The old excuse was that the unions opposed cheap labor taking their jobs. But with so much overseas, perhaps the answer is to only let people get prisoners if they are bringing back jobs that have already left. Let the inmates stitch jeans all day.
We already have plenty of prison labor; it undercuts general wages by creating a competing labor pool of what amounts to slave labor. And it creates an economic incentive for ever larger numbers of prisoners.
The Ashurst-Sumers Act of 1934 forbids products made by prisoners to move in intersstate commerce unless they were paid a wage comparable to a free worker for the work.
Services are not covered by the Act. UNICOR, the Federal Prison Industries program, promotes its prisoner call center as a domestic alternative to off-shoring.
However, prisoners can work in agriculture because produce is an exception to Ashurst-Sumners. In a few states, they do so right now. Employers in those states are not obligated to pay wage parity, or even minimum wage (because the Fair Labor Standards Act also doesn’t apply to agricultural laborers AND prisoners do not have to be paid minimum wage, or, actually any wage at all.) In some states, the practice of “leasing” prisoners to private employers is quite illegal, so it is only possible for prisoners to work in prison industries.
Saying it’s illegal at this time is not an answer to “Why not?” Clearly some new laws may required, and certainly no old law is above repeal. If the result is that no US workers are displaced and it saves money, isn’t that preferable to releasing prisoners for lack of funds? And of course the prisons could charge the farms more than they remit to the workers, since that’s the point, to make them pay for their incarceration.
I agree with Der Trihs. There’s already enough economic and political incentives to have a large number of prisoners and we don’t need to add more.
A large number of actively used 65 year old laws are not going to be changed anytime soon. Te original reason for the laws was to protect ordinary citizens from competing with essentially slave labor.
Changing the current regime would require repeal of Ashurst-Sumners, as well as amendments to the Fair Labor Standards Act, The National Labor Relations Act, and a large number of laws regulating employment. It would still be illegal in a couple of states, unless those states amended their State constitutions or repealed their even more restrictive state laws. More importantly, the forces that argued against prison labor in the free market would still be arguing against it today. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but we got this recession on.
Could it happen, well sure. Anything can happen. Will it happen - no and hell no.
Prisoners are allowed to work directly for the government. They just can;t make “products” that move in interstate commerce. As long as their work is returned directly to the state, they can do almost anything. Working for the state is already the most common type of work prisoners do. For large scale projects off the prison site, supervision and security is an issue.
The incentives to store prisoners is to spare the rest of us the crime spree each new untrained crook goes on when released. “Recidivism” may be measured in percent caught again, but the truth is they all commit more crimes. Much better to train them for real work, if that’s what you really want them to do for the rest of their lives and yours. As for incentives, the monetary side is the disincentive now, where governors like Schwarzenegger want to release people just to cut costs. Why not make them pay for their keep? I’d say target union jobs directly. Let them learn something like masonry.
Generally speaking, unfree prison labour, in particular for profit, creates some unpleasant incentives to generate prisoners if it is profitable in some fashion for those exploiting it (say for the prison warden even if not for society or the system).
Forced labour may sometimes be a necessity, but it is certainly not in modern democracies, and should be avoided as it gives direct incentives to corruption.
Inmate labor has more than its share of quality control problems, too.
Says the guy whose office is cleaned by inmate labor…
[sub]I’ve had some very good office custodians and some less good ones[/sub]
Well, here in Texas, I see them on a regular basis out on work crews picking up trash along the highway. Not sure that they are taking jobs any union members would want in doing so, but at least they’re not just rotting in some cell somewhere.
You guys do realize that most prisoners are already working right? Granted a lot of the work they do involves the running of the prisons they live in but if we didn’t have prisoners mopping floors and serving meals and mowing lawns we’d have to hire other people to do these jobs so there’d be no net gain.
What you’re probably thinking of are prison industries where prisoners are making products for use somewhere other than the prison system itself. And that’s already being done. Heck, I used to personally supervise what would have been a sizeable business out on the street. I ran an office furniture factory with well over a hundred prisoners working for me.
The prisoners who are left who aren’t working are mostly those who can’t work. They either have physical or mental problems or are too much of a disciplinary problem.