, and are miserable. Yet the government pays no bills and provides no help.


> Yet the government pays no bills and provides no help.

They are not wards of the state nor are they locked up. That’s a huge win.

The correct solution isn’t to make prisoners more miserable, but to make everybody less miserable.


Yes, they should "pocket it all". Without the opportunity to save _some_ money they are guaranteed to end up homeless (or worse) as soon as they leave the jail.

Being "rich" in prison doesn't mean you get to improve your gaming rig or buy a Roomba, it just means you don't have to consider whether to spend $2 to see the doctor. I would be fine with that.

Also, everything in prison is reported to be expensive, bad quality, and full of extra fees. So if they only have one expensive brand of toothpaste, they should at least earn enough to afford _those_ prices.


The society choose to lock them up. And part of that contract is to pay for expenses. It is not prisoners problem, society could as well kick them out and then they would need to pay for those themselves.


I'm not sure I find this argument convincing. Would you say that if I speed and get a fine, then society has chosen to fine me and so they should pay the fine?


It is not like we charge people for time of the police when receiving speeding ticket. Or the paper it is written on.


You do not become a ward of the state when you receive a speeding ticket.


yes.


Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact

Search: