Also this has nothing to do with the point I was trying to make, which wasn't about the US specifically.
To restate it, just to be very clear: 1. find someone that was legitimately sentenced to a fair duration of prison 2. offering them the ability to labor to reduce their sentence is not forced labor
Or, as we actually do, just assume they were legitimately sentenced to what we just assume is a fair duration.
Letting somebody innocent out "early", even if we extracted undue labor from them, could be a net good. But the incentives are all in the wrong direction, and we see the effects writ large all around us. Making fine points about a theoretical situation of justice and legitimacy is a harmful distraction in present circumstances, where we demonstrably don't have those.
Also this has nothing to do with the point I was trying to make, which wasn't about the US specifically.
To restate it, just to be very clear: 1. find someone that was legitimately sentenced to a fair duration of prison 2. offering them the ability to labor to reduce their sentence is not forced labor