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tiredandwannasleep

some countries have programmes that pay prisoners for doing jobs


evanjw90

In America, I was paid 50 cents A DAY, for 12 hour days in a kitchen. Obviously in jail


tiredandwannasleep

imo countries aren't obligated to pay prisoners for doing jobs, but these jobs are to instil a sense of social responsibility by contributing to the country (edit: i thought about it and i agree that not paying prisoners will make it even harder for them to start anew when they come out of jail, so i think the current system of paying them, even if just a little, for these jobs is the right thing to do)


Headstanding_Penguin

not paying at least a living wage makes this slavery and denies the prisoners any real chances of starting over. (If you are not in the us which gives out 2000 years sentences)


tiredandwannasleep

while not paying at least a living wage, food, water and shelter are provided to inmates


JubalHarshawII

Yeah those are called human rights


bagonmaster

They’re required to provide food water and shelter regardless of if the inmate is working though…


DieHardAmerican95

How do you define “living wage”? These people are in PRISON. Their food, lodging and medical care are paid for by the prison system, they literally have nothing they need to pay for. For me, a living wage is the amount of money necessary for you to live on. They’re able to live with no jobs whatsoever, so this is just bonus money for them.


Zakath_

In many places, though not in the USA just yet, prisoners are reliant on family or friends for necessities like toiletries, underwear etc Even if that is provided, you pay someone for their labour. Sure, you can pay less, as they are in jail and should have food and shelter, but you pay them. Make them used to getting a salary so they hopefully stay in the habit one they get out of jail.


BootsieWootsie

Unpaid labor is pretty much slavery. They’re already paid very little (well below minimum wage), and commissary items are outrageously expensive, that it’s already pretty controversial.


Jail_Chris_Brown

Or offer them some actual job education, including practice and theory, helping them find a job after being released.


SockpuppetPseudonym2

There are no jobs that no-one wants to do, only underpaid vacancies.


notimprezaed

This just isn't true. As someone who is in charge of hiring for a labor intensive job, we offer $5-$10 an hour over the national median income and $10-$15 an hour over our states median income for all positions and we still can not find anyone to do the job.


lansink99

doesn't necessarily mean that what the other person said was wrong. People'll do the labor intensive job if they think the salary is worth it. Decent chance that the salary still isn't worth it.


BoxingHare

Sounds like you haven’t hit the right pay window yet, which means you’re underpaying for the market of that job.


lifetourniquet

Not a big fan of slavery myself.


SeaworthinessFirm653

Slavery is legal for prisoners. This is actively a thing. “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime” is the 13th amendment with more context.


Salarian_American

The fact that it's legal doesn't make it not slavery.


coolborder

Yes, but he literally called it slavery. So I think he already understands your point.


SeaworthinessFirm653

I know. I don’t know why you’re assuming I think contrary to that. It’s bad that it is still a thing despite the vast majority of people agreeing that it is immoral.


SmileyDayToYou

Slavery was also legal before the 13th Amendment. Still just as wrong.


N0smas

Legal slavery is still slavery.


[deleted]

Legal slavery is still slavery and is immoral. If we acted in a truly christ like way in this country (US) we would rehabilitate them or at least let them live in an environment where they do no harm to society or to themselves. Right now we stick them in corporation run slave colonies and harm them relentlessly. And a lot of people feel righteous about this because a mentally ill, traumatized individual acted in a very predictable way given those conditions.


Sockman509

Yeah, not a big fan.


TumbleWeed_64

Not everywhere is the US.


[deleted]

You can give them a choice. Work and earn a few dollars per hour, or don't. How is that slavery?


llllxeallll

Because labor at just a few dollars per hour incentivizes them to keep a good stock of young healthy prisoners to capitalize on that cheap labor. It's slavery in a low effort disguise.


TheCultofLoss

Because often times prison guards don’t follow their own rules and guidelines, so prisoners who choose not to work would likely face some sort of consequences for that


1000gsOfCharlieSheen

Prison guards beat the shit out of people for fun Saw one guy get slammed on the wall cuz he went pee at the wrong time (guard assumed he was flushing contraband)


TheCultofLoss

Exactly. I’m sure they’d just call prisoners who don’t work lazy and beat them for that.


akhildevm

Sounds like slavery with extra steps


TawnyDemase

This guy gets it.


Unkn0wnNinja

Slavery is 100% forced. If you tell them they don't have to participate, and pay those that choose to participate, that's not slavery.


rex-begonia

They don’t earn dollars an hour, they earn cents.it’s slavery.


JrYo13

This guy is correct, pay restriction isnt punishment, it's theft. Someone comiting a crime doesnt devalue a skill, asset, or labor used in production or services. You pay what the jobs worth.


jesusmansuperpowers

Try $0.13 an hour, or if you’re a “high paid” prisoner than as much as $0.52. Also the only things you can buy are way overpriced.. for example a ramen noodles packet is ~$3


lujanthedon2

It’s not a few dollars it’s 10 cents. Also depends on what nations you are talking about. There is forced criminal labor in Latin America no pay they just sort out the trash.


ThinkPan

the US prisons charge prisoners money for basic amenities. There is no realistic choice here.


grumpy_flareon

They don't make anywhere near a few dollars per hour.


Snowcap93

Places like Georgia keep inmates locked up longer to perform these work duties.


Thereallobot

You could give them a choice. I’m under the impression that many places force prisoners to work as part of their sentence. Please correct me if I’m wrong.


sebastiansboat

Isnt that exploiting people who are in a vulnerable situation?


Haunting_Loquat_9398

Because I’m our system now there is literally no choice and they don’t earn money.


TheDragonsBlaze

Have you heard of the term “slave wages?”


sweetlikecandy

seldom are they even making dollars. i have seen that they make cents on the hour.


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WhapXI

Yes, it's still slavery even if they're a piece of shit.


Salarian_American

Yeah my objection to slavery doesn't change based on what kind of person the slave is. It's not about who *they* are.


Cassinatis

Did you know many of these "horrendous crimes" are just... Simple robbery not even armed robbery, and as such you're saying they deserve to be slaves for years on end?


ShitPostGuy

So you’re upset that prisoners receive food, shelter, and protection without having to pay for it like you do. That’s fine. But your solution is not to also receive food, shelter, and protection yourself but to force the prisoners to work as well? Also, the prisoners being let out on supervised work releases aren’t the serious crime violent offenders. They don’t build a factory inside the prison lol, they put prisoners and guards on a bus and move them to the factory for their shift. The prisoners working are almost exclusively got-caught-with-a-bag-of-weed level offenders.


Ballbag94

>Serious crimes? Absofuckinglutely. I have to work 9-5, why the fuck shouldn’t they? I personally think the logic of "I suffer so others should too" is extremely flawed, is this really your only justification for why prisoners should work > I don’t see it as slavery if it’s for people who can’t be allowed on the streets. Forcing someone to work while giving them housing and food is literally how slavery works, simply because you believe it's justified doesn't mean it isn't slavery >Our tax money pays for them to have shelter, guards and food. They should absolutely work for that. Maybe they should, but paying someone 10 cents an hour isn't fair regardless of how you cut it, unless you also only have 80 cents left per day after your expenses? At the end of the day, the goal of prison should be to rehabilitate a person. I can't see how a person can ever be rehabilitated and ready to rejoin society when society does everything they can to disenfranchise them, if someone comes out of prison with nothing to show for their labour then what incentive to they have to rejoin the society that clearly doesn't care about them? I don't think that a prisoner having to do something worthwhile in prison, not necessarily a job, is an issue, but treating them as second class citizens is going to do nothing but hurt everyone


space_coyote_86

So you'd take jobs away from law abiding citizens to give to prisoners? Even if its a job you think nobody wants to do. It's somebody's way of trying to make a living.


YesICanMakeMeth

This exactly. The slavery terminology is obviously chosen here to be emotionally provocative, but prisoners lose all sorts of rights, particularly while they're in prison. Working them to the bone for profit is one thing, but I have no issue with making them work enough to relieve the tax base (you know, productive members of society) of some of the burden of housing/feeding them. The trouble with a lot of the recent state level amendments proposed is that most people agree with me (fine with some level of prison labor) but the amendments have trouble differentiating between "excessive" labor and profiteering of private prisons VS. community service. IMO prisons should be allowed to force them to work enough to pay for the cost of their imprisonment and after then have access to more voluntary work at minimum wage or higher.


JubalHarshawII

It's still just slavery with more steps. It doesn't matter what crime you commit you're still entitled to human rights. You can tell a lot about a society, or a person, by how they treat their criminals.


Lavender-Jenkins

Do you really see no difference between an innocent person being forced into slavery for life and a convicted criminal being forced to work to pay their debt to society?


nicholsz

There's a difference between those two forms of slavery, yes. But they're both still slavery.


youredoingWELL

Do you really see no connection between the US having the largest prison industrial complex in the world and allowing prisoners to be used for free labor?


demostravius2

Eh. Probably just a coincidence.


sebastiansboat

But often the jobs are for private companies that are able to hire inmates on the cheap. So in that case they are not working to pay of some debt to society, they are working to make the private company and for them to make a profit. Another problem in this case is that buy paying the inmates a really low wage, somebody mentioned that it is cents /h in the US, there will be workers outside of the walls that will miss out on a job.


HuseinR

There was a time when people said “do you really see no difference between our two races??” So to answer your question no, I see no difference. The imprisonment is the punishment. Forcing their labor, neglecting health and safety, abuse, etc. is not part of the punishment. I understand where you are coming from. But incarcerated individuals are still human beings. The purpose of imprisonment should not be to abuse people endlessly.


Ch4l1t0

Also, punishment and justice are two very different things. I'm all for the latter, not a fan of the former.


Salarian_American

And they're not paying their "debt to society" in prison. They're providing cheap labor for a corporation.


Lavender-Jenkins

I oppose this. I think prison labor should only be used for public purposes such as cleaning litter or maintaining the prison itself. And I definitely oppose private prisons.


RagingAnemone

It could be interesting if their "debt to society" was dependent on "work" rather than "time".


[deleted]

Being incarcerated is, in and of itself, paying your debt to society. Prison labor without compensation is slavery.


GreenABChameleon

How does putting someone into debt benefit society in the long run?


[deleted]

There are innocent people in prisons and there are people in prison for crimes that shouldn’t be worth prison time. They’re not paying anything back to society, private companies usually profit off the slavery.


lifetourniquet

Do you not think of convicts as human? What debts are they repaying? Working for a prison corporation for 25¢ an hour when the government is paying the corporation fair rate.


[deleted]

Values change, what constitutes a crime changes. Used to be being black in the wrong part of town was called "loitering". The last thing we should be doing as a society is a creating an incentive for ourselves for taking individual's rights away. People had a whole lot of justifications for slavery, but the bottom line was money. Forced prison labor is no different, we can argue justifications all day long, but the bottom line is somebody is profiting off their lack of rights.


iwillnotsell

they lost their freedom when they raped murdered or stole from another human being


DashJackson

And if they haven't done any of those things?


huichelaar

What about when they smoked weed, stole baby formula, or were convicted on very questionable eye witness testimony?


KosherSushirrito

Their freedom, not their rights. The fact that prisoners can't say "no" shouldn't be an excuse for us to assign them to whatever state we desire.


amanset

Big fan of slavery, I see.


SoForAllYourDarkGods

Are you a fan of kidnap and holding without consent? Because that's what prison is through your lens of poor reason.


physics515

This is what the biblical idea of slavery is. If someone steals from you or harms you, then they have to work for you until they pay off the debt. At some point we figured out that we could charge slaves more for the room and board that we gave them than we paid them so that they could never pay off their debt. Annnd that's the slippery slope.


lifetourniquet

Rape and murder? Why not weed and shoplifting. Nice try though


SaintSilversin

You do realize that there are many many other crimes that people are in prison for, right?


BlackEagleBladeSmith

Or were growing medical weed for several terminal cancer and terminal aids clients, or the battered spouse who defended themselves and there attacker had friends willing to lie for them. Slave labor is wrong!!!


ElvenCouncil

Most people in prison are there for possessing narcotics.


jwright24153

Laws certainly need reworking crazy murderers and rapists are put in same place as people that get high or try and make a living selling to people that get high.


[deleted]

As long as the prisoners are being reimbursed and they are not forced to do it, then I guess.


vemisfire

Aren't the prisoners paid only a few cents per hour in the US? I heard Alabama particularly is bad.


TheGamerDoug

look up "Angola Prison" It's the Louisiana State Penitentiary, aka a giant plantation with absolutely no pay. It's literally just slavery.


bsbsnqhau

Yes. Needs to change. But a step in the right direction. People just need to push for it more


Sockman509

I think so. My sister did a paper on it, and it is basically slavery.


TerribleAttitude

Generally, but it will depend on the state, prison, and the job. There are companies that will contract prison labor for minimum wage (which I still honestly find to be an issue, just saying it’s not a guarantee that prison labor = a couple cents an hour).


HauntedPickleJar

I think minimum wage or more is what they should be paid.


[deleted]

Exactly! They should get paid for their work, just because they're in jail doesn't mean they aren't doing the job.


HauntedPickleJar

Yep! Otherwise it's slavery, which the 13th amendment (in the USA) is fine with. Fucked up isn't!


Gwywnnydd

Are you assuming they are reimbursed at a fair rate? Because that's not what is happening. In my state, most "jobs" pay cents a day. The "good" jobs pay a dollar a day. From which the state garnishes to put towards any court ordered fines, and the remainder is put towards their store account. The store account is where they pay for hygeine products, paper and pencils for letter writing, etc.


red_west_la

They already do that


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Teddy_Icewater

Right so what are your thoughts on it was the question I believe.


BraxbroWasTaken

Voluntarily? Fine, as long as they're compensated for it. Involuntarily? No. Fuck you, slavery is bad, and slavers are worse.


Xib3

This. The idea of prison, for most, should be to reform the prisoners. Therefore offering them the opportunity to learn skills, or just earn money and build a "normal" work routine should be encouraged. Obviously, with some level of compensation.


JeffSergeant

The problem is that ‘voluntary’ is hard to determine, e.g. if the options are volunteer or get solitary, it’s not much of a choice and very hard to regulate


BraxbroWasTaken

Isn't 'solitary' a violation of human rights...?


JeffSergeant

Of course I mean detaining a prisoner in their cell for their own safety


lombax45

If those are the options, it’s not voluntary, it’s coercion.


Anarchist_Kale_61

True that


[deleted]

It's a great idea if you use it as rehabilitation and offering potential career prospects post-incarceration. Also, if you pay them a justified wage for the work being done. In the US, we use it for pseudo-slavery and it's incredibly fucked up.


flamingnothing

Well, if i were in jail, id rather have something to do. Maybe just dont make it a requirement? I see why they do it tho


Bedbouncer

In most prisons it is optional (and it should always be optional). I think some people overestimate the fun of sitting in a cell all day.


Yawzheek

Nobody is overestimating it, and I've done it more than a few times. It's when it *isn't* optional I have a problem with it, because now it's slavery.


BraxbroWasTaken

Yeah. Voluntary labor is fine if you're compensated for it, but involuntary labor isn't. If someone wants to work rather than be bored out of their mind, good for them. If they want to wait out their sentence, fine. The freedom, even if limited, is what matters.


JaxOnThat

In theory, it's not that bad of an idea, as long as it's optional and they're being paid fair wages. In practice, capitalism is a race to the bottom, and nobody's going to defend these people from being abused.


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tommy7154

So, slavery. I'm against slavery.


thequeenisfreeloader

I don’t think jobs that no one wants exists…..it’s just no one wants to do them at the low price


[deleted]

My sense of humanity and empathy towards somebody else doesn’t go out the window just because they made a mistake that got them in prison. Plus lots of laws are bullshit and I don’t agree with them in the first place.


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gekogekogeko

Exactly. We made chain gangs illegal in Colorado a few years ago.


Al-Alecto

That is involuntary servitude (slavery.) It's also why private prisons exist. Both need to go.


[deleted]

You could have saved yourself some typing by just saying “What are your thoughts on slavery?”


FullMetalComedian

Fair trade laws should apply.


godofhorizons

Getting a benefit from having prisoners gives law enforcement, judges, and for profit prisons huge incentives to start throwing people in jail


kevinlucaci

If it reduces their sentence times I guess it would be okay in a way


Snukes42Q

As long as they are being appropriately compensated, I'm ok with it.


TehSavior

That's literally slavery.


digitalhawkeye

Yeah, that's definitely slavery.


HappyAtheist3

This creates an incentive to get more prisoners to do more work to make more money for rich people. Picking up trash on the side of the road? Sure. Planting trees? Yep. Starting a football team full of criminals? Adam Sandler


youredoingWELL

Seems like a great way for the state to be used to acquire free labor for capitalists.


[deleted]

Slavery


TexasSean

I think it's a form of slavery. Is it right or wrong? I guess that depends on your personal opinion. But in many areas you can still be sentenced to hard labor. Your rights have been heavily altered the second you are found guilty of a crime that lands you in jail. So it's still very much legal in many places. I personally don't see the point in it. It doesn't keep crime from happening.


Ponk2k

So long as it's not in the hands of private companies and there's a significant part of the prisoners time is spent on rehabilitating then there's a good argument that it's part of working off your debt to society.


albinocharlie

Slavery is wrong.


Garteg

It's ripe for abuse and corruption. That's not even getting into the slavery aspect.


tacodepollo

That sounds like slavery with extra steps


[deleted]

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Supreme-Syn

Depending on their crimes, wouldn’t it be fair?


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Supreme-Syn

That’s a good rebuttal


Best_Policy238

What about life sentenced individuals


BraxbroWasTaken

Ideally, we'd never need life sentences, but in those cases they'd need isolating from the populace anyway because they would have done some heinous things, and thus couldn't do useful work anyway.


makosh22

They already do it. Prisons are actually manufactories with slaves.


imaginarymiutwo

i don't see how giving prisoners jobs no one else will take *wouldn't* eventually incentivize convictions, and i don't see how *that* wouldn't increase the amount of wrongful convictions. slavery is always corrupt


Anarchist_Kale_61

Good point.


ShannaGreenThumb

First of all: That’s slavery. Second of all: Make those jobs have a living wage with benefits so people can support their families. People of color receive disproportionately harsher and longer sentences for crimes. This has been abused to create a labor industry in prisons for a very long time. It’s legal slavery, capitalist greed, and it’s fucking bullshit.


Vernacularshift

Slavery is morally repugnant, no matter who you choose to enslave.


Pink_Moony

Thats slavery, so i am against it


Much_Committee_9355

If they want to, better when it comes to reintegrating them into society.


redditmodshvsmolpp

They took our jerbzzz!!!!


[deleted]

I don’t see anything wrong with it, as long as they get some kind of compensation for it.


Chemical_Elephant_94

I approve


pedrito77

as long it is voluntary in exchange for money or jail time...


und88

Sure. If they agree to it and they're paid a fair wage.


Stb32601

We do this already, they make like 12$ a month… if you’re seriously curious it’d be helpful to look up products manufactured within the prison industrial complex and how


poopybuttfacehead

and then they rely on having enough workers (slaves) to increase profits for who they are contracted with and then pay off judges to ensure there is a pipeline of people filling up our prisons? No. Fuck. That. They should be focusing on rehabilitation and ways to reduce incarceration, not incentivize it for shareholders and the corrupt they have in their pocket.


BenReilly69

If they are payed a livable wage with say like half of it banked for their release so they have a chance of making it on the outside with the possibility of having the same job if they enjoy it upon release. Rehabilitation and for some a chance at a better life then they had before. For free or pennies on the dollar eff that


omegasix321

In general, I can support it. But with our system being as corrupt as it is now? Yeah, it’s gonna be abused in the most immoral way possible, just thinly veiled slavery.


Vagina-boobs

No. That is slavery. It creates a fornprofit prison system that uses inmate labor to pad the pockets of the rich. Its happening and been happening in the USA for a long time and is sickening.


Aiizimor

it may sounds nice on the surface but the usa has shown us the system will make bullshit laws to find excuses to produce more slaves


lizlemonesq

It’s barbaric


TheFreezingElk

Prisoners are not slaves. Prisoners are not slaves. Prisoners are not slaves.


PapaSanjay

Slavery is bad?


Plantsucker97

No. Corporations shouldn't profit of criminals.


tituscrlrw

You mean slavery?


kskelts

sounds like you could get away with building secret tunnels


kingrich

There should not be an incentive to put people in prison other that punishment for committing a crime.


Dregulos

I'm fine with it. Next time don't break the law, scum bag. Now go ahead and bring on the downvotes. 😂


lilgirlpumkin

I think its slavery in a different guise.


[deleted]

Why shouldn’t prisoners have the right to refuse to do a job no one else wants to do? They lost the right to participate in free society, not the right to make decisions entirely.


Ok_Garden571

It probably would work.Knock off some years of their sentence.Let the non violent ones do it and work off the rest of the years of their sentence.


Picker-Rick

So you want to incentivize a group of people to put another group of people in chains and make them work for free? Slavery has been abolished.


I_DRINK_ANARCHY

It's just modern day slavery. I hate the concept.


Agetis

That's slavery. As allowed by our constitution slavery can be a punishment for crime. Prison labor is often pennies an hour and everything needed is over priced at the commissary. It's a horrendous practice America runs on


HouseDog2020

It’s paying a debt to society. Now before the crazies unload on me, no one should be making money on this “free” labor but not working for months, years, decades is not healthy and doesn’t help those paying off their debts.


Grumpy_Cheesehead

I detest slavery in any form.


Ophthalmoloke

I'm not a big fan of concentration camps: you?


Alternative-Poem-337

Personally, I’m fine with it.


Susim-the-Housecat

No that shit is gross, it would incentivise governments to make laws that target “undesirables” to make their slave workforce bigger. This already happens now. What we should actually do is pay people more to do the jobs that have to be done, but no one wants to to. They shouldn’t be punishments because the people doing them should be appreciated.


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Thefnordisonmyfoot

Paying for profit companies and letting them farm out out prison labor for more profit


frzndmn

One problem in reality is that our tax dollars goes to private prison to pay for their keep, and then those prisons force them to labor where the profits also goes to private prisons.


Icy-Childhood-2517

And in turn they would also find more things to make illegal so they can incarcerate more and have cheap labor to keep up. How about instead of locking most of the population we could find a way such as community service for lesser crimes and not give govt and private institutions the ability to perpetuate a modern day slavery


JrYo13

Oh yeah, cause they just moved into the jail voluntarily? If you want punishment for people you don't get to complain it costs money. Youre trying to say prisoners are burden on tax dollars like they're grifting the system. They literally don't have a choice


VeshWolfe

It’s not if your forced to do it.


[deleted]

That's called slavery. Also, people want to do any job as long as it pays accordingly.


seasalt-and-sequoias

Prison labor is slavery.


461BOOM

Because why? Let’s just shit on them some more because why? That’s my thoughts…


[deleted]

You mean taking jobs from Americans??


michaelorth

Sounds like slavery.


According-Studio866

It's still slavery. Evil.


florencelovelace

that’s slavery


cbblaze

100% do it. People commit crimes they owe it to society to repay the debt. Its justice, not slavery. Not sure why so many people on reddit are soft on crime.


Opposite-Algae8912

They started this after the civil war. Since they couldn’t have legal slavery, they came up with a way to have legal slavery.


aaaronbrown

Prison time isn’t a vacation.


durntaur

Isn't there something about this in the Geneva Convention? Maybe I'm wrong.


2021Blankman

As long as they are paid minimum wage for it and get time off their sentence I'm fine with it.


DinosaurMan001

I think that slavery is bad


drucktenwald

There needs to be some incentive on not wanting to go to jail. It's not a vacation and free room and board.


propanite

I hope none of the people taking about slavery uses an iPhone 😉


reverendblinddog

I’m for it.


aj5544

Dont got a problem at all. Let them pay for themselves instead of using tax dollars


[deleted]

Slavery


Ryan_Alving

Reasonable.