[hippich]

One thing that stopped me from seeking the vanity plate - I learned that at least in Texas all plates are made by minimally paid prisoners. So any desire to finance that system beyond what's absolute possible minimum (i.e. regular plates) evaporated.

[rsstack]

In New York it's the same, they make the license plates and also school furniture, and maybe other things too. I was scared for a moment when I was told by USPS Informed Delivery that I have incoming mail from Auburn Correctional Facility - but it was a license plate.

[alexfoo]

> One thing that stopped me from seeking the vanity plate

I'm sure it differs between countries but in the UK vanity plates have become reasonably contentious.

As a gross generalisation they're fine if the car is worth hundreds of thousands or the plate itself is worth hundreds of thousands.

The UK plate "F1" last sold for just under £1m (about US$1.3m) over 10 years ago and it's rumoured that there are offers for ten times that from someone who wants to buy it now.

It comes down to a classic British issue of "class", which is inherently difficult to explain.

If you have the money to have, say, a Ferrari 250 GTO then you can do what the hell you like with it, including getting a vanity plate for it. You are rich enough that you don't care what anyone else thinks about you. Anyone seeing you and that car will know you are rich.

If you have the money to spend close to £1m on a plate like "X1" and decide to put it on beat up 15 year old 1.2 litre Ford Focus then, again, it shows you have stupid amounts of money and some delicious irony in putting it on an old beater of a car.

But if don't have a supercar and you get a relatively cheap vanity plate like "RMZ 1327" and stick it on a Range Rover Evoque that's only a couple of years old then it just shows that you're trying too hard and just aspire to be seen as rich. You don't have enough money for a really nice car, or a really exclusive vanity plate.

I guess the other way of looking at it is that people who don't have the money to get a vanity plate aspire to being able to do so as it would mean they have more money than they have now. Once they get to having that amount of money most realise that the money is best spent elsewhere (or not spent at all). Once they have so much money that having a vanity plate is inconsequential to their finances they may as well do it. So it's natural that some people want to pretend they've reached the "rich" state by buying a vanity plate preemptively - the problem is that this is so easy to spot it just looks gauche.

All of this obviously doesn't apply to countries where vanity plates aren't traded for stupid amounts like famous pieces of art.

[mtrovo]

Loved your description of the class system. There's a general theme of old money wealthy people not caring about vanity purchases because they don't know how much stuff costs nor if that is a too much money or not.

It's interesting to see how luxury brands have different segments of clothes that range from no logos at all to a huge alligator the size of your chest, depending on whether you need to announce to the world that you made it or if you just want to have access to good quality clothes.

[alexfoo]

Yes, the classic description for a member of the British Upper Class is someone who looks down on people who have to buy their own furniture.

(One classification of "upper class" is someone who has never had to buy their own furniture because they inherit it and pretty much everything else they need.)

[OptionOfT]

In CA and AZ vanity plates are first come, first served. You cannot sell them either. You either keep them on a car, or you can keep on paying to keep it out of circulation forever. But once you give it up it goes back to the pool, and someone can get it.

Also, my vanity plate is $0 more than a normal plate. Why wouldn't I?

[0xffff2]

I guess you're in AZ? In CA, the absurd yearly cost is enough to keep me from bothering with anything more than the basic olates.

[OptionOfT]

https://www.dmv.ca.gov/portal/driver-education-and-safety/ed...

No price difference for the yellow on black plate when you want personalized.

[0xffff2]

Yeah, but the plate itself was $100/year last time I looked, which is outrageous. (It looks like it's $50/year now. I swear that's lower than it used to be)

[hn_acc1]

This. When I moved from Ontario, Canada (where they charge a yearly fee for them), to CA, I was all excited to get a vanity plate - until I saw they also charge a yearly fee..

In the most ironic twist of all - Ontario did away with license plate renewals a few years ago, and now, I would actually consider a vanity plate..

I've always wondered if a regular plate was better for avoiding speeding tickets - a vanity plate is much easier to validate, IMHO.

[fy20]

I had a friend who used to work as a QA for an ANPR parking system. He said that they had to investigate an issue where the car with 11111 kept appearing in the system as unpaid, but at different places across the network at the same time.

The issue turned out to be drain covers in the field of the view of the cameras, which the system was detecting belonged to car 11111.

[TiredOfLife]

> It comes down to a classic British issue of "class", which is inherently difficult to explain.

The Frost Report sketch explains it quite well:

https://youtu.be/9XmB59Ax4cE

[embedding-shape]

> I learned that at least in Texas all plates are made by minimally paid prisoners

Lol, wasn't slavery outlawed in the US, or were some states still allowed to keep it? That's absolutely bananas if true.

[Aurornis]

To be clear, the prisoners aren’t literally forced to do this work. It’s a job they can choose to apply for and do while in prison. (EDIT: In my state, it might be different in other states)

The contention is about how much they’re paid per hour.

[rimunroe]

>To be clear, the prisoners aren’t literally forced to do this work. It’s a job they can choose to apply for and do while in prison.

Sorry, do you have a source for that? The requirement to work is a major point of contention, and a very quick check with this[1] directly contradicts your claim in the federal system: "Sentenced inmates are required to work if they are medically able. Institution work assignments include employment in areas like food service or the warehouse, or work as an inmate orderly, plumber, painter, or groundskeeper. Inmates earn 12¢ to 40¢ per hour for these work assignments."

[1] https://www.bop.gov/inmates/custody_and_care/work_programs.j...

[Aurornis]

Those programs you’re referring to in your quote are work within the prison itself:

> Institution work assignments include employment in areas like food service or the warehouse, or work as an inmate orderly, plumber, painter, or groundskeeper.

Meaning some prisoners work in the kitchen preparing food for other inmates, others are on clean up duty, and so on. You could argue that nobody in prison should have to participate in anything inside their community and that’s a valid debate to be had.

In my state, the jobs that provide things outside of prison are applied for.

[rimunroe]

Apologies for the misinterpretation. I thought you were speaking of all prison jobs, though I don't think it makes much of a difference. From an ACLU report[1] on prison labor in the US which covers both labor for prison upkeep and labor for producing goods to be sold or providing services for companies or governments:

> They work as cooks, dishwashers, janitors, groundskeepers, barbers, painters, or plumbers; in laundries, kitchens, factories, and hospitals. They provide vital public services such as repairing roads, fighting wildfires, or clearing debris after hurricanes. They washed hospital laundry and worked in mortuary services at the height of the pandemic. They manufacture products like office furniture, mattresses, license plates, dentures, glasses, traffic signs, athletic equipment, and uniforms. They cultivate and harvest crops, work as welders and carpenters, and work in meat and poultry processing plants.

> From the moment they enter the prison gates, they lose the right to refuse to work. [...] More than 76 percent of incarcerated workers report that they are required to work or face additional punishment such as solitary confinement, denial of opportunities to reduce their sentence, and loss of family visitation, or the inability to pay for basic life necessities like bath soap. They have no right to choose what type of work they do and are subject to arbitrary, discriminatory, and punitive decisions by the prison administrators who select their work assignments.

[1] https://www.aclu.org/wp-content/uploads/publications/2022-06... (relevant quotes are found on page 5)

[embedding-shape]

> To be clear, the prisoners aren’t literally forced to do this work.

Not 100% true it seems, but happy for someone else to correct me.

> Prison labor in the US is mostly optional - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labor_in_the_United_Stat...

[qingcharles]

It's technically optional in most institutions, but not practically optional. For instance, a lot of labor can reduce your sentence, can give you better housing and can enable you to afford things on commissary you might need (e.g. phone time, hygiene products etc).

[kurtis_reed]

Ok so optional then

[porridgeraisin]

Sounds like optional to me. With benefits for exercising the option.

[SirSavary]

> The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteenth_Amendment_to_the_Un...

[paulddraper]

No, Thirteenth Amendment permits it as punishment for a crime.

This a good reminder to all Americans to read the Constitution. The amount of bizarre understandings (not necessarily this one) that I see is very high.

[grimgrin]

Since you didn't know about for-profit prisons, here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Private_prison

[embedding-shape]

I'm very well aware of private prisons, but I didn't know they also exploited essentially f̵o̵r̵c̵e̵d̵free labour, that one was new to me. Apparently in the constitution and everything. Remind me again why some people believe America to be "the land of the free"?

[opo]

Not sure why you are bringing up private prisons. Private prisons are a tiny percentage of federal prisons and prison labor is used throughout the USA.

[dogleash]

Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

[rimunroe]

For anyone unaware, that is nearly[1] the entirety of the text of the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution from 1865. This exception is rather (in)famous. I remember being quizzed on it in an elementary or middle school history or social studies class.

[1] the only excluded bit is the followup "Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation." Without this, the power to enforce the 13th Amendment would be left up to the states due to the 10th Amendment ("The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people."), which would have slightly useless given the whole war that had just been fought over some states wanting to keep slavery.

[htx80nerd]

they shouldnt be paid at all. they're in prison for a reason. they have a debt to society. a great many of those people didnt do 'one bad thing' then got caught. it was just the last bad thing they were caught for. any many of them did 'the bad thing', then continued doing other bad things up until the point they were put in prison.

[macintux]

> they're in prison for a reason.

Often that reason is "too poor to afford proper representation" or "looked vaguely like the actual criminal" or "took a plea bargain because the justice system was threatening them with an immorally-long wait for a trial and a likely worse outcome".

[ahmeneeroe-v2]

Often that reason is "committed a horrific violent crime"

[Ylpertnodi]

Weed, though. In some states, now legal.

[ahmeneeroe-v2]

Non-violent marijuana users haven't ever materialized as a large cohort of the prison population. Sorry, I too used to believe that prisons were overflowing with them

[azemetre]

I mean if this was the 90s, yes it was true but you are also correct that it's very rare for anyone to be in prison for just marijuana alone in the US. Even in states where it's "illegal."

[kelnos]

Not really? I mean, when you compare the number of people who have committed a "horrific violent" crime to the total number of people caught up in the US prison system, I expect it's not "often".

[ahmeneeroe-v2]

The numbers are fuzzy but they indicate that at least a simple majority of (and possibly up to an extreme majority) of prisoners have committed violent crimes.

[everforward]

That really depends on what you classify as “violent”. There are a lot of crimes labeled “violent” that don’t include direct physical harm to another person. Eg burglary is labeled as “violent” many places when the actual act was “smashed a window, grabbed a TV and ran away”. Drug manufacturing is also typically considered “violent” even without any kind of assault/murder/turf war/etc.

The numbers I saw said 47% of inmates had a violent crime under federal or state classifications.

[lanyard-textile]

Often it is.

Often it is not.

Often, they too are a victim of our judicial system, and we can't just ignore them due to the peers we locked them in with.

[MetaWhirledPeas]

That doesn't justify ignoring our established punishments. Good luck with a system that sets everyone free just in case.

[saghm]

Being paid for labor while imprisoned is not anywhere close to being set free.

[subscribed]

They're literally guilty and in the prison for the crime of being unable to afford a lawyer.

That's the fact. You can't argue jail time is automatically fair only because it has been added in the sentencing.

Its legal, and that's it. Civil forfeiture is also legal. Slavery was legal (and is still legal in us prisons).

Doesn't make it justified.

[macintux]

Where in the world did I imply that?

[MetaWhirledPeas]

> Where in the world did I imply that?

You didn't, but I'm taking your stance to its logical conclusion.

GP: > they shouldnt be paid at all. they're in prison for a reason. they have a debt to society.

Your response: > Often that reason is "too poor to afford proper representation" or "looked vaguely like the actual criminal" or "took a plea bargain because the justice system was threatening them with an immorally-long wait for a trial and a likely worse outcome".

Be that as it may, this is our system. Through a series of laws we have defined due process for our people, and people who end up in prison are a result of this due process. Like it or not this is the best we were able to do.

If we are going to say prisoners should be given more privileges because some prisoners do not deserve to be in there, then why are we holding them in a prison to begin with? Being confined to prison is a thousand times more punitive than not receiving pay for making a license plate.

A better reason for arguing that prisoners should be paid for their work is because it is more humane. That's a better argument than some people are in prison unjustly.

I'm actually in favor of prison reforms. Prisons' number one goal should be to reduce recidivism. I see that as the entire point of the prison system: reducing crime. If a person leaves prison and re-offends, we have failed to do our job.

[pavel_lishin]

I don't agree with your "slave labor is ok if the slave committed a crime" position, and find it morally indefensible.

[antonymoose]

Stepping aside the fact that I think most everyone here is playing fast-and-loose with the “slave” terminology here… Why do you feel prisoners doing low wage labor to be wrong?

Practically everyone in human history since the dawn of time has had to go out and produce something of value. Why, all of a sudden, should a murderer or rapist get to sit on their ass and consume what we all produce? I find nothing questionable about a humble job for them at all.

[Wilder7977]

Working should be a free choice (we can discuss about how much freedom exists for many people), and should always be paid. There is nothing wrong if a prisoner chooses to enagage in (fairly paid) labor. But if they are not free to do so, then they are slaves, not workers.

Prisoners already lack freedom in many aspects. "Sitting on their asses" like if they were sipping cocktails on a beach is a bit a misrepresentation don't you think? I wouldn't exchange the possibility to move and do what I want for possibly any amount of money, nor for being able to "sit on my ass" in that sense. Would you?

Besides the moral arguments - which I will say, they are so obvious that it feels incredible even having to discuss why enslaving prisoners is wrong - you can make economic arguments. For example, that having cheap or borderline unpaid labor compresses the salary in that market, or that this system creates a dysfunctional incentive to increase prison population for private profits.

Maybe that's why the US is one of the countries with the highest incarcerated population in the world. The highest among western and larger countries.

I understand though there is a cultural barrier. I am from Europe and in most countries here prison has a rehabilitation purpose, which is what most benefits society, and prisons are not private entities.

[nozzlegear]

You're instantly jumping to the worst of the worst types of prisoners: murderers and rapists. Prisons also include people who commit non-violent crimes like drug possession, burglary, cybercrime, etc. Why should those people be forced to work the same "humble jobs" in prison?

I do find that questionable.

[7bit]

I don't think you know what humble job means, and meant to say humiliating pay.

[pavel_lishin]

Two answers:

1. Why should they be restricted to ludicrously low wages? If they're producing something of value, they should be compensated. Not only is it morally wrong to, you know, enslave people, on a more practical level it would be very helpful for people who are leaving prison after serving their sentence to actually have some money saved up, so they have better opportunities, to avoid recidivism.

2. The reason they can sit on their ass and consume what they produce is that they effectively become wards of the state. They're still human beings, and if we have decided to incarcerate them, we become responsible for them, and they still have rights as human beings.

A humble job is fine; I'm not saying they should be sitting in an aeron chair bullshitting on Slack for 8 hours a day. But slavery for pennies on the hour is wrong.

[aacid]

Punishment is only one reason of inprisonment, another is correction. Majority of prisoners do not serve lifetime sentence, at some point they wikl return to society and ideally you don't want them to get right back to what they have been doing before because they have no other options or they don't know nothing better.

[7bit]

Ah yes. American Prisons prioritizing punishment over resocialising is the reason why criminals so often continue to hurt society after they have been released.

Then we have people who demand to double down on the punishment and wonder why these people never stop breaking the law.

Americans are a marvelous bunch. Thanks Dog I live in a first world country.

[jollyllama]

In many cases, their earnings are confiscated as part of restitution.

[BurningFrog]

Imprisoning people for years seems like a much worse thing to do to people than underpaying them for work they do while locked up.

Is it that the latter can be called "slavery" that makes people upset?

[retrodaredevil]

There are a lot of incentives to lock people up. Cheap labor is one of them. We should support incentives such as "keeping society safe", but incentives such as "profits and cheap labor" are incentives that may actually incentivize locking up innocent people.

So it's not about which one is worse, it's about not supporting something that could lead to corruption or an unfair system.

[paulddraper]

“The morally correct thing is to pay them even less.”