Time to change the 13th amendment, re: prison labor? (minimum wage, legal, drugs)
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An interesting article up on CNN's website debating whether we should remove the "exclusion clause" in the 13th amendment which prohibits slavery and indentured servitude in the United States "except as a punishment for a crime". While many will argue convicts should not enjoy the same Constitutional rights as other citizens, others feel legalized slavery in the U.S. should be ended for all.
Prisoners in the U.S. generally receive a pittance (from 25 cents to $3/hour, usually on the lower end), even when creating products for private companies who resell them for profit. With one of the highest incarceration rates in the world, we're effectively creating an entire underclass of indentured servants in our country who are being exploited by corporations and are not allowed to earn a wage (even if only minimum) which could then be recycled back into the American economy. Worse still, I believe this creates a negative view towards work for those who are incarcerated, who may otherwise have incentive to work and earn a living wage once they are released back into the free world.
I oppose that change both on its merits and on the grounds that any reopening of the Constitution is a bad idea.
A. ON THE MERITS
When people commit crimes they forfeit many of their rights. I think it would be a grave mistake to make a change a a constitutional level that would place prisoners on an equal footing with law-abiding citizens. For one thing prisons cost a lot to run and prison labor offsets some of that cost. For another public works cost a bloody fortune and using prison labor would be a natural.
Also work can re-socialize and rehabilitate prisoners better than in-prison gangs, sex and drugs. Why take away what should be a more-utilized tool. Prisoners should be molded into members of society.
B. REOPENING CONSTITUTION BAD IDEA
There are many parts of the Constitution and its amendments that many politicians, in particular, are unhappy with, including especially free speech. The last such reopening occurred in 1787, to fix the Articles of Confederation. Look what happened. I'm not saying that the results are bad but any tampering can create problems.
Prison labor is, and always was, a convenient way to capitalize on a the fact of there being a population without political voice whose labor could be had for a pittance. From the famous Angola farms in Louisiana to the modern day prison machining/fabrication centers, prisons have been utilized as a quasi legitimate source of damn near free labor, and thus, a major hotbed of political/corporate corruption.
There has been a ton of speculation as to just what prisoners should/could do without becoming a competing labor force which works against the interests of who are free and law abiding. Education has been a sore subject when it arrives in the form of rehab for prisoners, the lamenting of a "free" education for criminals has stopped many a good program from continuing.
Punishment has been the most favorable treatment regimen in most of our prisons, so, "doing time" becomes it's own punishment, The trouble with that lies in the fact that these people eventually get out, and they are in no shape to be in a productive role in society and usually and up in prison again or needing a ton of aid in order to live on the outside.
Highly regulated forms of prison labor should be a better solution, and on that note, non profits should be the sole recipients of any labor garnered under the exclusionary aspect of our laws with respect to convict labor. In the pursuit of more humane treatment of prisoners we apparently went a bit overboard and created a dangerous situation to fester, meaningful work is one of the missing pieces in the development of many a criminal, and for that reason, work should be a requirement of all those in the general prison population.
The issue of fairness isn't so much about the rights of prisoners but whether it is fair to law abiding citizens that prison labor can effectively undercut them in the labor market and take those jobs away from them.
The unfortunate fact is that as our society continues to mature via the process of de-industrialization, it's going to get even harder to find ways to fill the really-unwanted jobs, and as the entire word advances, to find people willing to emigrate here to take them. So I expect some measure of "undesirable labor" as "punishment" to evolve -- the only question is how the unpleasant, but necessary coercive mechanisms will be developed.
One hundred years ago, in the Northern and Midwestern states, an able-bodied person who had no apparent means of support was referred to the local Poor District, which could always find some menial job, more often than not in basic agriculture, to produce something of value and justify payment (not entirely in cash) in return. Agriculture has mechanized to the point where this process is no longer suitable, but institutions such as hospitals and nursing-care facilities have a large demand for simple labor.
Lets not waste our time and breath over the fantasy that state-run reformatories can produce products and services that the public will buy in a competitive marketplace, however. The high cost of the means of coercion would simply price them out of the market.
Actually, the public sector regularly beats the pants off the private sector in terms of quality, efficiency, and timeliness of its outputs. In some part of course, this may be because the public sector tends to focus on areas that the private sector simply stinks at.
If one were to pay the prisoners a decent wage, and then take off all their 'living expenses' from their cheques (based on the real cost to keep them), I suspect many would be in the hole every month as opposed to receiving 'something' at the end of their 'stay'.
The problem is double dipping- the private prison industry makes BILLIONS off of the government in housing and feeding the incarcerated population, then makes even MORE by forced labour of the incarcerated population.
Solution: 1) Close all private prison corporations and make those facilities property of the county, state, or federal governments. 2) Work is optional, and paid at federal minimum wages into an account for the prisoner to receive at parole, or to be paid as child-support for their dependents.
This will have two effects, 1) by making prison more about rehabilitation than punishment, the incarcerated can learn how to contribute to society, rather than being a burden, and 2) by earning and having some monetary safety net when paroled, they are less likely to return to crime.
Lets not waste our time and breath over the fantasy that state-run reformatories can produce products and services that the public will buy in a competitive marketplace, however. The high cost of the means of coercion would simply price them out of the market.
Ever hear of highways and roads built by chain gangs?
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