Why do American prisoners at great expense to the taxpayers sit around all day, plot gang activities, get depressed and stay bored?
Federal and state governments have laws that prohibit or limit prisoners and prison industries from working in private industries, making goods for sale on the open market, transporting goods across state lines, selling to anyone other than the governments, etc. In other words, the governments have a triple monopoly over prison industries. Only a small fraction of our 2.3 million American prisoners work a full day at anything productive. At best, they have government jobs making things for government that the governments do not have to buy from them. There is a program for them to obtain work in private industries, but the requirements are burdensome and have not allowed many offenders to work compared to the number who sit idle. And in a country where the number of workers is shrinking compared to those retiring, we allow a couple of million largely young, able-bodied workers to sit around all day long ..... as if our economy and budgets did not need the help!
These restrictions on prison labor and industries were placed to prevent prisoners from competing with free labor and businesses outside prison, and that was a legitimate reason for the laws initially. But now that most consumer goods are made overseas, we could put prisoners to work making goods now made exclusively overseas -- and all Americans would win!!
Federal and state governments have laws that prohibit or limit prisoners and prison industries from working in private industries, making goods for sale on the open market, transporting goods across state lines, selling to anyone other than the governments, etc. In other words, the governments have a triple monopoly over prison industries. Only a small fraction of our 2.3 million American prisoners work a full day at anything productive. At best, they have government jobs making things for government that the governments do not have to buy from them. There is a program for them to obtain work in private industries, but the requirements are burdensome and have not allowed many offenders to work compared to the number who sit idle. And in a country where the number of workers is shrinking compared to those retiring, we allow a couple of million largely young, able-bodied workers to sit around all day long ..... as if our economy and budgets did not need the help!
These restrictions on prison labor and industries were placed to prevent prisoners from competing with free labor and businesses outside prison, and that was a legitimate reason for the laws initially. But now that most consumer goods are made overseas, we could put prisoners to work making goods now made exclusively overseas -- and all Americans would win!!