Prison Labor

I’m sure there are more provocative titles than this one: “Louisiana Votes to Keep Slavery.” The trouble is, I can’t think of any, even after cogitating on this matter for quite a while!

What’s going on? Did Louisianans really vote to bring back slavery? Of course not. Don’t be silly. Rather, the issue was prison labor. Should inmates be forced to work while incarcerated?

Well, the rest of us, pretty much all of us work. (Ok, ok, children and the very elderly don’t). Why shouldn’t convicted criminals join the remainder of the human race in this regard? What is the alternative if they do not engage in labor? Working out, pardon the expression, in the gym? Watching television? Hanging out with one another and plotting future crimes? If prisons were put on a market place basis, they most certainly would work, and the proceeds of their labor would go to at least partially compensate their victims.

No, no, no. There are two good reasons why convicts should engage in labor, whether they want to do so or not. First, deontology. They violated rights, or they wouldn’t be in jail in the first place (apart from those wrongfully found guilty). Ideally, they should work so that the amount they produce, over and above the costs of incarcerating them, should be sent to their victims. The latter can never be made “whole” again, but, at least, if there were monies forthcoming to them from their abusers, that would be a vast improvement vis-à-vis the present system. Right now, these victims suffer twofold. Once, from having the crime perpetrated upon them. Second, from being forced—via taxes—to keep these criminals in jails with comfortable air-conditioning, gyms, basketball courts, televisions, etc.

Second, pragmatism. One of the functions of imprisonment should be to reduce recidivism. If the inmates have a skill that will enable them to earn a living when on the outside, they will be less likely to commit crimes, and end up back in the hoosegow. Well, how to do obtain such skills? By sitting on your backside all the live long day? You do not. You learn via on-the-job training. And, how can you avail yourself of those benefits while still being locked up? If you said “prison labor,” go to the head of the class.

At this level, except for a very few white-collar criminals, we are not talking about being a doctor, or a lawyer, or an accountant, or a computer expert, or a professor of physics. We are discussing jobs that require far less training. What is needed at this lower level of the job pyramid is the ability to show up for work on time, and not leave until the shift is over; the ability to follow all reasonable orders from the foreman; and the ability to refrain from getting into hassles with customers—this doesn’t mean that that the customer is always right, they can be abusive at times. But it does mean taking the problem to the foreman and not “getting into it” with the customer.

All of these things can be learned while still in prison. Those opposed to prison labor are consigning inmates to lives of boredom. According to folk wisdom, “idleness is the devil’s workshop.” If they do not lead working lives while incarcerated, well, habits are habitual. The only way to finance joblessness on the outside is with more criminal behavior. Neither they, nor the rest of us, need any more of that, thank you very much.

Yet, opponents of prison labor “virtue signal” all over the place. They pose as the friends of inmates. They besmirch those of us who advocate allowing them to work as favoring “slavery” of all things. No, no, no, the very opposite is true. Not compelling prisoners to work actually enslaves them: to a continued life of crime.

Traditionally, it was labor unions who most opposed prison labor. They claimed such arrangements were taking jobs away from honest men. But there is no limit to how much work needs to be done. There is no fixed pie. Allowing inmates to work deprives no honest man of a job.

Originally published: https://www.econlib.org/prison-labor/