Prison labor solves world’s problems

British jails became so overcrowded in the early 17th century that they began to punish crimes… British jails became so overcrowded in the early 17th century that they began to punish crimes with the sentence of transportation. From thieves to felons, thousands of British criminals were shipped off first to North America and then, starting in 1788, to Australia.

For a long time it worked.

Prisoners were used as slave labor to establish British colonies in the United States and Australia at very little cost to the state. In short, the Brits knew what they were doing when it came to handling the criminal elements of society.

We, in the United States, have a lot to learn from this history of transportation.

Modern standards of human rights and concern for the dignity of man have prevented the United States from making the most of its growing prison population. The prison population in this country has increased by 367 percent since 1980, according to a recent article in Mother Jones.

This increase means that one in 100 American adults, 2.3 million people to be specific, are currently incarcerated.

These prisoners are a financial drain on local, state and federal governments. Sure, a few states employ chain gangs of prisoners to repair roads or dig graves, but prison labor is an untapped resource that we must explore.

The United States today does not have the same options the British did in the 17th century. We can no longer hang people for petty theft, and Australia is no longer a penal colony.

Instead of using the prison population to colonize continents in the Pacific, the United States will have to use its prisoners as a source of cheap domestic labor.

This could solve a number of problems.

First, illegal immigrant labor will no longer be needed in this country. The argument that they performed jobs that no other American would do will no longer be true when 2.3 million Americans can be forced to do any job for far less than even illegal immigrants.

It’s all about killing two birds with one stone, which is why prison labor should also be used to rebuild the entire state of Iowa.

The floods have done a lot of damage to the Hawkeye State, but if some two million prisoners were to take part in the rebuilding effort, we could restart corn and ethanol production in no time.

And if the prisoners tried to escape in Iowa, where would they go? South Dakota? I think not.

But prison labor can be used for far more than picking avocados and rebuilding an entire mid-western state.

Prisoners in Texas already manufacture everything from sinks to showers to bullwhips. In Washington, prisoners package holiday coffees for a Starbucks subcontractor, and some inmates are even employed in call centers.

Prison labor can be used in the creation of almost every consumer product. They can be used in agriculture and construction. The cheapness of their labor is one incentive to use prisoners in the economy, but perhaps the No. 1 reason to use prison labor is that felons have almost no voice in our society.

Mother Jones reported that 48 states don’t allow prisoners to vote, 30 don’t allow felons on probation to vote, and eight states don’t allow many ex-felons to ever vote.

This means that the nation’s new cheap labor force won’t be able to effectively oppose its working for pennies to make bullwhips in Texas. If these people don’t have the ability to vote, then they really would have no power as a union either.

Think about it, the U.S. courts have already thoroughly destroyed the power of unions of voting citizens to strike and bargain collectively. Why even allow non-voting prisoners and ex-felons to organize in the first place?

With introduction of about two million prisoners to the work force, each working for pennies an hour, the minimum wage might even become obsolete. Nothing would pull this economy out of its current slump like the eradication of the minimum wage.

Our nation is already well on its way to achieving this dream. Many states have already privatized individual prisons, and the state of Florida has actually turned its entire state prison system over to a private corporation.

It’s time for the rest of these United States to follow the lead of Florida. Pennsylvania has already pursued limited privatization, but it is not enough.

One day I expect this dream will be realized as chain gangs stretch from the East to West coasts and from the Rio Grande to Niagara Falls.

E-mail Giles at gbh4@pitt.edu.