As the US prison population explodes, more companies are benefiting from cheap prison labour. Britain is piloting a similar scheme. Is this a good idea? Simon Wilson finds out
What’s the latest on UK prisons?
If the commission on penal reform, headed by Cherie Blair, has its way, British prisoners could soon be working for commercial firms. She, along with the prisons’ campaign group, the Howard League, and the Tory party, support a new pilot scheme in a category C prison that allows offenders to earn the minimum wage (£5.52 an hour) doing work for outside companies.
Haven’t prisoners always worked?
Yes, but society has had conflicting attitudes towards the idea since Jeremy Bentham first proposed, more than 200 years ago, that work could help rehabilitate criminals. Currently, in Britain, prisoners who work a 32-hour week are paid just £12, and can spend no more than £33 of savings each week on items including food, cigarettes and toiletries.
The work typically involves either prison-based tasks, such as laundry or kitchen duties, or work for the state, such as the manufacture of road signs. Some see commercial work as a natural extension of this, taking us closer to the US model.
What happens in America?
Inside US jails, so-called ‘traditional industries’ work – making signs, furniture, garments, licence plates – has been a feature of prison life for at least 150 years. But since 1979 prisons have been encouraged to let prisoners work directly for external commercial employers. At first this was conducted on a small scale, but in recent years the US prison population has exploded to more than two million people (from 300,000 in 1972 and one million in 1990). At the same time, the number of privately-operated prisons has jumped from five to 100 in the past decade alone, and is still growing. According to figures cited in El Diario-La Prensa (North America’s longest-established Spanish newspaper), private prisons currently hold 60,000 inmates, and this is projected to jump to 360,000 within ten years.
Why does this matter?
Because it means the criminal justice and prison industry has become one of the biggest and fastest-growing sectors of the US economy. In 2004, for example, it employed 2.2 million people, more than General Motors, Ford and Wal-Mart combined. Scores of ‘prison towns’ have sprung up, where the flagging local economy depends on the local private prison – and towns compete on cost to ‘import’ long-term prisoners from state penitentiaries. Meanwhile, the private use of prison labour is legal in 37 states and has been enthusiastically embraced by dozens of household-name firms, including IBM, Boeing, Microsoft and AT&T.
So what’s the problem?
Critics argue that the scale of US prison labour makes it a first-choice source of reliable, pliant workers who can be paid less than the minimum wage and cannot strike. That’s deemed unfair on the prisoners but more so on local non-prison workers, because it drives down wages and conditions. Prisoners are increasingly taking on the kind of low-skilled farmwork done until recently by immigrant labour. There are also reports in the US press of ‘maquiladora’ operations – US firms that exploit cheap labour in Mexico – shifting factories back north of the border to take advantage of US prisoners.
Are there any other concerns?
Yes. An even bigger one is that cheap prison labour provides a profit incentive to lock people up for long periods, even for trivial offences, leaving the criminal justice system wide open to corruption and profiteering. This is especially worrying in America, where the prison population is so big, long sentences are the norm for even relatively trivial offences, and non-white people are much more likely to end up in jail than whites.
What do supporters say?
Nonsense. Prison labour is the ultimate win-win. It benefits prisoners because they learn valuable job skills, making them less likely to reoffend, and more likely to hold down a job on the outside. At the same time it benefits society because a portion of the prisoners’ pay goes towards victim compensation funds, as well as prison and court costs. With the two sides so divided, this is likely to remain a hot topic for some time to come.
Should companies be free to use prison labour?
YES
- It’s a win-win situation that brings benefits to both prisoners and society.
- In a global economy, prisoners provide a local and cheap alternative to immigration.
- Reoffending rates are lower for people who have worked because work boosts their chances of being re-employed.
NO
- It’s a new form of slavery because it provides cheap labour and thus drives down wages among non-prison workers.
- Harsh and inflexible drug laws disproportionately incarcerate black Americans.
- Prison labour leaves the criminal justice system wide open to corruption and exploitation.