211–220 of 391 posts
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What are you talking about? > In a broader sense, however, the word slavery may also refer to any situation in which an individual is de facto forced to work against their own will. Seems like what they were saying fits well with this.
Well then we're all slaves to our stomachs because if we don't work, we don't eat, we don't eat, we die.
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It should be noted that the US Constitution allows prisoners to be treated as slaves: > 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.
Just because it is in the constitution doesn't make it right. That is a document designed to be changed, after all. Women couldn't vote for quite some time. Some people weren't fully human. Only landowners could vote. And so on. Furthermore, it being in the constitution still doesn't detract from it being slavery.
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, a…
But that's precisely the thing, isn't it? For-profit prisons, a multi-billion dollar business, are precisely incenctivised to bring and keep and many prisoners inside as possible. It's an economic incentive that works precisely against the social goals we as a society would like to achieve (for the great gain of a select few). Absolutely disgusting.
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, a…
I think they should pay rent and should be paid proper wages, to accelerate reintroduction to society. Don’t do any work? Get the worst cell, with rent written off. Work as a firefighter? Get $30/hour which you can use to get better living conditions and better food in prison.
Seems reasonable to me.
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Everything should be much worse on the inside than the outside. You can use your job to get yourself a single cell rather than a shared cell, etc. and since prisoners are largely able bodied men they should be able to make enough money to defeat the cost of their room and board (probably not their guarding).
Prisons often have incentives for good behavior and things prisoners can buy to make things more comfortable for themselves. Is your primary argument that earning more and paying more money for incentives will teach them how to budget money so they know how to do that after release, and that will increase their success upon release?
Instead, if prisoners had to pay their monthly rent, make sure their income covered that rent, budgeted for extras like meat with their dinner, etc... those skills all translate to proper functioning outside of prison.
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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.
The point of a medium of exchange (money) is to make it easy for there to be a coincidence of wants between people who might transact. It has nothing to do with whether you're a "good" or "bad" actor.
In a monetary society (as opposed to credit or barter (intermediary like you suggest) — monetary circuitist terminology), money is created as a debt/credit tuple to facilitate an intertemporal private contract (tit-for-tat), of which cash is a physical token representation. The etymology of “credit” is “faith”, “honor”, “merit” etc. That of debt, at least in some germanic languages (“schuld”) literally means “guilt” and has connotations of sin and atonement.
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There are a lot of rules and regulations which do not apply to prisoners. Likewise there are a lot of rules and regulations which only apply to prisoners. It’s not unreasonable to treat prisoners as a unique population / special case. They are not incarcerated so that they can continue gainful employment. Prisoners should not be getting paid to cook, clean, do laundry, etc. to help operate the prison, for example. My…
> Prisoners should not be getting paid to cook, clean, do laundry, etc. to help operate the prison, for example. Why not?
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I’m not sure prisons should offer gainful employment to prisoners. Teaching, training, therapy, yes, please, absolutely. Humane conditions and treatment from the guards most definitely. But minimum wage? I’m not sure. I like the idea of inmates being able to complete their sentence with some funds they’ve saved up to help get back on their feet. But that’s what halfway houses are supposed to support I guess?
Prisons should absolutely offer gainful employment because that's one of the best ways they can be reintegrated into society which I would hope is the goal of prison! If prisoners could be given a living wage then I would bet you would have less of them returning to selling drugs etc in order to survive because they leave prison with literally nothing to their name.
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The biggest crime is if they come back into society without the ability to add to the workforce (due to their being former prisoners) or resources to exercise their entrepreneurship (ie, no connections or learning). Then they are targets for recidivism and society loses out. Otherwise, I'm perfectly fine with less prisons.
The biggest problem then is the stigma of having a criminal record for future job interviews' background checks. Ordinary possession shouldn't leave a lasting black mark on one's record or there will definitely be recidivism barring any cultural change in attitude towards hiring ex-criminals.
I'm not sure the solution is to ensure that the minority that get caught are unable to ever go back to being productive, effectively being forced into finding alternative means to pay their rent/bills/etc.