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Idea to send: |
| Topic | Prison Work Force |
| Content | Why don't we utilize the prison workforce more?
1. It would cut down on costs, because we are normally forced to pay a higher wage to contract labor forces.
2. It would cut down on use of illegal immigrants, because their number 1 utilization is in physical labor.
3. It would give the well-behaved, deserving prison trustee workforce a much needed outlet, source of social interaction outside prison walls (Which is necessary for rehabilitation and reintroduction into society), practice honing a marketable job skill that they would utilize once released back into society, and would help recover some of the costs being spent on maintaining prisons.
Think of it this way: We give inmates libraries, computer labs, weight rooms, and exercise yards where they expend mental and physical energy... but we don't make any money off of that energy. It's wasted.
Let's still give them the same outlets for physical energy, but utilize every bit of it to financially help the state! In this way, our prison populations help bring money TO the state, not just drain it.
Yes, yes, I know we already have some programs like this in place, but there are not NEARLY enough. Instead of stamping license plates and cleaning up highways, why can't they repaint public buildings? Mow and weedeat public landscaping? Give motivational speeches to school children? Lay asphalt and concrete? etc.
Obviously violent criminals and sex offenders would need to be kept seperate from the public and other workforces, but there are still MANY jobs they could do within a secure, confined space, such as manufacturing, basic clerical work, etc.
Basically, going to prison should not be a sentence of "sitting in a box". It should be sentence of hard labor in a factory or workforce setting, giving back to the society they took away from. |
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