In Maine, remote jobs give prisoners a lifeline | Hacker News Reader

In Maine, remote jobs give prisoners a lifeline

bostonglobe.com

81 pointsdvektor97 comments

I really hope this doesn't devolve into just demonizing everyone who is incarcerated, and acting like making bad choices as a teenager means you deserve to be broke and unsuccessful for the rest of your life.

I would hope that society would rather me work and pay taxes, offsetting the cost of keeping me here, and giving me hope, responsibilities, discipline and a reason to continue making good life decisions when I am released.

95+% of those incarcerated are getting released one day.. People who have nothing to lose, no sense of self worth, or any feelings of identity with the rest of society are likely not people you want moving in next door to you.

I might be in prison but I lead a team of developers and contribute to open source regularly. I found my passion and I am now a contributing, tax paying member of society and no longer identify with the prison subculture at all.

It's difficult to see how this outcome could be viewed in any way as negative. I know that I made poor decisions, and I am not proud of them, or who I was at the time at all. I wanted to change my life and Maine gave me an opportunity to do that through hard work and I am extremely grateful for it.

I think most of the criticism comes from those worried it will lead to worse conditions. As long as the primary goal is education and reintegration, then it's great. If it becomes a program of squeezing unwilling prisoners to undercut competition then I have big problems with it. I fear the natural course will be cutting prison funding and putting pressure on these programs to bring in money to fund prison necessities.

Indeed. If I have to ask myself questions like "was this product made with forced labor?", "what about coerced?", and "where is the line drawn?" then the right answer is to just walk away.

I see what you're saying for sure. but at the end of the day, allowing inmates to have jobs both takes pressure off of the cost/budget for their incarceration, and simultaneously is drastically lowering the likelihood that those inmates will return (and cost more taxpayer $).

I guess what I mean is, they can't end up squeezing prisoners any more than they already are: in many places 8 hour prison jobs paying less than 50 cents a day, when a phone call costs $3.00+ an hour and a single ramen noodle costs $2.00+.

That stuff significantly contributes to the prison mentality and group-think mindset of 'the authorities are your enemy'. Even if you don't come in with that mentality, after being surrounded by it in conditions like that, you'll very likely be brainwashed by the time you leave and the cycle unfortunately begins.

> allowing inmates to have jobs both takes pressure off of the cost/budget for their incarceration

No. This CANNOT be part of the argument for prisoner's having jobs. If we as a society have decided that the only route to protecting society is to strip people of their rights and freedom, the we MUST be the one's to fund it. I don't have a problem with prisoners having jobs, in fact I definitely agree that it needs to be a part of rehabilitation. But a system that depends on abusing others to prop itself up should not exist. And this system cannot exist and deliver the actual results we want of correction and rehabilitation if there is a monetary incentive because there will always be someone that will come along and selfishly twist the system for their own gain.

I think all proceeds of prisoner work should remain solely that of the prisoners (potentially garnishable depending on their crimes).

I see where you are coming from, and I am not saying you are fundamentally wrong at all.

What I can say, is that at this point in my life, I am genuinely happy to be able to not only pay taxes, but additionally offset some of the taxpayer money that my decisions cost. Regardless of whether or not I feel like I still belong here at this point, I made those decisions and I knew the consequences. I am just grateful to be in a position where that is even an option, because so many are not.

> I think all proceeds of prisoner work should remain solely that of the prisoners (potentially garnishable depending on their crimes).

80-90% of the after tax salary should go to a fund that the prisoner receives the day they're released, with the rest going to commissary. Maybe a monthly disbursement if voters want to be paternalistic about it.

When convicts are released on probation to a halfway home, it should be with a pocket full of change so they can start rebuilding their life - buy a beater car to be able to commute, put a down payment on their own place, and so on.

> 80-90% of the after tax salary should go to a fund that the prisoner receives the day they're released

I’d rather they be allowed to use that money as they see fit while still incarcerated, unless there is a specific reason not to (e.g. history of financial crimes).

For instance, people in jail might have kids or sick parents, and should be able to help support them now if needed.

That’s a great point! If they have dependents, prisoners should absolutely be able to send money to them as they earn it without restriction.

I don’t want to deprive them of even more agency than we already do, but I do think there’s a moral hazard to letting prisoners spend all that money themselves while incarcerated. Commissary prices are ridiculous but there’s only so much they can spend on ramen and toiletries. Even a minimum wage of $10/hr is plenty to drive the black market for drugs out of control which will just make the long term situation worse for everyone (thanks to corrupt prison guards more than anything). It’s unfortunately paternalistic but pragmatic.

Like the OP I have an ethical objection to prisoners subsidizing their own incarceration. If society wants to protect itself by taking away peoples’ rights that’s fine, but we should be willing to pay for it. Being released without a pot to piss in is just adding insult to injury and perpetuating a cycle of crime.

> If it becomes a program of squeezing unwilling prisoners to undercut competition then I have big problems with it

That sounds like most jobs. Or similar to monetary policy to increase unemployment to drive wages down.

If a prisoner's work offsets the cost of them being in prison, then there is an incentive for the system to have prisoners.

"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." -- U.S. Constitution, Amendment 13.

The 13th Amendment doesn’t change incentives. The existence of amendments proves that the Constitution can evolve.

The "except as a punishment for crime" is why we have prison labor at all, isn't it? There's enough (exceptionally cheap) prison labor that local (county level) effects are measurable: https://www.ineteconomics.org/perspectives/blog/the-lasting-...

Enforce paying prisoners fair-market wages. That, in addition to providing prisoners with funds so they can start with at least some amount of money when they're released (many will face many months if not years searching for a job that will take them!), also prevents the government from using slave labor to undercut prices of, say, fire prevention crews.

And from these fair wages, deduct the rent of an average single-bedroom apartment.

Fun fact, a lot of those new joyless McDonalds remodels had their CAD work done by UNICOR.

Remember, prison guards get special bonus' for managing inmates that make the prison money. Now imagine that you are constitutionally a slave (according to the Thirteenth Amendment) and that your prison guard's bonus is tied to your work. You don't get to say no to extra shifts. You don't get to take sick days. You don't get to stop the line (for those making physical products). You don't get to challenge the safety of your workstation (for those making physical products).

I'm not saying these programs shouldn't exist, but you need actual safeguards to prevent the current rampant abuse of prisoners (at least on the UNICOR side). Guards should never be 'special UNICOR employees' tied to the program (they really start to see inmates as slaves, their job only exists as long as their facility's UNICOR program is 'successful') and should never have bonus' tied to inmate work output. Currently both of these things occur.

The Thirteenth Amendment does not say that prisoners are slaves. The text (of section one) is: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

This means that someone could be sentenced to slavery or indentured servitude. Federal prisons require able inmates to work; this is a form of indentured servitude, but it does not necessarily extend to state prisons (or municipal jails).

Slaves are property of others (until their death or a decision by their owner to free them), and can be traded or sold. Indentured servants are engaged for a specified period of time, usually to one specific employer.

I don’t believe they argued that the 13th amendment says prisoners are slaves. They only asked you to imagine that you are and they pointed out that it’s allowed “according to the Thirteenth amendment”. At least, that was my interpretation.

My read is that they were asking the reader to imagine they (the reader) are a prisoner, and thus a slave according to the thirteenth amendment. Even under your reading, that comment is a pure hypothetical, because federal prisoners are not slaves. I happen to believe that the federal government has enslaved people in a different context, very recently, conscripts.

The very amendment you've been quoting explicitly calls it slavery.

What would this system look like if slavery wasn't excused for incarceration?

They call it "involuntary servitude." I read it as:

Neither (slavery) nor (involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted), shall exist within the United States ...

It's a distinction without a difference. Even the Wikipedia article explicitly says that involuntary servitude and involuntary slavery are used interchangeably. [0] I feel you're getting caught up in word choice instead of arguing the actual implementation and interpretation of the law.

[0]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Involuntary_servitude

> Slaves are property of others (until their death or a decision by their owner to free them)

That is chattel slavery. There are other forms of slavery, indentured servitude being one of them. De facto slavery is the term of art for what is going on here.

The term of art that I'm familiar with is "unfree labor" or "modern slavery", both of which are widely used. Either way, every country has agreed it's at least nominally a human rights issue via the Forced Labor Convention ratified by all diplomatically significant nations except the US.

Indentured servitude was a contract one would enter into voluntarily with a perceived benefit on the other side. I think you’d have to squint pretty hard to argue that every criminal doing labor today voluntarily signed up for it to brighten their futures.

Well, supporters of state authority could argue that the contract was a prior one, the ‘social contract’. As it happens, I am a philosophical anarchist, so that doesn’t work for me, but most discussants here probably believe in political authority of some sort.

Equating “the social contract” with the type of legal construction involved with actual indentured servitude is some real “a taco is a hotdog” thinking.

Nobody currently alive actually voted on anything related to the US Constitution, any of the first fifteen amendments, or many important laws, because they weren't alive. I don't see how the Thirteenth Amendment is any different from the many laws which were enacted and last amended before you or I was alive. Either the populace has consented to all of that body of law, or none of it.

I think that they’re saying that the concept of a social contract does not refer to a literal contract or legal document, or document of any kind, but rather simply a way of treating each other implicit in society.

Notably neither the Constitution nor its Amendments is the “social contract.”

Then those people need to stop calling it a "contract". That's an act of manipulative deception purposefully designed to influence the listener towards accepting it, regardless of whether the speaker is aware of those origins.

It doesn't constitute a "contract" any more than a schoolyard bully demanding another child's lunch money "or else" (implicit threat of initiation of force / violence) constitutes a "contract".

The bully wouldn't become morally justified by calling his dictated orders (under threat of violence) a contract, nor would his act of extortion become any more legitimized, by deceptively referring to the act with an unambiguously incorrect term like "contract".

The "social contract" would be the only contract in existence for which those subject to the terms of it were not granted the opportunity of consideration and the free choice to accept or reject that contract.

A contract you cannot choose to decline, and that you'll face imprisonment for violating isn't really a contract at all, it's really just a set of orders being dictated to you by a tyrant willing to initiate violence to get their way.

If you are not allowed to have a sick day without facing physical punishment (a threat obfuscated to the public by it being a threat of being shipped to a more dangerous facility, so I.E. a major threat of danger and permanent maming made clear to the slave but a threat somewhat obscured to the general public) what would you call it? You are not allowed bad days. You are not allowed slow days. You must work to the guard's (whose bonus depends on it) satisfaction.

Or maybe your cell/tier gets extra shakedowns, and it's made known it's because you made a guard mad, you are going to get beat down. Based on your work performance. What would that be called?

Dream frontline engineering manager situation

Where can I read more about UNICOR doing some of the redesign work?

Your best bet would be a FOIA request to the BOP.

Maybe this is a signal that we need to rethink how we deal with people that break the law?

These people:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/rcna185537

should not have their salary and/or bonus' based in anyway on the labor of the people they guard.

> Some crime victims would rather have their perpetrators “rot in hell” than see them have these kinds of privileges, said Randall Liberty, commissioner of the Maine Department of Corrections, and victims are notified, and their concerns considered, when offenders line up remote jobs.

I can understand those very human feelings. But the state justice system should not be retributive, no matter how much victims want it to be.

It should focus on protection (keeping criminals off the streets and the rest of us safe), deterrence, rehabilitation, and restitution. And its constraints should be fairness, transparency, and speed/efficiency.

Retribution contributes to deterrence, as well as benefiting the society as a whole by promoting justice.

That's why you have no recidivism in the US?

> Retribution contributes to deterrence,

the actual data on this refutes that. rehabilitation focused countries overhelmingly have less recidivism.

increasing access and quality of education, early intervention like head start, wicc and other "wellfare" programs as well as free healthcare are much more likely to reduce crime rates by a significant amount.

Only if a leading entity emerges and keeps power, but history doesn't show that a single entity can keep power for very long in the grand timeline of humanity.

And that fact--constant threat/change of power--makes the following difficult:

- Having an idea of societal benefit or justice that does not align with a person's feelings (leader of the ruling party)

- Owning land or real property with conveniences like electricity or water - your territory is always under threat and unless you have large numbers of allies you will eventually get swallowed or forced to obey directives of the ruling party.

Furthermore:

- Having large numbers of allies, or being part of or strongly affiliated with the ruling entity just puts you in the same situation as ruling entity which is causing the first 2 things so it can survive.

Retribution is not justice. It does not promote it.

Punishment for misdeeds is a component of justice.

Satisfying the desire for retribution has to be one of the system's goals, otherwise people would take matters into their own hands. However, you are correct that it shouldn't be the main goal, or even a major one.

Many things make people want to take justice into their hands without us yielding to those who are prepared to commit crimes to punish others.

We have to push the "do not push button" otherwise other people might want to push it.

> But the state justice system should not be retributive, no matter how much victims want it to be.

Perhaps you're looking for a form of government other than democracy?

It blows my mind to see you downvoted for this most simple and straightforward ethical statement — justice and retribution are not the same, and the state should be in the business of justice.

From Plato to the Tao, Christianity and Buddhism, Reverend King and Gandhi, most careful thinkers about ethics, philosophy, and government over thousands of years have come to the same conclusion. The purposes of punishment are to remove a dangerous person from circulation, to make amends to victims, and to deter other potential offenders. Revenge does not enter into it.

Replies here are talking about how good revenge feels, and threatening mob violence if revenge isn’t granted, but consider that those responses are in a context where there is little justice already. We know in our society that injustice is not often punished, and that revenge (e.g., shooting a healthcare CEO) feels great. That is further proof of the importance of justice, not an argument for retribution.

The official US Federal Government position (and sentencing law) is that promoting correction and rehabilitation are prohibited from sentencing considerations when it comes to imprisonment (and any imprisonment sentence that includes such considerations will be challenged and reversed for resentencing). A prison sentence is a punishment, not a means for correction and/or rehabilitation:

18 U.S. Code § 3582 - Imposition of a sentence of imprisonment....

(a)Factors To Be Considered in Imposing a Term of Imprisonment.— The court, in determining whether to impose a term of imprisonment, and, if a term of imprisonment is to be imposed, in determining the length of the term, shall consider the factors set forth in section 3553(a) to the extent that they are applicable, recognizing that imprisonment is not an appropriate means of promoting correction and rehabilitation

Yet another reason why, if I somehow magically found myself on a US jury (given I'm not American, that's not an actual concern), would find it morally impossible to vote to convict anyone.

That's about the term, not the conditions and resulting impact on the prisoner.

Of course, people seem to prefer inhumane, brutal conditions, regardless of the impact.

UNICOR tried to get into electronics recycling here in California under SB20.. while Google and MSFT and Apple ran away as fast as possible! not just the management either, lots of ordinary employees in those huge companies knew that electronics recycling is a liability, not "maximizing revenue" .. meanwhile UNICOR looks for more hooks for more contracts.. UNICOR has no concern about the outcome of electronics recycling .. they would make guranteed trash throw-away anything if it meant a new prison labor contract.

real

edit Walmart uses prison labor to assemble bicycles for kids.. source: eyewitness at a store in California

How about we treat prisoners as humans having value to begin with? Americans should start with the fundamentals before moving on to exploitation.

This just reflects that the parole system is broken, among other things.

This wouldn't bother me if the USA had universal basic income, public healthcare, free university education, and lower homeless rates.

> This wouldn't bother me if the USA had universal basic income, public healthcare, free university education, and lower homeless rates.

So sad that I don't see just one of those happening in America let alone all

https://archive.is/4ZOzU

Remote jobs because of the altruism of these Maine corporations? Or because prisoners come cheap and don't have access to 99% of the job market?

I don't want prisoners to be eligible for any jobs. They distort market wages heavily and take away jobs that other, more deserving, individuals could have. If you want to argue that they should be job eligible, then they should just be free in the first place at that point.

How can I compete with a prisoner that works for ramen?

Are there any software engineers here working from prison?

Yeah there are two of us in the Maine system working as developers, both for [0]Unlocked Labs.

[0] https://unlockedlabs.org

They mentioned in the article that LinkedIn got blocked because of the chat feature. Do they quite heavily restrict what sites you can access then?

Yeah it's essentially on a case by case basis. All the remote workers at this point have earned considerable trust and have more access than a typical college student does. I think I am one of only a couple that weren't required to be a post-graduate to apply, so there is at the very least a few years worth of opportunities to mess up the privilege before that trust is given. But yes, all the typical things you would imagine still obviously blocked (social media, adult content, etc)

Interesting, thanks for the info.

A lot of jurisdictions even ban any item that has been printed from the Internet from being sent to a prisoner.

I was writing code in jail, but they wouldn't allow any computer books in. An elderly nun bought and smuggled "C# in a Weekend" into the jail for me so I could teach coding.

Let's hope this expands to other states.

Prison has been proven to be a horrible idea (Stanford prison experiment) that turns normal people into monsters. The whole thing needs to be abolished.

Call me crazy, but the golden rule should be applied to all people. “Do to others what you would have them do to you”

I believe that if someone needs to be separated from others because they are dangerous or insane, the government should be obligated to say “this is what I would want done to me”, and treat them as such the entire time. Raw Punishment is asinine and insane, especially when the average person doesn’t even believe politicians who make the law are the most virtuous citizens.

Objectively good policy. Helps better distinguish violent vs nonviolent crimes as far as rehabilitation

Comes with free healthcare benefits too.

There is too much emphasis on incarceration. It seems like a fair amount of correctional system bureaucracy could be replaced by public horsewhipping. Send a message and send ‘em on their way.

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