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
12:42 pm
commoncents – common sense tells us that there are many families who want to do better but who need help – be it opportunities for training for better paying jobs, temporary assistance, good schools, or incitives for companies to hire people at a “living wage”, etc. Not all poor families are sitting on their butts waiting for a hand out.By investing in healthier, stronger families, they can give back to our communities when they become business owners and/or educated employees. You’re so quick to think that I’m advocating that gov’t do take care of people (I believe in hand ups, not hand outs) but you turn a blind side to ways the government is doing so much to help the less-than-needy. Your tax dollars fund very powerful and wealthy entities here and abroad, and its a much higher percentage of your paycheck than the mythical “welfare queens’ bite off. Here’s a question, what about this farm scheme will make your tax burden lighter? Do you think there will be less prisoners as a result this or that the profits prisoners make will be reinvested into the prisoners care?
LydiasDad
October 10th, 2011
12:43 pm
It will work if the wage is increased to make it worthwhile. If you continue to pay prisoners the illegal wage we pay illegals, then it won’t work. Common sense. If you think we should keep illegals because “it helps business”, then let’s also cut business taxes and get rid of OSHA. Those hurt business too.
ROCK STEADY FREDDY
October 10th, 2011
12:44 pm
This is a great idea! So many positives can come from this!
DD
October 10th, 2011
12:47 pm
This is only correct as the prisoners need to be made to know that jail is not an acceptable way of life. As far as the chants of slavery go, why should a lot of my pay be sent for those who do not work? They eat better food than I do and have better cars than the one I drive. Is that not considered another form of slavery?
gbal
October 10th, 2011
12:49 pm
Not all for the prisioners as firefighters? Something doesnt sit right with that for me.
As for working fields and landscaping…. All for it. My only issue is ” they will work for much less…$1.50 per hour”.
First, these folks ar prisioners for a reason. They have taken a liberty or right from someone else to land in the prision. They should have no rights during the term they are serving their penalty to socioty.
The shoud not be paid for this work. Not even the $1.50 per hour. The government should charge individual landowners the $1.50 for the services of picking crops…. but this $1.50 per hour should go directly towards the cost of running the prisions/housing inmates. Thus offsetting the taxpayer cost of supporting prisions.
Anyone who says this would be back to slavery days is pathetic. These people have committed a crime for gods sake and they should not have any rights.
Rational Citizen
October 10th, 2011
12:50 pm
This system is ripe for abuse. How long until these slave-laborers begin complaining that there aren’t enough prisoners to do the jobs they want done? And since we’re paying to house and feed these prisoners, how much of a cut is the taxpayer going to get from anyone who employs these people?
Joe
October 10th, 2011
12:53 pm
Cheap labor is cheap labor. If not illegal’s, will be prisoners. First at the farms, second firefighters later in construction and police officers or who knows what is next.
DawgDad
October 10th, 2011
12:54 pm
Working prisoners in a private enterprise is a horrific idea, brought to you by many of the same people who brought us illegal immigrant workers. If a skilled illegal immigrant can earn $10 per hour, then common sense dictates the job is worth more. If that drives up onion prices, so be it; otherwise, it’s labor racketeering and corruption of a public institution at its worst.
Rational Citizen
October 10th, 2011
12:54 pm
to gbal…”these people…should not have any rights.” Are you even being serious? How presumptuous of you to pretend to know the circumstances behind every single person serving in the Georgia prison system. I hope a loved one of yours gets locked up and gets beaten unconscious or raped behind bars. Let’s hear you talk about how they have no rights then.
Rational Citizen
October 10th, 2011
12:56 pm
The amount of ignorance and sheer idiocy on this comment section is appalling.