[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.