Comment by Vespasian
3 years ago
Even for life sentences I believe it makes sense to have prisoners work and earn some small privileges inside.
For one its possible to encourage good behaviour by threatening to take it away but also because a sense of purpose and achievement is important for a healthy mental state. That's true for incarcerated people as well and a stable population reduces enforcement costs and churn among the guard personal.
No one's arguing with that (though, of course, the devil is in the details...)
Just, the combination of:
- Denying people the practical ability to contact their loved ones except by phone
- Charging a price that is very high compared to outside rates for this contact (prohibitively so)
- Paying prisoners a tiny fraction of outside rates, such that
- Only people who can depend upon money coming from outside can contact family
is both cruel and probably increases recidivism.