February 25, 2004
We're Desperate
Posted by nerdling | February 25, 2004 04:51 PM
I don't make a secret of the fact that I disagree with the American prison system. There are many substantiated reasons that prove the prison system only serves to turn out more—and better—criminals, people who were jailed with the aim of punishment without rehabilitation. I really have a problem when prisons are used as a source of cheap labor; it gets even worse, though, when prisoners are employed as a last-ditch effort to reap the benefits of owning a company in the United States and employing workers who will work for sweatshop wages.
"Obviously, it doesn't do anything for the labor market here," said University of Oregon political science professor Gordon Lafer, author of a study on prison labor.
"It's like bringing little islands of the Third World right here to the heartland of America," he said. "You get the same total control of the work force, the same low wages, and it does nothing for the inmates."
Also, convicts don't benefit much from training for jobs that no longer exist in America because they have all gone overseas or into prisons, he said.
The bitch of it is that there isn't a happy medium here between keeping labor in the States and not exploiting workers or prisoners, when all three would be the best possible outcome.
So our choice is "or death"?
