Government turns to prisoners for cheap labor
The road to riches is paved with cheap labor. (See: China) And you don’t get much cheaper than prisoners.
A skilled onion picker can earn $10 an hour.
Recently, the state of Georgia announced a plan to use prisoners to harvest crops. Why? A new law pretty much ran off Hispanic field hands.
As federal employees celebrate Columbus, perhaps history’s most famous and geographically confused immigrant, the lack of onion pickers in Vidalia brings crocodile tears to the eyes.
The prisoner farm plan comes after a failed scheme to seduce probationers into doing the dirty work.
Now, a Georgia county is planning to use inmates to man fire stations.
A properly trained firefighter costs upwards of $30,000 a year. An inmate will work a lot cheaper – Camden County hopes to save $500,000 a year.
Of course, when my flaming roof is about to collapse, I’d prefer a guy to show up with an ax that knows how to use it for its law-abiding purpose.
Georgia isn’t the only place giving jobs to the undeserving: Indiana’s War Memorial saves $400,000 a year since using inmates ($1.50 per hour) instead of a landscaping company.
With a seemingly limitless number of criminals to employ, the jobless rate may not go down anytime soon.
Tell us what you think about the site
Customer Care »
Vacation stops, manage subscriptions and more
AJC Services
Sections
Other Editions
Visitor Agreement | Privacy Statement
© 2013 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
125 comments Add your comment
cat
October 13th, 2011
1:05 am
1.) I dont agree with “renting” prisoners to private industry, but i think ALL prisons should be totally self sufficent… they should grow thier own crops, raise beef, chicken, pigs, grow cotton to make their own clothes, maintain the prison, recyle the trash, everything. even if one prison was a cotton growing prison and another raised cattle and another grew veggies, they could trade with each other, but the whole system should be self supporting. i see no problem with prisoners doing public work, such as picking up trash on highways or other government work, just not for the private sector. the few dollars a day that the prisoners earn can be put into their commisary accounts to pay for their toothpaste and snacks, lessening the burdon on the families who put money in their accounts monthly for these items.
2.) when my ex was in prison here in texas, he earned about $20 a week and i got it as child support.. of course i never got what all he owed me, but it was better than nothing. I think they should calculate the cost of housing each prisoner and pay them minimum wage, minus a certain percentage to pay back thier housing.
3.) there are already private run juvenile prison here in texas that are in trouble for extending juveniles prison terms to make more money and a judge that was taking kickbacks to send kids who committed relatively minor infractions to the private prison from the owners. i can see this type of abuse would get worse if it were all prisoners. they are already taking away so many of our freedoms, whats next? passing laws against homelessness, lack of heath insurance or unemployment? that would give us even more prisoners for their dirty little work scheme. and of course the official word would be that its totally voluntary.. yet we all know those who didnt want to work would have privledges taken away, sentences extended, harrassment. its just not a good program.
Daniel
October 13th, 2011
7:35 am
Jesus there really is no pleasing you liberals. In Georgia you can become a full-time career firefighter with a criminal record. This is one of the many ways in which those that have been incarcerated can return to society will a valuable skill set.
Picking cotton….give me a break.The counties have every incentive to build strong families. However it has long been Democratic Party tradition to do everything to destroy the family, and keep as many people in poverty as possible. People in poverty vote for democrats.
Brian Covert
October 13th, 2011
8:18 am
who do you think fights most of the wildland forest fires already?
AI urges US to end child life sentences « Xenophilia (True Strange Stuff)
November 30th, 2011
11:30 pm
[...] via AJC [...]
Christmas ball ornaments
December 28th, 2011
3:54 pm
Thats generally awfully favorable stuff. Appreciation for your determination to supply this sort of helpful information here.