[danvayn]

They can say no. These Prisons incentivize inmates to opt in by claiming that prisoners develop employable marketable skills and that the work leaves a a good mark on their record. It can also pay out cents to a few dollars an hour (or nothing at all)

It’s not quite slave labor but it probably should be compensated better at the minimum.

[embedding-shape]

Never heard about it myself before, and went to Wikipedia of course, and found this:

> Prison labor in the US is mostly optional. Although inmates are paid for their labor in most states, they usually receive less than $1 per hour. As of 2017, Arkansas, Georgia, and Texas did not pay inmates for any work whether inside the prison (such as custodial work and food services) or in state-owned businesses. Additionally, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and South Carolina allowed unpaid labor for at least some jobs. Incarcerated individuals who are required to work typically receive minimal to no job training resulting in situations where their health and safety could potentially be compromised. Prison workers in the US are generally exempt from workers' rights and occupational safety protections, including when seriously injured or killed. Often times, inmates that are often overworked through penal labor do not receive any proper education or opportunities of "rehabilitation" to maximize profits off the cheap labor produced. Many incarcerated workers also struggle to purchase basic necessities as prices of goods continue to soar, meanwhile prison wages continue to stay the same. - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labor_in_the_United_Stat...

It sounds like it isn't optional everywhere, the pay is beyond inhuman, they don't always get any benefits at all, no training, don't safety and are overworked.

Overall, sounds like a nice idea on paper, but combine it with private companies actually running these prisons and probably making profits on having more f̵o̵r̵c̵e̵d̵ labour available to them and you basically re-invented slavery again, just with a nicer name.

[SR2Z]

> It sounds like it isn't optional everywhere, the pay is beyond inhuman, they don't always get any benefits at all, no training, don't safety and are overworked.

Most of these are true, but I would push back on the pay angle. If a person is in jail, they are a ward of the state and have no expenses at all. There is no sense in paying them a "living wage" because they don't have to live off it. In any case, most stereotypical prison jobs would not cover the cost of incarcerating the employee.

A common way this works these days in more progressive states is that prisoners who can hold down a remote job are allowed to keep their income, minus paying a tithe for their incarceration:

https://www.mainepublic.org/2025-08-29/in-maine-prisoners-ar...

> Overall, sounds like a nice idea on paper, but combine it with private companies actually running these prisons and probably making profits on having more f̵o̵r̵c̵e̵d̵ labour available to them and you basically re-invented slavery again, just with a nicer name.

Only about 10% of prisoners are in private prisons. The vast majority of them are in some kind of government prison. The US definitely puts too many people in prison, but that's for cultural reasons and not because of some nefarious plan to get cheap labor.

[ruined]

>If a person is in jail, they are a ward of the state and have no expenses at all. There is no sense in paying them a "living wage" because they don't have to live off it. In any case, most stereotypical prison jobs would not cover the cost of incarcerating the employee.

only the last sentence here is true.

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/amer...

many prisoners receive a bill for their incarceration and will come out of prison with debt, even if they're working while in prison.

it varies prison to prison, but even basic toiletries may not be provided. the most commonly purchased items at commissary are food.

> The US definitely puts too many people in prison, but that's for cultural reasons and not because of some nefarious plan to get cheap labor.

the constitutional amendment abolishing slavery contains a single exception: prisoners.

the largest maximum security prison in the united states is a slave plantation, operated continuously since the 1830s. they still farm cotton.

[reactordev]

They don’t understand that not only tax payer funds go to these systems but the systems turn around and create victims of those in their care.

Paying to stay in jail should be done on an availability of funds, like bonds are (mostly), else it costs the tax payers. The shell companies that operate these prisons shouldn’t be allowed to charge inmates per diems if they are receiving tax payers dollars for them.

People think it’s all murders and rapists when that’s only 5% of the population at most. Most are in there for petty crime, drug charges, 3 strike rules, administrative chains, or mental health issues.

Yet for 27¢/day, will pick cotton for a local textile.

[SR2Z]

> many prisoners receive a bill for their incarceration and will come out of prison with debt, even if they're working while in prison.

This is true. I 100% agree with you that this is awful and should not be allowed.

> the largest maximum security prison in the united states is a slave plantation, operated continuously since the 1830s. they still farm cotton.

Fair, but only 12% of prisoners are even maximum security to begin with, and you don't end up there for slinging a little bit of pot.

On that note, I also think we send far too many people to jail and should rewrite the laws to fix that.

[array_key_first]

Yes, this is something people miss about prison. Many criminals are forced to repeat crime because prison is designed to economically ruin people. It's also designed to emotionally, physically, and mentally ruin people.

Point blank, the system is not meant to prevent or discourage crime, it's meant to enact torture for people we feel deserve it. Whether that helps our society does not matter at all - nobody cares if a rapist leaves prison just to rape again, so long as they are sufficiently punished for it. The punishment is more important than real, tangible outcomes, because ultimately we've built it so the punishment is what makes us feel good and safe.

[btilly]

All true, but on the flip side they get free room and board...

Joking aside, read the 13th amendment https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-13/ and pay close attention to the bit that reads, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted. In the United States, involuntary labor, slavery, and locking someone in a cell are all equally not allowed. And all equally allowed - as punishment for crimes of which you have been convicted.

If you think that this is ripe for abuse, you'd be exactly right. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convict_leasing. We got rid of chattel slavery - and immediately accomplished the same effect with the black codes and convict leasing. As the name suggests, this was overwhelmingly directed at the same black people who had just theoretically been emancipated.

[qingcharles]

It's not free everywhere. Many institutions in the USA charge you for your stay. You can stay in jail for a year and have the case dismissed and still be on the hook for thousands of dollars in rent.

[btilly]

True. If you win your case, the taxpayer no longer pays. Lots of places have those pay to stay laws.

But if your case has not been officially lost, you can't be set to forced labor either.

(Of course our BS system in many places still charges exonerees after the fact despite the fact that it was a wrongful conviction.)

[qingcharles]

Sadly, you can even be set to forced labor even if you're unconvicted, based on SCOTUS case law. A jail can legally force you to perform "housekeeping chores" to maintain the facility.

[HWR_14]

Where? I've never heard of that

[btilly]

It's called pay-to-stay. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pay-to-stay_%28imprisonment%29 for more.

This happened in Oregon to my kind of brother in law. (Married to half sister of my half siblings - what do you call that?)

He's Native American, so the local police thought that they could target him with a BS charge. They lost. The private jail that he'd been kept in, now that they weren't getting paid by the state, sued him for the cost of keeping him. Incidentally the counter sheriff is on the board of directors for the private prison in question.

Can you spell conflict of interest? Of course you can! Can you spell corruption? That too, wow!

Can anyone do a danged thing about it? Of course not! As long as they are only targeting people that nobody likes, like Native Americans, their victims won't get the time of day in our wonderful United States of America.

(I really wish I was making this up.)

[actionfromafar]

And that's Oregon... there are worse places, too.

[20after4]

Smells a little bit like the Kids for Cash¹ corruption scandal from a few years ago. Just last year, President Biden commuted the sentence of one of the corrupt judges who had been convicted for sending kids to a private detention center in exchange for kick-backs from the owner of the facility. For some reason presidents love to pardon despicable evil people, way more often than they ever seem to pardon people who genuinely deserve mercy. Trump is the worst offender of all in this regard, it seems like he's selling pardons to anyone who will pay the price²³.

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal

2. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/L8oj3-vdJ-8

3. https://www.forbes.com/sites/danalexander/2023/05/16/giulian...

[qingcharles]

They certainly can say no in a lot of states, but that is often very much against the best interests of the prisoner because almost all work programs shorten your sentence.

I knew one guy who was doing a 30 day jail sentence for some misdemeanor and was told they would reduce it to 14 days if he worked in the kitchen. He took the job and lost most of his thumb in a very unsafe meat slicer. This put his 17 year career with UPS in jeopardy since the nerve damage made it hard for him to handle things.

[brewtide]

This is very unrelated in most ways, but when I was 9 I managed to take a hatchet and remove about 1/4" off my left thumb (via cutting bailing twine against a tree, and apparently terrible, terrible aim).

I'm far older than 9 now, and the tip of my left thumb still gets very cold in the winter and if I directly bump it into something, it hurts a whole heck of a lot.

Rant is because while that moment sucked pretty hard (I immediately put my thumb in my mouth, eating the bit of thumb apparently..) it didn't take very long for me to realize that any lower and it would have certainly been a life changing event.

Bad aim, but in the best way possible.

I can only imagine the difference. Has to be harsh.