alt Hacker Newsthey shouldnt be paid at all. they're in prison for a reason. they have a debt to society. a great many of those people didnt do 'one bad thing' then got caught. it was just the last bad thing they were caught for. any many of them did 'the bad thing', then continued doing other bad things up until the point they were put in prison.
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I don't agree with your "slave labor is ok if the slave committed a crime" position, and find it morally indefensible.
Punishment is only one reason of inprisonment, another is correction. Majority of prisoners do not serve lifetime sentence, at some point they wikl return to society and ideally you don't want them to get right back to what they have been doing before because they have no other options or they don't know nothing better.
In many cases, their earnings are confiscated as part of restitution.
Ah yes. American Prisons prioritizing punishment over resocialising is the reason why criminals so often continue to hurt society after they have been released.
Then we have people who demand to double down on the punishment and wonder why these people never stop breaking the law.
Americans are a marvelous bunch. Thanks Dog I live in a first world country.
> they're in prison for a reason.
Often that reason is "too poor to afford proper representation" or "looked vaguely like the actual criminal" or "took a plea bargain because the justice system was threatening them with an immorally-long wait for a trial and a likely worse outcome".