Oh, please…
So, is Texas fucked yet?
I’m sure the prisoners would be fine with your disdain if they choose not to work.
Do you compel those you look down on with threat of punishment if they don’t live up to your expectations?
This is dangerously close to expecting gratitude from slaves for room and board.
Hey, the antislavery amendment to the Constitution has a specific exemption for convicted prisoners. And the slave states started looking for ways to convict ex-slaves as soon as it was ratified. Those prisoners are slaves. The only legal slavery in the US.
Please: “involuntary servitude”. We’re civilized gentlemen here.
/s
From https://www.prisonfellowship.org/resources/training-resources/in-prison/faq-prison-jobs/
Some states pay prisoners a very low wage for their work, but most states do not pay inmates. Prison jobs help inmates learn job skills and develop a stronger work ethic. Inmates may acquire skills in food preparation, plant operations, warehousing, record keeping, freight transportation, vehicle maintenance, animal husbandry, farming, construction, building maintenance, carpentry, plumbing, welding, and many other occupations.
Prisoners can apply for prison jobs that will help them be better prepared for employment when released. There is usually a certain amount of competition among inmates for the jobs that offer greater opportunity for future employment.
A couple of real questions that I would love to see an answer for:
How do recidivism rates differ among prisoners with jobs compared to prisoners without jobs?
How do recidivism rates differ among the various jobs that prisoners have?
A site for a foundation founded by a Watergate criminal? And one that has a definitively slanted take on the place of their specific church in spreading the good word and the role of prisoners towards that?
Maybe not the best place to support the thesis
We should refuse to accept the observations by prisoners and former prisoners?
The source itself is suspect. You are taking their word that they are quoting prisoners and former prisoners. Are they? No cherry picking or wishful thinking?
As I noted, the organization was founded and initially run by a man who went to prison over Watergate. Does not make for a trustworthy source without additional validation.
Slavery, even within the law, is immoral.
I’ve not been to prison, but I have (shameful as it is) been incarcerated. I don’t recall if working was mandatory, but had I not worked in the laundry, those days would have been loooooong, and my reputation among the guards would have been much less favorable. Granted, I was not breaking rocks in the hot sun.
I volunteered in a medium security prison for a while, tutoring statistics to men in a college program.
The really top most popular job was training service dogs. Prisoners aren’t allowed to touch anyone, except for the occasional visit with family. The guys training the dogs get to cuddle the dogs.
I don’t think they were paid for it, but i don’t know. I do know that it’s not something that’s likely to give you a salable skill when you get out. But that was sorta what the college program was for. They may have had other jobs they could take, too. I didn’t talk to enough different prisoners to have a good overall impression.
A cousin of mine once spent 30 days in the county jail for a minor drug charge. That was about 1980 or so. The same charge today would have got laughed out of court.
Except on weekends when they would pick up drunk drivers and throw them in jail, he pretty much had the jail to himself.
One thing he loved in jail was when he got to rake leaves around the courthouse. He could turn that into an entire afternoon.
One interesting thing is that back then, the sheriff’s wife cooked the meals for the prisoner(s). Think “go to jail to experience real home cooking.”
Jail and prison can be very different experiences.
Although I would bet a dollar that Rikers is pretty close to a prison experience.
My third cousin’s dog walker once went to prison for 30 years. He made license plates and it really unlocked his creative side. He formed a strong bond with others in the prison, and they had a book club specifically for women authors. He made $500 a day and said they served the best meatloaf of his life. When he became eligible for parole, he begged them to let him stay but he was released on good behavior. Every night he quietly weeps, missing those golden years and the brotherly love that will never die.
Well, I certainly can’t argue with that, can I? 
Nice 
This video on Youtube has some interesting comments by an ex-con who spent 7 years in prison in Arizona:
See youtu.be/s_QFuSbY6m8?t=176
The following is how the interviewee describes how jail and prison differ:
Ex-con: There is a big difference between jail and prison. Jail is generally much worse.
When you first get arrested for a charge, you will see a judge within 24 hours. The judge will decide whether to release you then and there.
If you’re not released you will be brought here to a jail just like this. People are stressed because they don’t know how much time they’re gonna get. So you’re sitting there just waiting to see the judge and then when you see him he says “hey come back in two months” and you do that five or six times and eventually you’ll get sentenced or sign a plea agreement.
There’s a lot more fights in jail than prison. When I was in jail I probably got in 10 fights, in prison i probably got in one or two.
Youtuber: Why’s that?
Ex-con: Because prison’s a lot more relaxed and prison people are just waiting to do their time and go home. In jail, nobody knows what’s going to happen. They don’t know if they’re gonna get 10 years or 20 years.
They’re coming in off the streets. A lot of these guys are under the influence. They’re getting sober and they’re going through withdrawals a lot of the time. It’s just a very stressful environment.
On top of that, there’s no yard. You’re inside 24 hours a day. So there’s no yard, they have big pods, but they can’t go outside, can’t get sunlight on their skin. I did 13 months in this building right here and when I got to prison I looked like a ghost. My skin was so pale cause I hadn’t seen the sun. You only see the sun when you go to court. That’s it.
In my cousin’s case, he spent 30 days in our small county jail. The jail only has three cells and he was the only prisoner much of the time. It’s a whole lot different from a jail like Tucson’s.
By the way, last fall a friend of my nephew got picked up on a warrant from Arizona over an aggravated assault something like three or four years ago. He spent about three weeks in our county jail before being extradicted to Arizona where he spent another three or four weeks in the Tucson jail before the prosecutor declined to prosecute and he was released. When he got back here, he said that the difference between our jail and the Tucson jail is enormous.
In Nevada and New Mexico inmates gentle mustangs collected off of BLM land before they are put up for adoption.