You’ve got that slavery part right. Here is the Thirteenth Amendment, Section 1: “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 led, for example, courts to conclude that prisoners have no right to be payed minimum wage. (I honestly don’t really know what to think about that. I’m not sure whether I have a problem with that.)

I'm confused, doesn't the thirteenth amendment specifically allow involuntary servitude for convicted prisoners? It's right there in the text!

That’s what I’m saying, sure.

Consider your position if you were mistakenly convicted of a crime and incarcerated yourself. Would you have a problem with it then?

I accidentally sounded tough on crime. Who would have thought!

I want good conditions and adequate payment, no jobs that keep prisoners where they are. Well, scratch that, I want what works. I care about reducing the crime rate and keeping prisons quite empty, not punishment. I don’t know what role forced prison labor plays there and would be willing to accept it, should it be beneficial. I just don’t know.

There isn’t such a big difference between forcing someone to work and taking away someone’s freedom, it’s really hard to justify why one can’t, for example, exchange one with the other. It’s both about taking away human rights.

Prison: rehabilitation, punishment, deterrent, segregation. Punishment is largely about the victims, justice being seen to be done, etc.; it shouldn't affect crime rates in ways that don't also come under rehabilitation or deterrence. Segregation (keeping dangerous people apart from the main population) is not relevant to our discussion here, I think.

Is slave labour rehabilitating? More or less rehabilitating than productive labour? A net wash? I personally think education would be more rehabilitating. Perhaps that can be combined with labour? Probably not chain-gang type labour though.

Deterrence, I'm more skeptical of. I don't think prison time has a lot of net impact on crime. Someone on the point of committing a crime, but with their rational thinking cap on, may be evaluating their expected punishment; but that expected punishment will be moderated by their expected chances of getting caught. Obviously, if they expect to get caught, they would not rationally choose to commit a crime; therefore, very drastic changes in punishments need to be applied in order to stay significant after the criminal has taken into account the chances of being caught. (Yes, there's risk / reward calculations where very high rewards may justify taking higher risks so the expected punishment has higher effects, but I think big bank robberies etc. are not the majority of crime we need to be worried about, at least outside of white collar crime, which does need more focus.)

And that's all with the rational thinking cap on. Other crimes where rationality appears to be less evident - I'd guess most non-organized violence, for example - the punishment is very far from mind, if it's in mind at all.

I think if you're truly interested in reducing crime rates, what you have to focus on is increasing the probability of criminals getting caught and convicted, so that deterrence is credible. Reducing repeat offenders requires more focus on rehabilitation. Fiddling with the punishment in and of itself is, IMO, unlikely to have a large impact unless it's a disproportionate change, which would make it unjust.

> Deterrence, I'm more skeptical of. I don't think prison time has a lot of net impact on crime.

This is usually measured by looking at the rates of recidivism. I don't have the data but I think it is pretty high. Or in other words, if prisons were such a good deterrent, they would have the strongest effect on those who have actually been there before, so if that doesn't work, then the deterrence in general is not a strong factor.

There is a lot of research indicating that criminal behavior is strongly tied to inability to be deterred by far distant punishment. Therefore the high recidivism rate could happen because criminals are a preselected group of people people who are hard to deter through punishment.

That’s actually my view, too.

If I were incarcerated for a crime that I didn't commit, that would totally suck.

I don't see how being forced to work would make it suck any more, though. It actually sounds better than (a) having nothing to do all day, and (b) stuck with a whole bunch of much worse people who also have nothing to do all day.

These are not the only two possibilities, of course.

One thing to consider: "Follow the money", and consider whether the work is contributing to rehabilitation, restitution, and expenses. Or whether it is lining other pockets.

Whom is the work benefiting.

Given the continuing privatization of prisons as well as the apparently rampant level of corruption, I have my suspicions.

And how much does it compete with the normal labor market? Is it reducing employment or depressing wages? As more and more people in the U.S. are imprisoned, this question would seem to become more pertinent.

Now, if formerly "unemployable" people left prison with job skills, and someone was actually willing to hire them, perhaps we might even consider prison labor a form of "internship".

But, to my very limited knowledge, the statistics do not bear this out.

Pennies an hour are unlikely to add up to any substantial restitution.

And states seem to be going broke paying for their prisons -- directly or via contract.

Maybe someone else can cite some informative journalism or substantiated data with regard to these questions.

P.S. I'm somewhat uncomfortable commenting at all, from my position of limited knowledge and experience. But, damn it, imprisonment is a State activity, and therefore, like it or not, the responsibility of all the State's citizens (at least, in a representative government). So, it's our duty to try and make some sense of this. It's not simply "someone else's problem".

Is it merely a matter of "idle hands", and allowing select individuals to benefit from the side effects? (Or vise versa.)

>Somehow I thought it was because of boredom and just something to do,

That's definitely part of it too. I hear (and I would guess everyone can imagine) that prison is excruciatingly boring. So having something to do can help a lot, also working a job can be part vocational training for when one get's out of prison.

Another factor is that when you're in prison, the littlest things become of utmost importance. Life or death (literally) battles are fought over Twinkies and Doritos...so if you have a chance to earn a little money to get yourself some cigarettes or cup o' noodles it's very tempting to take it.

That's the "carrot" that accompanies the "stick".