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NPR visits a prison goat farm that was the subject of an activist's ire back in 2015:
Whole Foods loved [Jim Schott's] cheese. His company [Haystack Mountain] grew. It also changed. Ten years ago, Haystack Mountain started buying milk from a farm in a prison. Schott doesn't recall telling Whole Foods or his other customers about that change in the Haystack Mountain story. In any case, Schott felt that it was a good thing — "a model of good prison management."
Then, in 2015, a prison reform activist named Michael Allen sent a letter to John Mackey, the CEO of Whole Foods. Allen demanded that Whole Foods stop selling Haystack Mountain's cheese because it was made, in part, using the labor of prisoners earning pennies per hour. The way Allen sees it, Haystack was "taking advantage of helpless, powerless individuals. They're fair game for corporations to make money off of. And I just told [Mackey] that we wanted him to get out of that business."
Many things besides cheese are made in prisons. Across the country, tens of thousands of inmates work for businesses that have set up operations inside prison walls. They make flags and furniture. Most of the time, they attract little attention. People may feel differently about something they eat, though, especially a boutique food like goat cheese. To Allen's amazement and delight, Whole Food caved to his demands. In a statement, the company said that some of its customers weren't comfortable with products made by prisoners, so it would no longer sell them.
The inmates are still milking those goats, though. I was curious about this farm, and set up a visit.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by looorg on Friday July 21 2017, @02:18PM (11 children)
They do seem to have a choice and the wage they get paid is better then most other prison jobs, or so I gather from the article.
Working on the goat farm is in that regard a privilege and a perk. You get to go outside. You are about to be released from prison so this is really all about them once again learning to live in polite society. It's not homicidal axe wielding serial killers out there milking goats. The $5 a day they make is not high enough to be restitution money, they might be saved until release or they are basically commissary cash at best. But it could be an interesting idea to pay them real wages and then send most of it to their victims. I'm just not sure there would actually be any prison jobs in the western world then as third world labor would be a much cheaper alternative. These schemes are never about making money, it's about letting prisoners do something. Doing anything is in some regard better then doing nothing, prisoners doing nothing is a giant security problem and risk.
I have no issue with prison labor or farms. They serve a purpose. It must be better having prisoners do this then just spending all their time playing cards, watching TV and working out in the yard. Idle hands and all that ... At least this way they do something productive. That said one can wonder how useful it is a skill to learn these days, probably not a lot of demand for goat farmers out in the normal job market. But getting farm jobs might be a viable alternative for a lot of x-cons.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by LoRdTAW on Friday July 21 2017, @04:03PM (6 children)
Or their families in the case of non violent victimless crimes such as drug possession or prostitution. Many of these people have children and allowing them to work from within the prison and funnel money to them is certainly a boon to society. This can help break the cycle of poverty and crime.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Friday July 21 2017, @04:37PM
There probably are a few of them that should pay child-support if nothing else. But I wonder if the family on the outside get some form of government assistance, as an example, if not all "income" is deducted from that and they would then not really gain any sort of improvement from it at all. So it might be better in that regard if the wage is split between commissary, restitution and a savings account for when they are released.
(Score: 3, Informative) by DeathMonkey on Friday July 21 2017, @07:20PM
This can help break the cycle of poverty and crime.
Well there's the problem!
(Score: 3, Interesting) by VLM on Friday July 21 2017, @07:40PM (1 child)
There are a combination of problems brought about because prison is free food and free rent and free medical care. Maybe not terribly good, but about as good or better than legal poor people get. There is a side issue, that it depends on the state vs federal prison.
So given the above, a poor person (I was a starving student once...) works all day and after all the bills are paid they can maybe go to the convenience store and get a bottle of juice or some junk food or similar low level extra luxury. So that is whats being simulated when a prisoner works all day for ten cents an hour and spends his "wealth" on a apple pie slice at the commissary that night. I mean, you can't pay them union carpenter wage without totally screwing up the internal economic system of the prison. I donno maybe prisoners with a useful skill like carpentry maybe should be the financial kings of the prison... Or they could do some funky BS with paying then $7.25/hr and taking back $7.15/hr for room and board and food and med coverage but why not just pay them ten cents?
Besides if you pay them over ten cents per hour the IRS is going to get involved into all kinds of funkiness and it boils down to a transfer of wealth from the state prison budget to the federal IRS and state DoR, which seems pointless somehow.
Plus now you're providing them with a good year of social security earning so they get a better retirement which isn't exactly punishment.
Paying them a full wage is a waste of accountants time, basically. Give them enough to buy a six pack of diet pepsi at the end of the day and that's about right for lower class laborers.
I believe this discussion has come up before, in my state the prison carpentry shop can only sell to the government so my SiL's kindergarten classroom has some cool kiddie furniture made by prisoners complete with little brass tags with something like "Made by prison industries illegal to sell outside the government". Like ladybug painted stepstools for the kids to sit on, and bookcases that look like rocket ships and her fancy teacher's desk and similar. Its kinda cool that they pay their debt to society by making school classrooms microscopically cooler. Kinda not cool that they compete private industry out so I can't make and sell ladybug step stools to the K12 system for $500 each because I got a relative "in the system" to sign for it, but whatever.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 21 2017, @09:18PM
It's not always free. Many jurisdictions allow jails and prisons to bill prisoners for their stay.
(Score: 2) by driven on Friday July 21 2017, @09:51PM
Why would a company pay them fair wages when they could either: a) pay a non-convict to do the work, b) outsource the work to China.
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Saturday July 22 2017, @12:31AM
Great idea for the unemployed: commit a victimless crime, get to have a roof above your head and enough to eat for free and some pocket money to send to your family. Beats no income and no employment hands down.
I wonder though where such a society will head to.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by bob_super on Friday July 21 2017, @06:05PM (3 children)
> These schemes are never about making money, it's about letting prisoners do something.
Until someone on the outside figures out that they can get that labor for a lot less than normal, yet sell the product at normal prices.
Non-prisoner goat farmers now face unbeatable competition, and get driven out of business.
The guy working with the prison rakes in the cash (private prison gets kickback), and everybody else gets poorer, all that allowed by your taxes subsidizing slavish labor.
Easy solution: prisoners get prevailing wage for the job being done.
(Score: 1, Troll) by VLM on Friday July 21 2017, @07:59PM (2 children)
Yeah about that... you remember the least motivated kids in the back of the classroom and how "productive" and "high quality" their output was in school? Well, now that they're in prison, they're not magically producing Japanese or BMW quality product. Its like Chinese quality at best.
Lets say they slack, the guard doesn't care as long as his life is easier. The prisoner is like "yeah and what're ya gonna do to me, send me to prison, LOL". I'm just saying, I've seen a lot of prison industry furniture. Its not hopelessly bad, but the Amish are not going to be put out of business anytime soon. If a private business can't compete against "just barely good enough not to be sent to a solitary cell" then it deserves to go out of business. Especially when the situation is public; I'm not dumb enough to go into the private air traffic control business or private ICBM launch field business because I know thats already not a free market. Yeah if you know you're competing against Uncle Sam maybe instead of pouting, doing something else like moving up the value chain to sell fro-yo retail, or transitioning to something less competitive (at least WRT the gov) like organic produce might be wise.
Personally I'd test the hell out of the goat-yogurt or whatever the cons are producing. Not because I'm a jerk, but because food poisoning isn't funny and I know the caliber of the people producing it is worse than shit from China made with extra melamine. Teaching them a work ethic and some skills and generating some sweat, is all very good and completely un-impaired by failed food safety results leading to the processing plant being dumped directly into the sewer. Its a waste of resources but its less of a resource waste to dump the product than to get food poisoning. You'll note that my state has the cons producing furniture for kindergartners who are not exactly legendary for their excellent taste in home decor or quality carpentry. We're not exactly having them build nuclear weapon physics packages or jetliner wings, if you get my drift, and thats a good thing. Maybe "hipster milk with 2% extra smug" or whatever they're making exactly is on the same level as ladybug stepstools in the grand scheme of things.
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 22 2017, @01:25AM
It's kind of hard to be motivated when the schools focus almost entirely on rote memorization rather than real education. So, yes, I do remember such kids, but I also remember plenty of A students who thought they were actually accomplishing something impressive by getting good grades. Anyone can become a rote memorization monkey if they actually try, but it's just not very meaningful. I'm not sure why so many people in society will say that our school system is broken while simultaneously being impressed with high grades; that is a pure contradiction.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 22 2017, @10:41AM
Always fucking guesswork bullshit from you. You have no clue, shut up.