Would you support any unconventional means to help deal with so many prisoners?

Great Debates
1

The United States has more prisoners than any other country. I wouldn’t be surprised if they one of the highest populations of death row inmates as well.

What productive means could we do to help make keeping so many prisoners worthwhile? I watched a show on the Histroy Channel about the history of prisons in the United States. Apparently at one point, prisons were self-sustaining, with prison labor used to maintain the prison itself. While I know that modern, high-tech prisons couldn’t have 100% of their overhead covered by the prisoners, perhaps they could do more?

Or what about using prisoner labor for manufacturing? I understand one problem of prison labor is that it hurts businesses who have to compete with the prison labor system, because the prisoners don’t neccesarily get paid minimum wage for their work. I understand the reason a lot of business is done overseas is because it is not really cost-effective to manufacture certain things in the United States (particularly things like shoes, and toys). So, what if they made manufacturing plants here in the US, but had the prisoners do all the labor? So that there would be more domestic manufacturing which could be potentially cheaper than doing it overseas?

2

Well, nitpick, not “any unconventional means” to deal with anything. A defined means maybe, it depends.

This plan would be predicated on the prisoners costing the manufacturer less than, say, Nike’s subcontractors’ labor, in order to be competitive. The cost would be whatever the inmates are paid, plus the prison’s contracting costs–would prison administration act as the contractor or would there be a private contractor?

Then to cover taxpayers’ costs, the manufacturer would have to cover some or all of the building/guard/admin/food/medical costs of keeping prisoners, which you see quoted as what, $25,000, $50,000 a year?

I’m too lazy to look up the numbers. WAGging, say Asian cheap labor is $0.50 an hour, to compete we pay $0.40 an hour; say the Asian subcontractor charges $0.50 per labor-hour for his services and the American subcontractor charges $1.00 per labor-hour (he’s got a more expensive lifestyle than the Asian), and the taxpayer continues to pay for keep, this scenario leaves the taxpayers nowhere.

Is this scenario realistic?

3

Well slave labour sounds like a good idea I’m not sure it’s so great in practice. :wink:

There are already a bunch of work programs in US prisons, do a google search on “prison work programs” and you’ll get ~500 hits.

4

And “prison work program” (singular, keep the quotes) will give more results.

5

You also have to consider quality of work. Prisoners aren’t likely to be model employees.

6

Yes. I support the very unconventional notion of building more prisons especially near the areas with the highest influx of new criminals. If people really dont want prisons in their back yards, they should do something about lowering the crime in their area. I an not adversed to the idea of building prisons in very inhospitable areas like in the middle of deserts and in the perpetually frozen areas of alaska.

7

There’s a related thread,here

8

Your idea is the reality. Except the profits do not go toward offsetting the taxpayer costs of prison, in most cases. Also, the possibilities for corruption are rampant, due to unaccountability. Here are a few sites:

http://www.interactivist.net/housing/prison2.html

To clarify: Prison industries fall into four categories: (1) private sector employer (2) state-use industries (such as UNICOR); (3) private-industry customer (state-owned factory); and (4) state-owned, privately-operated (such as the PRIDE program discussed below).

In 1992, about 81,000 inmates were employed in prison industries (CURENY, 1997). Meanwhile, “…nearly all prisoners already work–91% in the federal system, 70% in the state, according to a 1991 report by the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Those who don’t work typically include the medically or mentally unfit, as well as the most dangerous offenders…The average prisoner’s workweek is 34.5 hours. Federal inmates put in 37.5 hours…” (emphasis added, BJS, 1993: 4).

unicor/FPI (Federal Prison Industries) legislation 2003
http://www.mlive.com/news/statewide/index.ssf?/base/news-2/1059163800215820.xml

UNICOR DOESN’T LOWER TAXPAYER COSTS, IT RAISES THEM
http://edworkforce.house.gov/hearings/105th/oi/prison8598/martin.htm

Prison Industries Enhancement Program (P.I.E.)
http://www.peol.com/industries_facts.htm

Making Crime Pay

Who profits? The building trades are experiencing a huge windfall. Phone companies, providers of vending machines, and HMOs are all finding new markets in the burgeoning prison population. One phone company charges $22 for a collect 15-minute cross-country phone call, and provides a 35 percent kickback to the prison. They have a captive audience in prisoners who cannot carry cash in prison and must rely on collect calls. A single phone can gross $15,000 a year. Snack machines offer the staple food supply for visiting rooms in prisons. One provider has reported a doubling of sales each year.

To keep prisons - both public and private - financially self-supporting, prison officials are bringing private industry inside the walls, using captive (and therefore cheap) labor.

Prison profiteers fighting over prisoners
http://www.corpwatch.org/news/PND.jsp?articleid=22

More prisons coming soon
http://www.notwithourmoney.org/03_prisons/resources.html
Rather than expand use of community sentencing, the FBoP plans to build 29 new public prisons and contract for more than 20,000 new private prison beds.

9

Here is one success story: Prison Blues, made on the inside to be worn on the outside.

“The Prison Blues® brand was established by Inside Oregon Enterprises, a division of the Oregon Department of Corrections. It was started with a federal government grant funded by drug money seizures, and as a plan to defray incarceration costs in the state of Oregon. The state conducted a thorough study determining that Oregon Manufacturers would not suffer from a Prison Garment Industry.”

http://www.prisonblues.com/411.php

10

**

Except for aestethic reasons, living near a prison is actually SAFER. I live very close to a prison. Our neighborhood has a zero crime-rate. (The prison actually patrols the surrounding areas.)

I think that a lot of the fear of living near a prison is the misguided fear that escaping inmates pose a risk. In reality, when an inmate escapes a prison, he wants to get as far away from it as he can-- not simply run to the nearest house.

How will you get the employees to the prison? Ours has a staff of over 500 at each facility, and commuting to work would be impossible. You’d have to build them housing, and continually fly in supplies for both the inmates and employees.

Not to mention the fact that building a prison in the wildreness would be enormously expensive (moving all of the materials to the building site, bringing in the contractors, etc.)

You’d have to pay to educate the employees’ children, and actually probably have to pay the staff substantially more in order to induce them to work in an unhospitable wilderness.

The cost of all of this would be astonishing. Considering most prison budgets are already being cut in our current fiscal crunch, I doubt if your idea would find much support.

11

Not sure how unconventional it is but your first and last sentence seem to contradict each other. Unless you think the highest influx of new criminals is in the middle of the desert. :slight_smile: Also, the OP was asking for ways to defray costs and both your suggestions do the opposite. I would think that maintaining prisons far from infrastructure would be more expensive.

12

Well, it’s easy to solve the second problem. Just join the civilised world and abolish the death penalty.

13

  1. Very very sad. Isn’t it?

  2. The “worthwhile” goal is to focus on reducing our prison population. Here’s one guy that works on that:

When news of Colson’s conversion to Christianity leaked to the press in 1973, the Boston Globe reported, **“If Mr. Colson can repent of his sins, there just has to be hope for everybody.” **

:slight_smile:

Colson would agree. He admits he was guilty of political “dirty tricks” and willing to do almost anything for the cause of his president and his party.

And…

Colson’s personal prison experience and his frequent visits to prisons also prompted new concerns about the efficacy of the American criminal justice system and made him one of the nation’s influential voices for criminal justice reform. Colson’s recommendations have brought together legislators from both political parties and divergent philosophical viewpoints. In 1983, Colson established Justice Fellowship, now the nation’s largest faith-based criminal justice reform group.
http://www.pfm.org/PrisonFellowship/ChannelRoot/WelcomeGroup/ChuckColson/About+Charles+W.+Colson.htm

14

Here is another innovative use of prisoners: bodies to effect redistricting and reapportionment.

“In 48 states prisoners cannot vote, but the Census counts the nation’s mostly urban prisoners as residents of the mostly rural towns that host prisons. As a result, economic and political resources shift away from urban areas to rural prison towns. Most significantly, every decade states use these “phantom” populations to redraw state legislative boundaries and re-apportion political representatives and power accordingly. With U.S. incarceration now setting worldwide records, and the consequences of that falling disproportionately on people of color, the harm to our democracy and civil rights is measurable and profound.”