this post was submitted on 14 Nov 2024
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That was not a rhetorical question. I am asking if that argument is or is not factually correct.
They can't refuse any job short of firefighting. They will be punished for doing so. Reports from former inmates indicate punishments range from solitary to beatings.
Let me rephrase: would the proposition, if it had passed, prohibited prisons from requiring prisoners to perform domestic duties within the prison?
See that's still too vague. Cleaning the bathroom is a domestic duty and yet is something a janitor does in this context. I would say that's probably the dividing line, if it's something you'd pay someone to do then they would be banned from requiring it.
I guess I'll put my personal opinion on the record here. I think that penal labour is generally an exploitative industry, if you want to call it that. And I do think that prisoners who perform work should be paid for that work. At the same time, I'm also sensitive to the fact that it costs a great deal of money to pay for room and board and security for prisoners, and that it's also fair that their labour be used to offset some of the cost of their own imprisonment rather than laying the burden entirely on the public purse.
So while I don't support solitary confinement as a punishment (for anything), I do think that prisoners should have to at a minimum cook and clean for themselves. If they don't want to cook, then nobody else should have to do it; they just won't have dinner that night if they don't cook and serve it themselves. If nobody wants to wash the dishes, then it's not the administration's problem if there aren't any clean plates to use for the next meal. If nobody wants to clean the shower, then it's not the administration's problem if grime starts to build up on it. The State should not force the prisoners to work, but it also shouldn't be the State's responsibility to provide janitors or cooks to look after them.
Which means I agree that "extra" work beyond what's necessary to maintain the basic needs of the prisoners should be paid and optional. "Optional" meaning there's no punishment if you choose not to do it, but if you don't, you won't have money to pay for services like postage stamps, extra phone calls, or the prison commissary. Even if prisoners are only paid half of minimum wage, that's still an improvement, because it recognises that their labour has value and this money can also be used to pay for fines and restitution. A pretty common problem among the newly-released is that they are saddled with an obscene amount of debt because the State makes them pay court costs, room and board, fines, parole monitoring fees, and restitution but only pays them fifty cents an hour for their work, meaning they leave prison thousands of dollars in debt with the threat of parole revocation if they can't pay. That just drives people to resort to crime in order to find the money.
Congratulations you just created a prisoner government that will require select prisoners to do all the work or be physically and sexually assaulted.
We put them there, it's our responsibility to take care of them. There's no getting around that.
Some of these examples amount to de facto collective punishment by introducing a tragedy of the commons.
"The new arrival didn't clean up the ancient infested shower of disease, so she too consents to never getting a shower."
Paying some prisoner a pittance to clean the shower every week would be insignificant compared to the cost of containing them. And it reduces the incentive for a gang to privatize the showers.
Let's not experiment on clever new prison ideas. Let's just copy Finland.
I'm somewhat confident that the social punishment will be enough to prevent it from getting to that point, and there will still be housekeeping work assignments, just not "do it or we throw you in the hole for a week". More likely, refusal to do the housekeeping work will result in loss of the ability to perform paid work. In the worst-case scenario, if someone refuses to do it, administration can find a willing volunteer, pay them, and then charge whoever was supposed to do it for the cost of paying another prisoner to do it.
And there is also the possibility of offering a carrot as well. Well-behaved prisoners are more likely to earn parole or early release; that much is already true and known. But it could be supplemented with some minor incentives of insignificant cost, like saying that if the chores are all done then there will be popcorn and a movie at the end of the week or they'll put an Xbox in the day room for an afternoon, and anyone who decided to skip out can't participate.
At least from what I've heard about former prisoners posting online after their release, most are happy to work anyway, especially if there is a monetary incentive, since after a while the boredom of doing nothing all day will apparently get to you. It's not like they have a gaming PC to use if they're not working.
Regarding the problem of gangs, it seems to be the case that administration is always aware but chooses to tolerate them because it would require more manpower and... administrative integrity than is available to stop.
The Nordic model is definitely the most successful but there doesn't seem to be enough political appetite to get it implemented so it isn't a realistic suggestion.