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by chroma 953 days ago
That’s true of everything in an economy. It’s also true that Norway’s prisons rely on, and provide revenue to, companies specifically designed to profit from the prison population. Is a prison suddenly better if a government worker builds the bars rather than a contractor?
1 comments
k1ns 953 days ago
I agree with your one example and disagree with the thousands of others designed to profit off of incarcerated individuals instead of rehabilitate them.
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chroma 953 days ago
Ok. If there are thousands, can you give three examples of companies that are designed to profit off of incarcerated individuals rather than rehabilitate them?
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k1ns 953 days ago
I'm not defending this. It's not an argument, it's a fact. If you're not afraid of the idea, look it up. Part of the problem here is never bucking back against what we've been taught and doing our own exploration.
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chroma 953 days ago
I'm asking for facts. Surely if there are thousands of examples, three exploitative companies shouldn’t be too difficult to find.
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oooyay 953 days ago
I think this describes the issue k1ns is referring to: https://corpaccountabilitylab.org/calblog/2020/8/5/private-c...

> The next year, 111 inmates continued to produce “decorated party balloons” for MINNCOR, according to NCIA’s database. Large contracts such as this, coupled with correctional industries wages of between $0.50 and $2.00 per hour, allowed MINNCOR to make a profit of over $13 million in 2019.

Also relevant: https://minncorprod.blob.core.windows.net/files/MINNCOR%20In...

I'm actually having trouble squaring the claim from corpaccountabilitylab.org of an average of $.50 - $2/hr and what MINNCOR claims which is an average of $14.20/hr. The leading value of MINNCOR industries is to have the industrial programs pay for the prison system, thereby not passing new taxes onto residents. The only way that I can think to measure whether that system is healthy or not is to determine if it can both scale down and scale up. If it can't scale down, then they will indeed be incentivized to incarcerate new people.

Also of note, MINNCOR continues to employ people on release. From the report: 172 released + 753 incarcerated = 925 total active participants. The low of self-reported wages is $10/hr, the high is $22.38.

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