AN INSIGHT INTO PRISON LABOUR
BY HAMAH HOSEN
These days, consumers are paying more attention to where and how products are made and it’s not uncommon to see products with labels identifying their country of origin, or occasionally a label identifying that it is ethically made. However, the incarcerated may have produced an unexpected array of everyday items. Prison labour is not a new phenomenon. It has been utilised by governments in the hopes to reduce recidivism, and aid in the rehabilitation of the incarcerated. However, in a current environment of over-incarceration, disproportionate policing, and the search for cheap labour, there has been arguments that prison labour is exploitative.
The term prison labour refers to many different types of work at play. It depends on the purpose, the country, and the prison itself. However, the issue at hand is not necessarily the fact that they are working but it is the effectiveness of reducing recidivism, questions on who benefits, and the working conditions itself.
Effectiveness of the prison workforce?
Often the type of work conducted by prisoners comes into the bigger goal of rehabilitation and the reduction of recidivism. In Australia, each state has a prison employment program. However, they all have a similar goal of ensuring that prisoners can “develop work habits and skills” that will benefit them when released. This could include providing them with opportunities to get qualifications or for keeping some of the money they make in savings that are accessed upon release. According to a prison manager in South Australia, “One of the problems with reoffending, why people come back [to prison], is that they have unstable work and they have unstable accommodation”. As such, the prison labour that is attached to these programs can potentially benefit prisoners and consequently their communities.
However, this might not be the case in other countries. There have been reports that the prison job made people feel like they were fulfilling an “existential duty to society” or reminds them that they are human. Yet, Shemkus, in The Guardian noted that it’s important to consider that participation in correctional industries programs in the US are “usually limited to the most trustworthy and motivated inmates”. As such, it may be difficult to assess whether they lead to lower recidivism rates. Another issue that we should consider is the likelihood of an ex-prisoner to find a job after release. In the current job market, especially in developed-western nations, it’s often difficult for people with degrees and qualifications to find jobs. With the added burden of having a criminal record, the chances seem slim to benefit individual prisoners.
Who benefits?
This leads us to question as to who actually benefits from prison work if it may not lower recidivism rates and provide prisoners ‘a second chance at life’. One way to view this question is to consider the costs to use prison labour. While they vary, it has been identified that prison workers often get paid comparably very little to the wages outside of the prison walls. For example, in the U.S, some prisoners are not paid at all for their labour. In cases that they are paid, US federal inmates can earn 12 cents to 40 cents per hour for jobs serving the prison, and 23 cents to USD 1.15 per hour in Federal Prison Industries factories. Similarly, in NSW, Australia, prisoners in 2017 were paid from AUD 24.60 to AUD 70.55 for a 30-hour workweek. This equates to about AUD 0.82 to AUD 2.35 per hour, compared to the Australian minimum wage of AUD 17.70 per hour. Another example is seen in Hong Kong, where prisoners can get paid around HK$800 a month for round-the-clock production, significantly under Hong Kong’s minimum wage.
As such, having inmates perform duties that maintain the prison, can reduce the costs of operating the prison and reduces the risks of bringing in outside personnel. Similarly, there is a reduction of costs involved when employing prisoners to do work that benefits the community. For example, during the California Wildfires in 2018, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation authorized incarcerated people to help. You may think that these types of jobs and the pay grade they receive is justifiable as, after all, they are incarcerated as punishment. Or perhaps you may think it’s justified since the money they do earn is balanced by the fact they don’t pay rent or for food during their time in prison. But the fact that the costs to employ prisoners are considerably low, it can lead to opportunities for them to be potentially exploited and over-worked.
Exploitation?
This was the case recently when countries began to rely on prison labour to produce supplies to combat COVID-19. According to the Brennan Center for Justice, incarcerated people in Missouri are currently being paid $0.30 to $0.71 per hour to manufacture hand sanitizer, protective gowns, and toilet paper. Similarly, in Hong Kong’s Lo Wu prison, it has been reported that prisoners have been asked to work night shifts to produce 2.5m face masks a month. It seems a bit ironic that prisoners, who are at risk of COVID-19, are making essential items that they often do not have access to. It seems even more problematic that they are making these things with incredibly low wages, whereas in-demand products during COVID-19 have often been marked up.
Additionally, we must not also forget about the instances where prison labour is coercive or forced as it adds an added layer of potential exploitations and injustices. For example, the coalition of human rights groups noted that several clothing brands continue to source materials such as cotton using “detention and forced labour involving up to 1.8m Uighur and other Turkic and Muslim people in prison camps, factories, farms and internment camps in Xinjiang”. Additionally, there have also been discussions on prison labour in the US being linked to modern slavery since the 13th Amendment in the US constitution notes that slavery is illegal except when in the use of punishment. With a profit-driven outlook to this situation, there seems to be something slightly off-putting to use cheap labour whether its forced, voluntary or for corporations.
Even if we somehow ensure that prison labour is voluntary, or perhaps ensure that they get paid a better wage, or have better working conditions, or it aids in lowering recidivism, prison labour remains a complex issue. There exist different arguments, reasoning, and circumstances beyond what has been discussed in this article. But perhaps as a takeaway note, we should recognise its values and also its potential harms. Perhaps people should be made aware that things are not just made in Australia or made in the USA, but also made in prison.
