Should we bring back prison labour?

[tay]

It is done quite successfully in North Korea. Prisoners are forced to work 15 hours a day, 364 days a year. And they're fed a bit of corn meal to beef up those muscles. If they're too sick to work, well just beat them into shape .. make them do 18 hours the next day. It's all done for rehabilitation.

Sounds like WalMart garment workers in Bangladesh only they don't get fed...........



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[Machjo]

We had prison farms in Burritts Rapids Ont., and Joyceville Ont.

They raised their own food, and if the prisoners did not learn a trade, they at least knew what it was to put in a days work, which may or may not contribute to self esteem and breed responsibility.

Joyceville had a good dairy herd, an excellent one I'm told.

There was not concerted movement (i.e. public protests) to close them, and they went a long way in paying for themselves.

BUT:

The GOVERNMENT shut them down. Go figure.

So if the OP means by bringing back prison labour, labour of this type, it would probably be a positive thing.

I'm not impressed by chain gangs nor the effect they have on inmates.

Just sayin.

Yeah, that could be what I had in mind, though learning a trade to boot wou.ld be a plus too of course. Silly government.

 

[Blackleaf]

Hard labour was abolished in prisons in England and Wales in 1948; in Scotland in 1950; and in Northern Ireland in 1953. It should be brought back. Prisoners should be made to walk the treadmill, crush rocks or build roads every day of their sentence.

 

[tay]

Wouldn't prison labour be a socialist tool undermining the 'free enterprise' system or would the 'free enterprise' system run the prisons for their profit?

 

[Blackleaf]

YES!!! Bring back labor prisons (Chain Ganges).. Prison is suppose to be punishment.. not club med.

In the United States such as Arkansas, Texas and Arizona you see prisons picking up garbage along the main state's Internet state, cutting the grass at the local Church, sweeping streets, wash police cars...

Teaches them some work ethics (rehabilitation) before being put back into society.

We have similar things for felons in this country. Many people who commit minor crimes are sentenced to a certain amount of hours - such as 1,000 hours - of unpaid community service in which they have to do things like cut down bramble, dredge canals, mow the lawns in the local graveyard or do litter picking.

 

[SLM]

You know when someone breaks the law, society is harmed, damaged. So then we lock them away in prisons....for which society pays for their food, clothing, and housing, psychological and medical treatment, not to mention footing the bill for legal costs a lot of the time. So I have zero problem with having some kind of prison run (or run in the prison) work program that in any way offsets the ongoing costs to society. And that should be the bottom line, offsetting the costs to society, either during their stay in prison or upon release.

Yes we can have prisoner's picking up trash on the highway, but that involves added costs for security as well. We can have private enterprise produce a product using prison labour, but unless that product sees a significant price reduction to consumers or the "wage" element significantly reduces the cost factor of running the prison, the benefit to society would not be there.

But it is possible, the notion does have it's success stories.

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