On the one hand, prisoners being coerced to work is payment for their crimes. On the other hand, that job would have gone to someone else at market rates. This kind of thing drags down the market rates.

We really need to get rid of the exception in the 13th amendment.

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_qua 15 hours ago | parent | next [-]

The number of prisoners who are capable of this type of work are minuscule and unlikely to affect wages at large.

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faitswulff 15 hours ago | parent | next [-]

Ah, but the number of people who are capable of this type of work who could be imprisoned is quite large!

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_qua 15 hours ago | parent [-]

It's rather difficult to do enough bad things to get a lengthy prison sentence these days. Usually requires a violent offense in the context of significant priors.

If you're interested in doing hard federal time, I would suggest you consider interstate trafficking of distribution quantities of drugs.

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johnnyanmac 13 hours ago | parent | next [-]

>It's rather difficult to do enough bad things to get a lengthy prison sentence these days

If you're white, maybe. There's still stories of some states having the book thrown at recreational drug usage.

	▲	_qua 3 hours ago \| parent [-]
		At the state level, by far the most common reason for long sentences are violent offenses. At the federal level it is more often trafficking at distribution scale. There are always stories, but the majority are the above. If you have a state in mind we can look at the data together.

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jMyles 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

> It's rather difficult to do enough bad things to get a lengthy prison sentence these days.

...there are two million people in prison. Several million more in various stages of the carceral cycle who be be easily subbed in when more labor is required.

Slavery of this variety is alive and well.

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SuperShibe 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The obvious solution to this are harder sentences so you can imprison more people that are capable of this kind of work

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15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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schaefer 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

just wait...

	▲	djohnston 15 hours ago \| parent [-]
		lol indeed anyone can vibecode right?

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WaltPurvis 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>prisoners being coerced to work is payment for their crimes. On the other hand, that job would have gone to someone else at market rates. This kind of thing drags down the market rates.

That's a different problem, for different inmates -- the inmates covered in this story are paid market rates. It mentions the software developer has a six-figure salary.

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charlieyu1 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

It was not. Working in prisons started as part of rehabilitation, so the prisoners could learn life skills to survive. Now it devolved to power tripping and control.

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lovich 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

The loss of rights should be the payment for their crimes. Having volunteer job opportunities for reform or having them maintain their own facilities is the max that should be mandated.

It’s just slavery with all the perverse incentives that come with it, and I think we’d all be better off if this was a lever that no one in society had access to pull on

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malcolmgreaves 15 hours ago | parent [-]

Sounds nice, until you're robbed, they catch and prosecute the guy successfully, and then you're unable to be made whole again because the criminal doesn't have any money to pay you back.

What then? If they're not forced to produce something of value to give to you, then how can you ever be made whole again? Does the state pay? If so, why do taxpayers who didn't commit a crime foot the bill? If it's insurance, then why do non-criminals paying insurance premiums foot the bill?

If there's nothing linking the action (_theft_) to the needed outcome (_restitution_), then there's this unmoored loop of perverse incentives wherein some folks can continue to commit crimes with very limited consequences.

Doesn't mean that everyone should be forced to work while in prison. But surely for any and all crimes that have a clearly defined dollar amount, shouldn't that criminal be forced to pay that amount back? Garnishing future wages can be circumvented (_just don't get a real job when you get out, keep stealing things to support yourself_). And even at best, it's very much _delayed_ restitution. Justice delayed is justice denied.

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margalabargala 15 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> What then? If they're not forced to produce something of value to give to you, then how can you ever be made whole again?

To be clear, in the present day, when a prisoner works, how much money do you think they make, and who do you think keeps the value produced?

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WaltPurvis 15 hours ago | parent [-]

The article says the software developer is making a six-figure salary and the prison system withholds 10%.

	▲	margalabargala 12 hours ago \| parent [-]
		The prisoner in the article is so unusual someone wrote an article about them and it made headlines on a tech forum. The parent thread we're discussing is broadly about prisoner work in the US. So we should be considering the mean and median values, not the one guy making 4 orders of magnitude more than everyone else.

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ryoshoe 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

>If they're not forced to produce something of value to give to you, then how can you ever be made whole again? Does the state pay? If so, why do taxpayers who didn't commit a crime foot the bill? If it's insurance, then why do non-criminals paying insurance premiums foot the bill?

Are any of these solutions that unreasonable when you consider that the state/taxpayers are already footing the bill to keep prisoners incarcerated?

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p_ing 15 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> Sounds nice, until you're robbed, they catch and prosecute the guy successfully, and then you're unable to be made whole again because the criminal doesn't have any money to pay you back.

How do they pay you back when employers run background checks (not to mention housing)?

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mylifeandtimes 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

> then how can you ever be made whole again?

by your insurance company.

Heck, this doesn't even require them to catch the perp.

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johnnyanmac 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

>you're unable to be made whole again because the criminal doesn't have any money to pay you back.

What does that have to do with rehabilitation? That person can go to prison, realize the errors of their ways, and have a healthy life.I don't have to like nor forgive them. I'm not being "made whole again" no matter how long you lock them up.

> If they're not forced to produce something of value to give to you, then how can you ever be made whole again?

1) you generally don't get something "produced of value", unless suffering is a currency now. Probably is in 2025

2) insurance. not everything can be given back, but many material goods can be compensated.

>If it's insurance, then why do non-criminals paying insurance premiums foot the bill?

because that's how insurance works, in spirit. You're all pooling together a fund so that you help out some other person when they need it. The instigator is often not the one footing the bill to begin with. Shaking down a criminal with no money is as useful as yelling at a forest fire as it burns your place down.

>Doesn't mean that everyone should be forced to work while in prison. But surely for any and all crimes that have a clearly defined dollar amount, shouldn't that criminal be forced to pay that amount back?

if they have it, sure. As is, this isn't the model of the "justice" system, though. You're not getting paid back for anyone put behind bars.

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tamimio 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

As intended, companies will do everything to lower wages and have borderline slaves work for them, either through immigrants, hiring mostly co-op workers, and now prisoners, and a lot of people are okay with it for some reason, so gullible! The "engineer" job in 2025 is like sewing in a prison a couple of decades ago, crazy.

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charcircuit 15 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

>This kind of thing drags down the market rates.

Why would the prison / prisoner charge below market rates for their labor?

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toomuchtodo 15 hours ago | parent | next [-]

https://www.epi.org/publication/rooted-racism-prison-labor/

https://www.walkfree.org/news/2025/13th-amendment-loophole-f...

https://www.npr.org/2023/11/13/1210564359/slavery-prison-for...

https://www.aclu.org/news/human-rights/captive-labor-exploit...

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johnnyanmac 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Because it's free money for them either way, and they can undercut the competition, even minimum wage workers, due to the 13th amendment excluding prisoners.

The prisoner doesn't really get too much choice in the matter other than taking/rejecting the offer.

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jacobr1 14 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

The prison could, for grift reasons. They can undercut competition because their costs are lower. If a union, or even a market-rate shop needs to pay, say, $20-hour for labor, and the prison can pay $1-hour (or day) they can charge much less, and then pocket the difference. Their advantage isn't a higher quality product just a cheaper one.

	▲	t-3 14 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		Most jobs in prisons and jails pay less than $1/day, last I heard, maybe they got the inflation adjustment the rest of missed though.
	▲	charcircuit 13 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Why not charge the same and pocket a larger difference?