What are the ways in which we can utilize man-power in prisons?

Question

my opinion --> prisoners should not just linger in their prisons, they should be productive and pay their debt to society in manners of labor. they should labor for constructions of infrastructures and propagation of agriculture. they should be bound in the neck with electronic shock devices that would not let them wander off from a designated grid. we should not be appalled by this, because it is their undoing in the first place. by using them as laborers we can strengthen man-power and progress government projects. of course, they are paid in minimum wage for their efforts. their earned money will be used to buy food inside the prison (food will no longer be provided by the state but is commercialized) , they can also buy commodities but, of course, regulated goods only.

this case will only be applied to the convicted of non-heinous crimes. but for murderers - a life for a life taken!

Answer 1

ok my friend seam if i have seen this in the movies .maybe one day it would happen

Answer 2

I can only hope that you or someone you love will never be falsely accused and convicted. What you are talking of here is slavery. Men and women in prison are already firefighters who risk their lives on the front lines of wild fires in California. They already work on local farms. They already do construction. These people are paying their debts by many means.

Many of our prisoners are in there with their only crime being that their lawyers did not do their jobs. Our courts are full of cases of the wrongly accused and our prisons full of innocent people. Yes, there are many there who did do the crime, but not most. Our police like to arrest the easy ones to find. This is not always the person who committed the crime. And in our current system people are guilty until they prove themselves innocent.

If you want a change, make the change in our system that locks up the innocent and lets child molesters & gang members out in a couple of years to do it again and again. Change the laws so that a teen who falsely accuses her teacher of molestation because she was given a bad grade can be held accountable for ruining an innocent persons life instead of getting a slap on the hand. Change our courts so that the public defenders actually defend the cases that they are given and that the prosecutors will look at the case to see if it might in fact be an innocent person that they are trying to lock away forever.

Answer 3

The county sheriff in Arizona (I think) has one of the best solutions and many other states are looking at his system.
He put them in pink pants, with pink under ware and in tents behind barb wire.
He determined that prisoners are just that; convicts are not in prison to watch cable tv, use computers, eat free food, hav ethe opposite sex visit for sex ect.
Mostof the guys who get out of his system tend to leave town and committ crimes elsewhere if they do.
The ideal solution would be complete isolation of not only sexes but each prisoner with them living in tents, and barb wire conditions and no work not eat conditions and repay their debt to society though hard labour. Convicts should be paving roads, diging ditches, working on county farms in the fields and I don't mean going inside everyu time it gets a little hot. The rest of us who work under extreme living conditions can't stop due to the heat or cold and neither should they.
The next thing is to stop the lawyer sform making millions by draggiing out such trials for years, (often 20 years or more ) for the money.
Jurors like the O>J> Simpson jurors should never aloowed to hear a trial and a case of this type should have ben moved top a location where people have a common sense moral value of life (this would keep would be Ted Bundys from spending years fighting his conviction).
To ever have a decent penal system lawyers must be reined in and stop from using the legal system as their own tresure chest.

Answer 4

I just happen to sell industrial supplies to a few Alabama State prisons and I know that we use the prisioners to perform several useful tasks. They not only make the license tags, but they maintain and build the sleeping bunks for all the prisons in the state and elsewhere. They maintain, the Interstate highways, picking up litter and mowing, and do some roadway repair. Some farms nearby hire them at a reduced rate to grow and harvest crops. In one city we have a cattle ranch and catfish farm on the prison premises where they work. They are paid, but very little to provide some incentive and at the same time they are learning a useful trade.

Answer 5

I don't know what planet you are on, but in most states inmates do work and produce the goods used inside the prison system. They make their own foods, clothes, cleaning products and other goods. Inmate industries used to be in competition with private for the public sector;however, labor unions quickly squashed this practice. License plates and highway signs are produced by inmates. In the state in which I live, the inmates even worked the state travel and tourism department and made all the furnishings, drapes and upholstery for state use. We have road gangs here, that clean up highways. Some inmates work with DOT to repair roads. They make their own uniforms. The list goes on and on.
And lighten up some. Some inmates are in for very petty offenses in some states. A shock collar is too much for an inmate who is in for beating the hell out of his dad for beating his mother. Don't you think? Do you think its right to put a shock collar on a 68 year old man who shot a man who permanently disfigured his daughter? He did what we all would love to do had we been in his shoes.
As an ex correctional officer, I have had two inmates in just for that.

Answer 6

Prisons could become self supporting mini cities with severe punishment for infractions. Rule number one: You don't work, you don't eat. #2. Try to run, we shoot.
Those facilities within states that are farm suitable could grow crops for all prisons.
Bi-product: inmates learn agriculture, horticulture, marketing, nutrition.
Others could become medical facilities, teaching medicine and dentistry. Upon completion of training, each graduate would be sent where he was needed most.
Bi-product:Trained doctors, nurses, dentists, pharmacists, medical examiners, psychiatrists.
In other words, whatever industries are needed in the outside world should be taught and implemented within the prison system. Economics, dry cleaning, mechanics, food preparation, computer programming, business management, and the list goes on and on. The prisoners learn an excellent trade that really can support them in society. They can even open up their own business upon release and not have to rely on substandard work.
The prisons no longer have to pay for outside assistance. The cost savings would be enormous. Extra products made in the prison would be placed on the open market at a profit. Incentives would be to have savings banks set up for those who produced most, run by prisoners trained in investing and stock and bonds etc. Supply and demand would take effect. In this way, prisoners would be rehabilitated in a meaningful and supportive manner learning the true value of self support and the tax payer would not have to foot the bill.

Answer 7

Each prison, according to location, should do market research. A manufacturing facility should be built inside the prison walls to manufacture products needed in that specific area. I don't agree with putting inmates out in public FOR ANY REASON! They have already proven that they are completely untrustworthy. This should be an inside industry where no contact with the public is made.

Answer 8

First of all, a great many inmates would far rather be working, but many people, mostly conservatives, favour using incarceration as a "punishment only" tool, rather than creating and maintaining rehabilitative programs that would benefit society by the work done and by offering the inmate the chance to learn a useful trade. The competition for the privilege of having a job in prisons is fierce and fewer than half of all inmates qualify to even get on the list.
I would love to see more facilities integrate agricultural programs and certainly the on-site production of food would reduce the fiscal burdens on the system and improve the overall health of the population, reducing some of the health care costs. but if that happened folks would just be furious about inmates getting fresh veggies and meat when teachers and soldiers qualify for food stamps- an issue that does deserve more attention than it gets.

As for the person who said prisoners are kept in the "lap of luxury" ...I'd like to know What prison have you been visiting? I'd like to arrange for a cherished friend to be transferred there! The top notch medical/dental care I'm always hearing about would be nice!He had a small cavity in one tooth and the answer was to pull the tooth, he needs to see a doctor to renew a prescription for a chronic condition (no, it's not a drug with any recreational potential, it's Prilosec) but can't see the doc because he is not bleeding, and when he does get that script renewed, he'll be paying for it or rather either his mom or I will be doing so. The situation has gotten so bad with prison health care that a federal judge recently ordered the whole department into recievership.
He shares a 6 x 12 cell with one other man, and counts himself lucky that there are not 3 in that cell due to the amazingly overcrowded state of the facility, he gets to leave that cell about 4 hours a day, including shower, chow, dayroom and yard time... and THAT is when the facility is not on lockdown due to drastic understaffing, courtesy of a hiring freeze imposed by the Governor...on lockdown, it really is in the cell, 24/7, food passed through the door, etc the only thing that keeps going is the mail (and by the way, I send him paper,envelopes and postage, unless it is a letter to one's attorney of record AND there is no money on one's books, the prison does not pay for letters)....the educational programs, IF an inmate qualifies AND if there is a slot available in the class.....and surely you see the need to try to educate these people to improve the chances of their becoming productive citizens upon release?
The showers are hot and reasonably clean, but inmates buy their own soap, shampoo, toothpaste, etc... I'm not complaining about that, just making the point that not "everything" is handed to inmates,contrary to popular myth.
The food is a joke, and is barely legal in quantity and quality... most inmates get VERY creative with the top ramen that is available at the commisary...
What Gym/weight room are you talking about? My friend does an aerobic routine in his cell each morning and spends about half his time in the yard running his usual 3 to 5 miles, but there's no equipment available...I'm not complaining about that, but I'd like to know where you get your information.

As to other recreational activities, if there are video games, it has not been mentioned to me... Television in the day room where what to watch is decided by vote...any TVs or radios in the cells were not provided by the state, either the inmate or someone like me purchased them and like quarterly packages and phone calls (collect and incredibly costly) they are a privilige that is EARNED... Surely you can see the value of rewarding good behavior?

By the way, my friend is what they call a model inmate, he has had no disiplinary problems inside.
I could go on and on, but I really want to know what prison all these stereotypes of fun and games are based on, because it sure as hell is not in California!

Answer 9

Prinson's should be self sufficient. They should go back to growing their own foods...etc The county and states should be able to use them to do road work and other tasks like picking up the trash along the road ways (including picking up dead animals). In disaster situations they should be used to fill sand bags and help in any other means as defined by the situation. If they should try to escape shoot them immediately. We have become to easy on the criminals in this country and we should make prison life so bad that they would never want to go back.

Answer 10

yeah sure its a good idea but the state/government moves slow so if you were a polition and where trying to get this done, you better have 20 years on your hand trying. they are not interested in easing the burden or the inmates on the state, they are only interested in locking them up. here in sacramento california where all things start for california if you go to jail when you get out you have to pay for the days you where in jail, if you dont your p.o. can violate you. also if you are elgible for work project when your time is low enough they let you out and you pay to go work in the community. also if you dont pay you get locked up. and finally you have to pay for being on probation as well. think thats enough, well they also have a computer to report to instead of a real life probation office, this is only for people who fit the critearia, kiosk is the name and you have to put in your number it takes your pic and you have to put your finger on a scanner too. this is the future and its here. they have more in store for all who break the law. and you best believe they are not crying about having no money cause they are getting theres. best believe

Answer 11

I agree that we should make more productive and help with their self esteem. The system today is in shambles and costing the taxes millions of dollars. Percent of repeat offenders just keeps climbing. If you find away to start this in one prison I believe it would go along way to fixing a major US problem.