New law requires state agencies to utilize prison labor whenever possible for goods and services

[NNN0LHI]

http://blogs.seattleweekly.com/dailyweekly/2012/06/washington_inmates_banned_from.php

Washington Inmates Banned From Making Sexy Outfits for Female Prison Guards
By Keegan Hamilton Mon., Jun. 11 2012 at 7:30 AM Categories: Politics, State of Washington

<snip>The new law is the result of HB 2346, sponsored by Rep. Maureen Walsh, a Republican from Walla Walla. The bill, approved almost unanimously by the state house and senate, proposed a minor but significant change to an RCW that requires state agencies to utilize prison labor whenever possible for goods and services.

[LiberalLoner]

1. Jesus the 1% is going to turn all of us into prisoners one way or another

Just to have the cheapest labor possible.

Germany's 3rd reich will have nothing on the house of horrors that will be unleashed in this nation by the corporate overlords.

And right-wingers think it's all good.

[msongs]

2. Charles Dickens come back, we need you! Failures of dems once again to stand up for

simple human values - "approved almost unanimously"

[hifiguy]

3. This is, unfortunately, perfectly permissible under the 13th Amendment

which reads as follows:

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
_________
(emphasis added)

Gawd's teeth. Slavery in another form is coming back big time.

[denverbill]

4. Good, so we have privatized prisons demanding 90% occupancy, and free prison labor.

Pretty soon we'll all just be in jail working for free while our prison overlords contract us out.

[tralala]

8. Not "free" but certainly below minimum wage

If you were wondering where the American proletariat went... well, they went to prison.

[NNN0LHI]

9. Below the wages of someone working in a third-world sweatshop

And as an added bonus they get to use the Made In USA label on what they produce.

Nice, eh?

Don

[Brickbat]

5. Shameful. Prison labor is slave labor.

[sarcasmo]

6. #1 at putting people in prison, no other country is going to catch the United States

[haele]

7. Isn't there something in the Constitution in the first place against this sort of thing?

Yeah, this is because the outfits were "sexy" - too tight in the seams and no one had pattern skills, from what it sounds like - but the inmates should not have been making outfits at all...

Let's turn over all the decent paying jobs for civilians and contractors to provide services to the prisoners, and just pay one contractor a huge amount of money to oversee a bunch of otherwise harmless "trustee" inmates toil away during their prime working years for just $2.00 a day during their 10 - 20 year imprisonment due to the "War on Drugs" or some other "Three Strikes" bullshit.

People bitch how "illegal immigration" takes jobs from the community, prison labor does the same thing. The contractors who use prison labor pretend they're saving the state money by only charging half of what outside labor would charge, but the state and local economy loses the tax base with the lost jobs and depressed wages. What company that provides services requiring a workforce of at least 10 skilled people at $13 - $25 an hour ($30 - $45 an hour total cost by contract) with admin/overhead of 4 or 5 staff and the factory and office costs can compete with even one $100K a year manager working out of an office at the prison, a skeleton staff of three or four managers at around $30 (total cost by contract) an hour - or even just assigned prison guards, and the 10 prison laborers picked to get the minimal training do the skilled job for $2 or $3 a day?

Tailoring is an art form, and takes time to master. It's also not a skill that's called for very much on the outside anymore, as most people are pretty happy with walking around in clothes "off the rack".

And that's not the only type of "work" now being done by a captive prison workforce.


Haele

[bongbong]

10. even easier

> during their 10 - 20 year imprisonment due to the "War on Drugs" or some other "Three Strikes" bullshit.

They don't even need the pretense of "War On Drugs". Just pull a driver over, bust his taillight, and put him in jail for a year under some new repig-passed "Driver Safety" law. Endless free labor.

Think it's a insane over the top example? I would say so too, but current reality would have seemed equally over the top to just about anybody in America (right or left) 30 years ago.

[HopeHoops]

11. Don't we have enough license plates?

Just put them in striped suits and throw them out on a chain gang. Prisoners get paid about as much in a day as it costs them to make a 1 minute phone call. That's just wrong. That's really wrong.