A forum for prison labor economic information sharing and debate.
Petersik’s Key Principles
“My economist’s conclusion is that US prison labor is inefficient; my fuller human conclusion is that US prison labor policy is especially destructive of poor and minority families and communities, approaching genocide.”
~ Thomas Petersik, PhD
In order to facilitate broader social action, We must make legal success a much higher social priority: Rather than pushing persons away, use the criminal justice system to propel persons into their highest possible legal employment and meeting responsibilities.
Four key principles, in inmate labor policy and throughout:
Choose “Normal”
First, just treat incarcerated workers normally. US prison industries today are an example of interfering with the normal market to favor some interests. Virtually all valid complaints about US prison labor and inmate labor force participation can be easily resolved simply by fully integrating both the incarcerated work force and the firms for which they work identically, without any differences in law or regulation, into the normal US civilian economy. In economic policies and practices, rigorously apply to persons in the criminal justice system exactly the same laws, policies, supports, protections, and obligations as for others, no distinctions. In a perfect world, criminal justice and correctional processes would be invisible in effect on legal economic activities, with no identifiable distinctions from other labor and business.
Apply “Otherwise fully qualified”
Second, in hiring at all levels of employment, advancement, management, and ownership, and also in offering education and training of all sorts, apply the rule of “otherwise fully qualified,” on equivalent bases, as for others. Once again, the goal is to not distort, advantage, or disadvantage persons in the criminal justice system who are “otherwise fully qualified.”
No Privileged Stakeholders: No exceptions to the normal market!
Third, the history of prison industries is strewn with business, organized labor, and prison interests leveraging noncompetitive advantages undermining both fairness and competitive efficiency. And every “privilege” different from the normal market to any stakeholder becomes a “tax” on a reasonably harmed other, thereby undermining public and other stakeholder support, and always to the disadvantage of incarcerated workers. Therefore, a practical imperative of success is that no stakeholder be granted any advantage different from the normal competitive market (and once again, moving the incarcerated workforce seamlessly into the overall fabric of the legal economy).
Education and Training Led by State and Federal Education and Training Agencies and not by “Correctional Education or Training”
Corrections education is a last bastion of “separate but equal,” too often poorly funded, poorly and indifferently staffed, obsolete in materials and technology, and neither licensed nor accredited in ways useful to the civilian marketplace. Otherwise qualified incarcerated persons need access to education, training, and skills recognized and accredited by civilian institutions and workplaces, funded and staffed as normal integrated parts of state and Federal education and training budgets. In general, inmates and others in the criminal justice system should participate in education and training programs “outside the walls” in the same civilian locations utilized by state and Federal education and training agencies. (Note: Given that the vast majority of inmates today return to their communities tomorrow, we find security arguments against education release hugely overstated).