Hey politicians!
His predecessors put our prison systems in a terrible mess. We pile up far more prisoners than other nations, and at a much greater cost, with disastrous consequences. Paying more for prisons and less for education is an unhealthy trend.
Each prisoner costs us about $ 50,000 a year, and that cost must be multiplied by 2,300,000. You may have heard that it costs less than this to feed, clothe, house and provide medical care for prisoners, but that lower figure does not include the astronomical costs of lost opportunity. Locking up so many people and not providing them with useful work means that the value of their work is also lost. On average, each inmate can earn around $ 25,000 per year if assigned a regular job. Add this to the out-of-pocket costs of $ 25,000 per year, and the cost equals $ 50,000 per year. This does not include the increased costs of welfare outside prison, the social costs of breaking up families and marriages and allowing children to be raised without parents. This also does not include the decline in productivity caused by criminals unable to find employment. Our nation incarcerates more people than any other nation on earth, and a greater percentage of our population is in prison than any other nation on earth. If prisoners were counted as unemployed in the unemployment statistics, official unemployment would be 1/2% higher due to our prison population of 2.3 million. As you can see, this is a drag on the entire economy at a time when we can’t afford it. Yes, we are in a tremendous situation. Please do something.
Let’s face it: the modern prison doesn’t work very well, at least not for its original rehabilitation purpose, and it doesn’t deter crime enough. It keeps criminals out of circulation for a while, and that’s good, but unfortunately the prison releases them in worse condition. Prisons are an expensive way to make bad people worse. Many of us have tried to get their attention. Please help solve the huge prison crisis we have and create more jobs.
Every enlightened warden and prison reformer in history believed that prisoners should work useful work. Forced labor is better for prisoners, prison administration and taxpayers. Many criminals are allegedly sentenced to “forced labor”, but now only a minority of prisoners work, few of them in private companies. Years ago restrictive legislation was passed due to unfair competition created by prisoners who work for nothing. But things have changed: Most consumer goods are now made outside the United States. Products made in China’s prisons infiltrate the US easily, while we accelerate our own prison industries.
Our laws should allow private companies to make products that are now made exclusively in foreign countries. You should repeal or amend the Ashurst-Sumners and Hawes-Cooper laws, because those federal statutes deprive products made in prison of manufactured in interstate commerce status, making it difficult for them to cross state lines or enter the market. Each state should repeal its statutes that discourage or prohibit prison industries, at least to allow the manufacture of products that are now exclusively manufactured abroad. Prisoners do not deserve the wage and hour protection or job protection that law-abiding Americans enjoy, but their workplaces must be safe. Let’s remove some laws from the books so that employers can freely negotiate with inmates and not have to worry about most lawsuits. Everyone can win: taxpayers, crime victims, prisoners’ families, our economy, organized labor, businesses, prison systems, and prisoners. Prison industries will create jobs outside of prisons. If we do not get more Americans to work, we will decrease in the world, and that is not our destiny.