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Prison labor SJR 8212 amendment revisited


This article sways me, unlike the author’s intent, to vote no on SJR8212. The author appears to have a significant vested interest in passing this amendment. And he is a lobbyist to boot. The author should have hired someone else to do his bidding. Notice he doesn’t bother to mention why it is good for “labor” nor who the “labor” is that supports the bill. I think he may mean his company, Pioneer Human Services.

It may sound paranoid, but I can envision an Orwellian future in which the state starts locking people up without just cause because by doing so the immoral mega-corporations can get their cheap labor. People complain about illegals taking away our jobs, this seems to me to be far more threatening since it will be state sponsored.

When I was an employee for a big corporation many years ago, the upper management always was looking for the poor slob who was married with 5 young children with a big mortgage and lots of debt to hire, because they knew that he could not afford to lose his job and that once they got him on the payroll, they, in effect, owned him and could exploit him. The same kind of sick mentality could take hold to exploit the inmates with an additional concern of the job being potentially taken away from a law abiding citizen.

In addition, I can envision people “signing up to go to prison”, not unlike what many do when enlisting in the military, so that they can obtain the job skills that otherwise they will never attain. After all, people intentionally commit “suicide by cop”. Why not commit a crime to get vocational training? I know it is not rational, since prison life sucks (likewise being stationed in Iraq is no cakewalk), but neither is signing up to go to Iraq because you can’t afford to go to college.

And the proponents will argue that any problems arising from this constitutional amendment will be taken care of by proper oversight. I am skeptical of that actually happening given how often we see failures of proper oversight (see Enron, Iraq, Katrina, sub-prime lending meltdown, et al).

This is a troublesome and complicated issue.

Washblog has a couple of articles, pro and con.

Hope others more knowledgeable on the subject will weigh in here and help me get my ballot in the mail!

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This entry was written by bushtool and posted on October 29, 2007 at 5:52 am and filed under Economic justice, Education, Labor, Voting. Bookmark the permalink. Follow any comments here with the RSS feed for this post. Post a comment or leave a trackback: Trackback URL.

4 Comments so far (Add 1 more)

(listed oldest to newest)

  1. If prison labor is going to be such a big issue, how about thinking outside the box?

    We all realize that people can and do make mistakes. So a person makes one of those big mistakes and gets (example) 5 years in prison. If that person does not have a HS diploma, he has to have it before he is released, plus his 5 years locked up. If they have a HS diploma, then they would have to learn a skilled trade, plus the full time. If they have a college diploma, they can help instruct the under educated.

    The second prison would be for the ones who didn’t learn from their first mistake. From sun up to sun down they would be making road pack from big rocks. NO TV, etc. Just work them until they have served their full time.

    The third prison would be a concrete wall and a firing squad. They didn’t learn after two mistakes, society doesn’t need or want them.

    I know the bleeding hearts will find all kinds of excuses about this, but if it isn’t tried, how do you know this wouldn’t work.

    [Reply]
    1. Above comment written by Allen on October 29th, 2007 at 8:39 am (replies, if any, are attributed separately above).

  2. Ah yes, Allen, death penalty for parking violations. Just give it a try!

    As I wrote earlier, I have some big problems with this referendum, and I would usually be supportive on this kind of measure. On one hand, the state feels it necessary to offshore work to other countries to save costs, while on the other it desires to outsource inmate labor. What I can foresee is a situation where there are no jobs left domestically other than prison industry jobs, either as guards or inmates.

    Crime is down, but we’re incarcerating people at a prodigious clip, making us number one in the world in the numbers and percentage of people incarcerated. I could be wrong on this, but the prison industrial complex ranks second only to the military industrial complex in the amount of public resources devoted. Many states are spending more on the prison industrial complex than they do on higher education.

    That’s the truly criminal thing.

    [Reply]
    2. Above comment written by AneurinNo Gravatar on October 29th, 2007 at 5:12 pm (replies, if any, are attributed separately above).

  3. Aneurin, please give me examples of people going to jail for 5 years or more for parking tickets. That was not what I was referring to, but with your comment, I can see where you may need some cranium/rectal surgery.

    The big increase in prison population is because of drugs. Maybe this problem should also be looked at outside the box. Or do you also have a problem with that.

    [Reply]
    3. Above comment written by Alllen on October 29th, 2007 at 7:23 pm (replies, if any, are attributed separately above).

  4. Allen, I guess the Steve Martin reference went over your head, that’s ok.

    Why are so many people going to jail for common drug offenses? Do people really need to be in jail for drugs? Really? Or do they need drug treatment? Now that would be thinking outside the box.

    Look, back in the day, I thought it would be an excellent idea to just round up all the offenders and send them to a fence-less work camp in Malheur County, Southeastern Oregon. If they escape, oh well, no water to drink for a hundred miles.

    Back in the real world, we’ve got to do something about a burgeoning prison industrial complex. Cuz locking people up forever for simple drug offenses isn’t going to work.

    [Reply]
    4. Above comment written by AneurinNo Gravatar on October 29th, 2007 at 9:30 pm (replies, if any, are attributed separately above).
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