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.
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125 comments Add your comment
shameonhumanity
October 10th, 2011
12:17 pm
not to mention the fact that people who avoid crime and seek honest pay as, let’s say a fire fighter, will lose out to people who work for free. Maybe they’ll get desperate enough to commit a crime or simply not be able to pay a speeding ticket before they too end up in line to be “slave labour.”
blakbot
October 10th, 2011
12:18 pm
Sounds and SMELLS like SLAVERY- SHAME on the government and corporations for denying these people work, then imprisoning them for economic reasons (drugs/ theft) THEN forcing them to work for FREE (SLAVERY)
Tech '10
October 10th, 2011
12:19 pm
I wish that they would gain a skill set that would make them less likely to go back to prison. Sitting around while I pay for them is not a pleasant thought. Inmates should have to work to help repay the society which they preyed upon. A little honest hard work is never a bad idea. Not too keen on the fire fighting thing though… Yes they are someone’s children, but they are also the bane of someone elses existence.
Peg
October 10th, 2011
12:19 pm
So Georgia plans yet another return to the chain gang. Georgia was the last state to discontinue this practice in 1955. They made an attempt to start it up again in 1995, but abandoned it after being sued by human rights organizations. Here we go again. Once again, Georgia, you make me so proud…
larry coleman
October 10th, 2011
12:19 pm
Slavery all over again!!! I guess you will be going to prison for any thing now.
dood
October 10th, 2011
12:20 pm
can you guys really believe your comments about going and busting people to feed prisons with labor? Wow, you are really out of touch. First off, they’re already bursting at the seams with drug offenders and thieves…second, maybe they will remember picking peaches in the hot Georgia sun instead of kicking it in the weight room when they get out. Go for it, but keep them out of the fire stations.
Makes Cents
October 10th, 2011
12:22 pm
Also, I don’t think they’re going to put just anyone in a firefighter uniform. I believe there will be an assessment. Again, some people have have made some very foolish mistakes in their past that they hope to redeem. We shouldn’t think that just because they are prisoners that they can never be fully functional persons of our society again. The state will not put a person incapable of fighting a fire in the role of the firefighter. For all we know they could be tasked with cleaning the fire engine and other non-critical duties. It does not necessarily mean they will automatically be fighting fires. Think about it.
commoncents
October 10th, 2011
12:22 pm
shameonhumanity- shame on you! I hope everyone doesn’t feel the way you do and think that the gov’t must provide everything for you.
“What incentive [would] counties have to educate kids, keep families strong and healthy, create opportunities for youth to lift themselves out of poverty, to rehabilitate drug and alcohol addicts and to help former prisoners reintegrate into society”
Perhaps families should be having those conversations? Or should families no longer raise their own kids and create plans to lift themselves up, and instead rely on more government?
Ben
October 10th, 2011
12:23 pm
It won’t work, especially picking crops in South Georgia. They are not acclimated or motivated to keep up with the Mexicans plus they’re about 7 generations behind the groups that use to really do “hard labor” of the type seen on Cool Hand Luke.
So the end result is that the legislature has run off the illegal alien work force, the crops are going to rot in the fields and we’re going to pay higher food costs. We have to honestly ask and answer was it worth it?
edinatlanta
October 10th, 2011
12:23 pm
Having them clean and landscape government buildings is one thing but I dont think private farms should benefit from prison labor. We lock up more people than any other country. Do we want to turn agriculture over to the state to run with forced labor? What are we turning into here??? Prisioners as firefighters????? I mean you cant make this stuff up…