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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: 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