How would you feel if the government found a way to reduce the 700 billion plus loan to failing businesses by putting our prison population to work? It's been discussed before and much of the resistance is justifiable. It stems from the fears that prison employment would infringe on mainstream employment by taking away jobs. But what if the jobs offered to prisoners were the jobs that big businesses have already shipped over seas?
- According to the Senate Subcommittee’s report in late 2005 some of the issues within the prison system have to do with extreme idleness, “prisons are largely inactive and unproductive.” The report cites.
- The "prison culture" is also mentioned as a problem in that there becomes an “us-versus them mentality…” between the prisoners and the staff, but when released with the community at large.
- Prisoners often experiencing not only solitary confinement but estrangement from family and society begin to see themselves as outside of mainstream society.
In an article written by Jenifer Warren for the Los Angeles Times (June 2006), it was reported then that it costs 60 billion a year to house the inmate population, and with a 60% rate of recidivism the cost for you the taxpayer remains constant. Even the Senate subcommittee mention that “crowding causes a degree of disorder…and tension often erupts into violence.”
If government would consider reversing the trend of outsourcing employment to other countries by reallocating those jobs to the American prison population it could allow prisoners to pay for their own room and board and alleviate this burden from your purse to the population itself. In addition, it is a right and moral obligation of the prisoners to be put in a position to supply monetary retribution to families impacted by their crimes. It is also vital that the prison population be able to offer monetary support to their children/families.
The Case For American Outsourcing, an article found in Rediff.com (March 2004) written by Kala Seetharam Sridhar, discusses some of the reasons American companies outsource. A “labor-abundant country would have a low relative price of labor…” when compared to what the average American would work for. So American businesses are on the search for the labor-abundant resources they’re unable to find here in the states.
But labor abundant countries benefit because they also have high labor skills in their mix, because of this they can offer their middle class opportunities that America can't. For instance, in India where labor is abundant, they “can recruit household help for routine work…” which allows two income household families to “concentrate on their area of expertise.” How would that translate in American? The money that follows the outsourcing of American corporations would now remain here if the prison population became the new 'labor-abundant' class. It would also alleviate the inactive, unproductive life of the incarcerated.
Positive Ramifications
- If an aspect of criminality is correlated with the prison culture of "us-versus them" working could lessen the perception of feeling marginalized.
- If an aspect of criminality is further hastened or coarsened by the fruitlessness of imprisonment, working would build self-esteem and the feelings of being responsible for ones family and country.
- If crime is sought as an alternative to legal employment, having to work while in prison disqualifies this option.
Negative Ramifications
- It would be necessary for government to regulate companies offering this employment to curtail greed.
- Government would need to identify what jobs are ordinarily outsourced and create a mandate that only these jobs and not mainstream employment were qualified for the prison population.
- It might be hard if not impossible given the atmosphere of mistrust to convince the taxpayers that companies wouldn’t be allowed to transfer the jobs that the tax-payers are presently doing to the prison population at reduced wages.
If this option were ever to be considered, perhaps the most difficult aspect of it would be convincing the taxpayers that this is not simply another golden parachute for big business.
Donya Ture - Donya Ture'-Washington has worked in the field of social services providing counseling to families, foster and biological, for the past 10 ...
