As far as I know, prison inmates are required to pursue some kind of work while they are incarcerated. They aren’t allowed to just read, watch TV or play cards all day. At least that’s the case with the general prison population.
What about prisoners who have reached retirement age and would be eligible for social security if they weren’t doing time? So must a 65 years old jailbird still peel potatoes in the prison kitchen?
This part isn’t true.
Inmates at federal maximum security are only allowed out of their cells for a few hours a day and not used to put the prisoners to work. At “supermax” prisons, inmates are allowed out of their cells for at most a single hour a day. Minimum security prisoners might be allowed to do some moderate work (picking up trash along highways and such). Apparently, the brief exposure to conditions outside the prison is considered a bit of a privilege in these cases (prison is not a very fun place, I guess).
Of course, the situation may be different in state prisons and will vary by state as well.
As for social security while in prison, the SSA website has this. Looks like most inmates can’t collect social security.
I think forcing prisoners to make license plates is a thing of the past. The south used to be big on getting free or really cheap labor out of them, and I don’t believe they cared how old you were.
Yes they are now forced to farm WoW for Gold in order to earn hard currency for corrupt prison officials. Yes I’m serious, it’s claimed that was happening:
Oh and they force them to do hard labour in the day time as well, just in case you thought a sentence of being forced to play WoW sounds easy.
I glanced over the inmate handbook for one of the Federal Prisons ( FCI Big Spring ). There is no doubt that inmates must work. You will even be disciplined if you show up late for work.
No mention of older folks, though.
Lots of inmates, typically women, work in call centers these days, making hotel reservations, etc.
Most of the time we wouldn’t ever notice, but think twice if the clerk on the phone asks, “and how much money will you be carrying during your stay?”
Yes, prisoners are required to work. They cannot refuse - the Thirteenth Amendment doesn’t apply to prisoners. There’s no retirement age. If a prisoner is able to work he has to work, regardless of how old he is.
That said, don’t get the wrong idea about what a “job” consists of in prison. The reality is that there’s a huge labor surplus. We have a lot more prisoners then we have work for them to do. We divide up the work so everyone is doing something but the result is that many prisoners complete their daily work assignment in about half an hour. Your job might be something like mopping the hallway once a day or emptying out the wastepaper baskets.
Prisoners do still make license plates and that’s considered a good job. Any “industry” job like making license plates or furniture or clothing pays better because the prisoners are actually working a full shift. Other good jobs are being a law clerk (good pay), a barber or repairman (opportunities to collect “gifts”), a kitchen or commissary worker (opportunities to swag extra food), and outdoor jobs.
Being a student is also considered a job and any prisoner who doesn’t have at least a high school diploma has to go to school.
As always, this is from New York where I worked. But most other states have something similar.
I have a question: I’ve been following the case of a medical doctor (a very good one, by all accounts) who was sentenced to 17 years in federal prison for a sex offense. Is it likely that this man will be assigned to a work in which he could use his professional experience (i. e. assisting the prison medical staff)?
They must work if so ordered. But prisoners won’t necessarily be ordered to do so.
This inmate handbook is from a minimum security prison. I believe I already mentioned those inmates get work to do.
But if you end up at a Supermax prison (say ADX Florence), don’t expect to see the outside world very much in the first year, much less have any opportunities for anything resembling actual work. You spend 20+ hours in your cell.
The SSA website already gave that info.
It only says that prisoners don’t receive social security payments. But the SSA certainly doesn’t regulate whether prison inmates have to work or not (i. e. mopping the floor).
Able bodied prisoners can be required to work for no pay. The Federal prisons do have a goal that every physically and mentally capable prisoner work, with exceptions for inmates engaged in educational or drug rehab programs. (Cite: 28 CFR 545.23)
Most prisoners who work do receive some pay. The maximum pay offered by UNICOR/Federal Prison Industries is about $1.25 per hour, and the prison can withold up to 80% for restitution. Many Federal prisoners actually work for less than that. In most cases, prisoners have no right to be paid for their work at all. As is clearly stated in the Thirteenth Amendment, you can punish criminals with forced unpaid labor:
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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.
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A Federal law, the Ashurst-Sumners act, requires state prisoners to be paid in parity to free labor when they manufacture goods that move in interstate commerce. The Prison Industries Enhancement Certification Program (PIECP) monitors and structures such programs. Very few of these actually exist, though. As long as the prisoners return their work directly to the state (usually by producing goods the state requires, such as license plates, or by doing service labor), the wage parity requirement does not apply.
Too late to edit: As of the last Census of State and Federal Correctional Facilities (2005 data, released in 2008), 88% of incarceration facilities operated work programs, and of the prisoners residing in a facility with a work program, 54% had a work assignment. See page 5.
Not really. My understanding is that if you get sentenced to prison, you lose all your professional credentials. So the guy might have the knowledge of medicine but he’d have no legal right to use any of his knowledge. The closest he’d get to working in his field would be something like a nursing assistant - doing things like delivering meals and helping patients get in and out of bed.
That’s true if you’re sent to a “Supermax” but most prisoners are not. Offhand, I’d say it’s almost certainly below five percent.
I looked at Wikipedia to see if I could get an exact figure and their article on Supermaxes is way off. They list four prisons in New York as being Supermaxes. Only one - Southport Correctional Facility - is actually a supermax facility. The other three they list - Attica, Sing Sing, and Upstate - are regular maximum security and the prisoners there are out of their cells and work regular jobs. Those prisons have supermax units, as do most of the prisons in NY, but the majority of prisoners are assigned elsewhere. (And technically supermax isn’t even a category in NY. Its equivalent would be Special Housing.)
Little Nemo, do they allow musical groups (Bands) in any of the prisons you know of?
Do you mean outside bands performing in prisons or prisoners forming bands? Although the answer to both questions is they are allowed.
Most medical licensing boards of which I am aware would consider a felony conviction to be evidence of unethical behavior, and as such, the convicted felon’s medical license would be suspended at least, if not revoked.
Even if not so, giving an inmate such a position of responsibility would be putting him into a position of both great power over and great vulnerability from other inmates. Giving or withholding certain meds or services from inmate patients based on one’s relationship with them, or based on threats/coercion from other inmate patients would not be a good prison dynamic. My security director would flip out if I proposed using a physician-inmate in such a position.
And we do have such physician-inmates in our system, I can think of 3 right off the top of my head. We actually go out of our way to ensure their job assignments are not medically related.
I don’t think prison inmates are taking hotel reservations (unless some state has government-run hotels), but I have seen documentaries where female inmates working as receptionists for that specific facility or in a government call center.
How wrong you would be, my friend. UNICOR sells its call center services as a competitor to offshoring.
http://www.unicor.gov/services/contact_helpdesk/
*After years of providing quality goods and services to federal agencies, UNICOR now has the authority to partner with private sector firms who are sending the work offshore, or in lieu of sending the work offshore. Companies expanding into new areas of business can also take advantage of UNICOR’s unique outsourcing alternative. With more and more call center work being outsourced, UNICOR can provide call center support at a highly competitive rate, and do it right here in the USA.
Imagine… All the benefits of domestic outsourcing at offshore prices. It’s the best kept secret in outsourcing!*
Scroll down. “travel industry” is one of the categories.
My favorite quote from their promotional pamphlet? Why, it is this statement from a satisfied customer:
Absenteeism is the bane of the contact center world. UNICOR has effectively eliminated this issue from the equation.
yes. yes they have.
College educated, native English speakers you can legally pay 0.95/hour. Yay for the War on Drugs!