So, how should prisons deliver?
The prisoner-employment initiative was
pioneered in the UK by shoe-repair and key-cutting chain Timpsons, which trains
and employs prisoners in its shops. Other jobs done by prisoners include construction, sewing, farm, welding,
plastering, motor mechanics, printing, manufacture of military equipment, and
training guide dogs. Much of the work for the prison itself which would
otherwise have to be outsourced to private contractors, such as making prison
furniture and uniforms, can be done by inmates.
Why should prisoners work?
Part of the rationale for obliging
prisoners to work is that it helps instil a work ethic in them. It gets them
into the routine of getting up every morning, putting in a day of productivity,
and feeling they have achieved something at the end of the day. This stands
them in good stead when they leave prison, because they are more likely to find
a job (especially if they have learnt new skills as part of their work) and
keep it, and less likely to return to a life of crime.
The system is working well at one prison where all inmates work and also have access to courses such as
motor mechanics and literacy. 57% of them go into employment or further
training or education after their release, which is 70% higher than the
national average.
Working in prison also keeps prisoners occupied.
As a prison official, you do not want bored inmates, because they will be
tempted to fill their time by causing disruption. (For the same reason, prison
officials and sociologists criticised the prohibition on weights in many US
prisons. Weights were banned because muscly prisoners make guards nervous and
because weights can be used as weapons. However, in practice, weight-lifting
gives inmates something to do and keeps them out of trouble.)
So having prisoners work is good for the
prisoners and good for society. But it is also good for employers. This site puts it best:
“For business moguls who have participated
in prison labor schemes, it is like they continuously hit the lottery. The
workers are unable to strike, there is no need to pay unemployment insurance.
There is no need to cover vacation pay or workman's compensation bills. The
workers pull full-time shifts, they never arrive late for work. They also never
call in absent due to family emergencies. Even better than all this is that if
the workers are not happy with their twenty five cents an hour, they can be
locked up in secluded cells.”
But
on the other hand…
But wait! the cry goes up. We are in the
depths of a recession. Well-behaved, law-abiding, highly qualified citizens
desperate to work can’t find employment – and yet prisoners are to be handed
jobs on a silver platter! Employment is a privilege, and being in prison is –
or should be – about having privileges taken away. Especially if the privilege
deprives somebody else of a job – somebody whose taxes are going towards
prisoners’ upkeep.
Prison labour is also a form of
exploitation. In the words of US academics Steve Fraser and Joshua Freeman, “Rarely can you
find workers so pliable, easy to control, stripped of political rights, and
subject to martial discipline at the first sign of recalcitrance.”
THE WAGE ISSUE
Should
working prisoners be paid market wages?
Currently prisoners are paid only a
fraction of the usual going rate, sometimes as little as£0.40 per hour. (The national minimum wage is £6.08 per
hour).
Advantages
of paying prisoners at market rate
One concern about paying these low wages is
that it does little to demonstrate the value of work. How motivated would you
be to work if you were earning 6% of the minimum wage? Paying prisoners
properly helps instill in them an understanding of the satisfaction and
usefulness of earning their own money, and inspires them to look for employment
after being released rather than turning back to crime to survive.
As one vociferous
politician whose name I cannot recall vented so eloquently on the radio, “Many of these people are in prison because
they’ve never worked a day in their lives. And if they work in prison and get
paid miserably, they will see that they were right not to work!”
In addition, proper wages will help a
prisoner support his family while he is in prison and to save up so that does
not become a burden on the taxpayer when he is released and is setting up a new
life.
Insisting on market wages for prisoners also
helps protect other workers and job-seekers, since employers often favour the
cheap labour of prisoners over the market-rate labour of law-abiding citizens. (Some
companies have brought their outsourced services back from India to the UK to
be done by prisoners, and some have even fired their own workers or pressurised them to quit to make way for prisoners.)
But on
the other hand…
As mentioned above, employment itself is a
privilege, and good wages even more so. If you have broken the law, why should
you be rewarded for it by being given a well-paid job?
GMB union leader Paul Kenny’s take on the
matter is: “Ken Clarke has taken leave of his senses. There are 2 million
people on the dole looking for work and the idea of bypassing them and
undermining the national minimum wage is frankly ludicrous and unacceptable.”
One
solution to the wage issue
One way round the problem is to pay prisoners market
wages, but allow them access to only a fraction of the money while they are
serving their sentence. The rest can be set aside for when they are released.
Is
prison life really as good as Ken Clarke would have us believe?
I was once talking to someone who had
worked in a British prison, and he painted a picture of a fairly luxurious
place: TV, gym facilities, a library, very few responsibilities.
“But what’s the punishment then?” I asked.
“The punishment,” he informed me gravely,
“is the complete loss of liberty. You’re trapped there.”
Final
thought
One thing that strikes me is that it is
easy to draw an “Us and Them” line between prisoners and the general
population. “They’re not like us,” we tell ourselves. “They’re a different type
of person.” But they’re not. You don’t have to be a particular type of person
to go to prison. It can happen to anyone, including you.
Here are some of the ways you too could
become a prisoner:
For up to 2 years imprisonment:
Falsely describing or presenting food
Making off without payment
Up to 3 years:
Presentation of an obscene performance of a
play
Up to 5 years:
Abstracting of electricity
Up to 7 years:
False accounting
Insider trading
Communicating false information alleging
the presence of bombs
Placing or dispatching articles to cause a
bomb hoax
Bigamy
Up to 10 years:
Making threats to kill
Up to 14 years:
Fraudulently printing, mutilating or
re-issuing stamps
Life:
Offences which amount to the crime of
piracy under the Piracy Acts 1698 and 1721
And finally – and I can’t believe this actually
happens – impeding a person endeavouring to save himself from shipwreck
Now just tell me you’ve never at least thought about doing one of the acts
above. And if you really haven’t, then I bet you know somebody who has. Just
the other day a friend of mine “made off without payment”. She walked out of
the hairdresser’s salon completely forgetting to pay for her cut and blowdry. (She
phoned the hairdresser later when she realised it. “Why didn’t you say
anything?” she asked. “I didn’t know what to say,” he replied. Quite.) Or “an
obscene performance of a play”. I saw a performance of Shakespeare’s Tempest once where the actress playing
Ariel was topless throughout. And I myself regularly “falsely describe or
present food” (“It’s supposed to be that colour. Eat it.”)
You’re just lucky because you’ve never been
caught for doing these deviant things. But next time you might be. And then you
could become a prisoner too, and that “Us and Them” line will not seem quite so
substantial anymore.
I leave you with the immortal words from the film Blow, the story of George Jung, cocaine smuggler, who is currently serving a 20-year sentence:
SOURCES
http://weeklywire.com/ww/04-24-00/boston_feature_2.html
SOURCES
http://weeklywire.com/ww/04-24-00/boston_feature_2.html
