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Inmates forced to farm gold online in Chinese prisons

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Re: Inmates forced to farm gold online in Chinese prisons

#11

Post by ck2 »

teyc wrote: post #8
ck2 wrote: post #3

How about the hundreds of thousands of prisoners in the US forced to work for pennies per hour? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison%E2%80%93industrial_compl... If they refuse, they are written up as uncooperative and it could affect privileges, parole, etc. Makes many millions in profit for the states and federal government, even some judges own stock. Ironically it's the only labor in the US that can compete with of…

So true. In US, it is the chain gang.

Actually, Arizona still has real chain gangs and other states had them as recently as the mid-90's.

Re: Inmates forced to farm gold online in Chinese prisons

#12

Post by tseabrooks »

ck2 wrote: post #3

How about the hundreds of thousands of prisoners in the US forced to work for pennies per hour? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison%E2%80%93industrial_compl... If they refuse, they are written up as uncooperative and it could affect privileges, parole, etc. Makes many millions in profit for the states and federal government, even some judges own stock. Ironically it's the only labor in the US that can compete with of…

Seriously? We should give a damn about this? You've got to be kidding me. Lots of money gets spent every year on inmates in the U.S.

Is your complaint that you think people are being incarcerated when they've committed no crimes in order to have cheap labor? I find this notion pretty ridiculous considering you need a trial and jurors to convict someone.

Is your complaint that you think the laws are being created to specifically target people so that they can be incarcerated? In that case stop whining about it and stop voting for the people making these laws.

But I digress, you are right.. It's disgusting that the federal government makes any money on the people they pay to care for whom society has deemed should be incarcerated.

Re: Inmates forced to farm gold online in Chinese prisons

#13

Post by ck2 »

tseabrooks wrote: post #12
ck2 wrote: post #3

How about the hundreds of thousands of prisoners in the US forced to work for pennies per hour? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison%E2%80%93industrial_compl... If they refuse, they are written up as uncooperative and it could affect privileges, parole, etc. Makes many millions in profit for the states and federal government, even some judges own stock. Ironically it's the only labor in the US that can compete with of…

Seriously? We should give a damn about this? You've got to be kidding me. Lots of money gets spent every year on inmates in the U.S. Is your complaint that you think people are being incarcerated when they've committed no crimes in order to have cheap labor? I find this notion pretty ridiculous considering you need a trial and jurors to convict someone. Is your complaint that you think the laws are being created to s…

At some point in this decade they will hit 1 out of every 100 people are in prison in the US.

If you don't think there is something seriously wrong with that percentage and how two decades ago it was a fraction of that number, then you are far too trusting, isolated or innocent to the world.

Felony laws and prison sentences are made much harsher based on heavy lobbying.

Re: Inmates forced to farm gold online in Chinese prisons

#14

Post by VladRussian »

dstein wrote: post #6

I would've thought something like Mechanical Turk would be more valuable. Mining WoW gold sounds like something that could be fuuly automated. Why not have them do things that require human insight instead?

Stalin invented it before you :) The main problem with your idea is that people capable of valuable insight are notoriously rare in the prison population. Stalin though was able to work such problem around. Google for Soviet Union "sharashka", in particular "sharashka Korolev USSR space program" :)

Re: Inmates forced to farm gold online in Chinese prisons

#15

Post by DarkShikari »

tseabrooks wrote: post #12
ck2 wrote: post #3

How about the hundreds of thousands of prisoners in the US forced to work for pennies per hour? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison%E2%80%93industrial_compl... If they refuse, they are written up as uncooperative and it could affect privileges, parole, etc. Makes many millions in profit for the states and federal government, even some judges own stock. Ironically it's the only labor in the US that can compete with of…

Seriously? We should give a damn about this? You've got to be kidding me. Lots of money gets spent every year on inmates in the U.S. Is your complaint that you think people are being incarcerated when they've committed no crimes in order to have cheap labor? I find this notion pretty ridiculous considering you need a trial and jurors to convict someone. Is your complaint that you think the laws are being created to s…

Lots of money gets spent every year on inmates in the U.S.

Yes, which goes directly to private companies that profit off it, creating an economic incentive to arrest as many people as possible and sentence them for as long as possible -- and to eschew any potential course of action that would reduce the number of criminals, such as rehabilitation.

The US prison system is basically designed from the ground up to turn ordinary citizens arrested for minor infractions into hardened criminals. This is why we have more people in prison per-capita than any other country in the world.

Re: Inmates forced to farm gold online in Chinese prisons

#16

Post by _delirium »

DarkShikari wrote: post #15
tseabrooks wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seriously? We should give a damn about this? You've got to be kidding me. Lots of money gets spent every year on inmates in the U.S. Is your complaint that you think people are being incarcerated when they've committed no crimes in order to have cheap labor? I find this notion pretty ridiculous considering you need a trial and jurors to convict someone. Is your complaint that you think the laws are being created to s…

Lots of money gets spent every year on inmates in the U.S. Yes, which goes directly to private companies that profit off it, creating an economic incentive to arrest as many people as possible and sentence them for as long as possible -- and to eschew any potential course of action that would reduce the number of criminals, such as rehabilitation. The US prison system is basically designed from the ground up to turn…

And when it's not private companies, at publicly-operated prisons the money goes into the pockets of prison guards, who are well paid, and whose unions are some of the biggest organizations lobbying for more crimes and longer sentences (California's three-strikes law was strongly pushed by its prison-guard union).

Maybe I'm missing it, but I'm surprised that prison-guard unions aren't more front-and-center in the controversy over public-employee unions. I hear a lot about generic bureaucrats (e.g. in Wisconsin), and about teachers' unions (e.g. in CA), but not that much about prison guards. But when it comes to people getting angry about unions of employees who are supposed to be working on the public's behalf engaged in lobbying in support of their own private interests, I can't think of a more clear-cut case of immorality than a prison-guard union lobbying for more prisoners.

Re: Inmates forced to farm gold online in Chinese prisons

#18

Post by moo »

tseabrooks wrote: post #12
ck2 wrote: post #3

How about the hundreds of thousands of prisoners in the US forced to work for pennies per hour? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison%E2%80%93industrial_compl... If they refuse, they are written up as uncooperative and it could affect privileges, parole, etc. Makes many millions in profit for the states and federal government, even some judges own stock. Ironically it's the only labor in the US that can compete with of…

Seriously? We should give a damn about this? You've got to be kidding me. Lots of money gets spent every year on inmates in the U.S. Is your complaint that you think people are being incarcerated when they've committed no crimes in order to have cheap labor? I find this notion pretty ridiculous considering you need a trial and jurors to convict someone. Is your complaint that you think the laws are being created to s…

This judge was convicted of jailing youths for kickback money. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/13/us/13judge.html

There are Hacker News threads that discuss the hundreds of DNA exonerations in the U.S. This hints at the huge problem of lying and frame-ups by the police and judicial system.

Juries are instructed to give a verdict on guilt or innocence not decide on sentencing.

The U.S. has the highest per capita prison population in the world. It is big business.

Kind of a waste of time to fall back on voting when there are so many reactionaries like yourself.

Re: Inmates forced to farm gold online in Chinese prisons

#19

Post by code_duck »

hessenwolf wrote: post #4

Meh. Worse ways to be tortured.

Of course, but incarceration is supposed to be the punishment itself, not extra abuse from the guards. The article does note "the inmates were kept playing until they could barely see things and missing the daily quota would result in physical punishment and abuse."
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