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Comment by NoMoreNicksLeft | Hacker News Reader

I'm not sure how this even needs to be said, but someone convicted of felonies is always subject to having their rights forfeited for the duration of their sentence. And I'm ok with that. You can't even put them in prison, were this not true.

Those who whine about how putting them to work amounts to slavery seem to do so out of pure reflex, and it's just tiresome. You're ok with locking them in a dungeon, but god forbid that they be put to work. You realize that most actually earn wages, and that none of them are doing it for free, right? There's just no point, the assholes usually sabotage products if forced.

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It was a shock to me to learn that refusing to work in prison is grounds for being put into solitary confinement. You act as if they are given a choice but it is made under duress.

> You act as if they are given a choice but it is made under duress.

No, under threat of *torture*.

Solitary confinement is torture.

Yeh, it's probably torture. When the cops twist someone's arms behind their back, that's torture too, if milder and shorter in duration. When they shoot someone with a taser, and repeatedly shock them with high voltage, torture too.

What are authorities to do when they demand compliance, and the criminal says "oh, no thank you, I kindly refuse to submit to your authority"? When the convict says "no, I don't think I will accept this punishment"?

So sure. Threat of torture. I'm feeling ok about it. Glad we cleared that up.

PS You make a good case for suspending executions. Imagine 40 or 50 years of solitary. Could even use robots to deliver meals, so that they can't even pretend that there's another human being on the other side of the vault door once a day or so. Really, what do you think prisons are?

Putting someone alone in a box for 23h/day because they refuse to work for $.30/hr is unconscionable. The comparisons to legitimate uses of force are non sequitors—no one is claiming torture when cops twist someone's arm behind their back.

The average prison wage is less than $1 per hour.

Some pre civil war era slaves were also paid.

Getting paid is not a differentiator in the definition of a slave.

> The average prison wage is less than $1 per hour.

We could make up an infographic about how convicts in most states can't even afford a 3 bedroom, 1 car garage apartment on their prison wages just to show everyone how evil it is.

There are abuses in prison that decent people should be offended by and work to prevent, but the idea that they are offered work for wages and the dollar amount's not up to the standards of the "let's unionize Starbucks" crowd just isn't one of them.

They are not “offered work”. They are forced to do slave labor and happen to be given some change.

> Those who whine about how putting them to work amounts to slavery seems to do so out of pure reflex, and it's just tiresome.

The problem with specifically stating in the Constitution that slavery is abolished EXCEPT as punishment for a crime is that in today's day and age, it incentivizes punishment.

Can you or I say with any certainty that fish suppliers will be able to survive if they don't utilize legalized slave labor to farm their fish? We've just created an incentive for "Slave Fish Co." to lobby their local government to not fund rehabilitation services, or community outreach programs, and reduce investment in social programs. Create a local community that doesn't offer affordable rehab facilities and now the only option is going to prison.

Work as a form of rehabilitation makes sense when utilized correctly. But this is work as a form of punishment and we tied it in with economic factors. As I said, this just incentivizes local governments and lobbyists to ensure a growing supply of dirt-cheap labor.

> Work as a form of rehabilitation makes sense when utilized correctly.

It can't ever work correctly as rehabilitation. In the early 20th century, maybe those reformers had an excuse to believe that criminals just didn't have any honest options. But we know better today. Too many counter-examples of those who do have honest options, but commit crimes anyway. Why? They get a thrill out of it. Criminality becomes its own culture, one in which they can achieve a high status. It's simply a better career path to participate in that culture than to try to become adopted by another that you'd be a "foreigner" in for decades before you could ever find a path in that new one?

And in the meantime, it must be so thrilling. Lots of adrenaline. Lots of cash. Being chased, but feeling like you're too clever to be found or too strong to being taken down.

There's no rehabilitating that, not with work programs or anything else.

> Create a local community that doesn't offer affordable rehab facilities and now the only option is going to prison.

Haha. I know there's alot of shit being posted on reddit and other places like it about the poor guy who got caught with a joint and is sent to prison for 20 years, but do you really believe that? The junkie doesn't want rehab, and if he does (it must happen once in awhile, I suppose), rehab's not the difference between him quitting and falling down further into the spiral.

Most of the people there are guilty of violent crimes, the rest are guilty of selling large quantities of heroin and making things worse for that poor junkie you're so concerned about. The numbers bear this out, if you care to check.

There are a few borderline instances here and there, but prison labor isn't incentivizing any sort of corruption of the sort you're claiming to any degree we should be worried about. At least in this country. Who knows about China.

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