[jeffkrol]

Should prisoners make military equipment?

“The inmates, they’re some of the best workers I’ve seen,” Dixon said. “They’re focused, show up for work on time and are motivated. We’ve seen nothing but good work.”

CNN reported Thursday that Federal Prison Industries, which had contracts to produce 600,000 helmets for the Army and 100,000 lightweight helmets to the Marine Corps, has stopped all helmet manufacturing.

Federal Prison Industries also agreed to waive preferential status that gives it right of first refusal on U.S. government contracts, CNN reported.

Prison Factories: Slave Labor for the New World Order?

The Justice Department reported in August that there are nearly 1.6 million men and women incarcerated in the United States -- currently the highest incarceration rate in the entire world. This startling figure tops off a decade of rapid expansion of America's prison population, fueled by a "war on drugs" that is steadily undermining the rights so succinctly expressed in the Bill of Rights more than 200 years ago.

As 1995 drew to a close, one out of every 167 Americans was in prison or jail, compared to one out of 320 in 1985, when the crack cocaine trade began to proliferate. The total number of inmates has more than doubled in the past decade, and we just can't seem to build enough prisons to keep them all in.

Add the trend towards private prison facility management and corporate use of prison labor, and you have an extremely unsettling social situation. Are we witnessing the creation of a slave labor force for the corporate New World Order?

Quite possibly, if the Oakhill Correctional Institute in Dane County, Wisconsin serves as a model. Seventeen inmates crowded in a makeshift basement factory in that facility crank out over a million dollars' worth of office chairs per year, in exchange for wages ranging from twenty cents to $1.50 per hour.

http://www.urban.org/uploadedPDF/410854_atkinson_rostad.pdf

CONCLUSION
There is a lot that can and should be done to make sure that workers and businesses
benefit in the New Economy. Opposing inmate labor is not one of them. In fact, limiting inmate
labor would lower economic growth, while reducing the effectiveness of prisons to move
prisoners to productive and law-abiding lives when they are released.

At least they'll be used to the low wages

[mikemike]

They also get room and board as well as 3 meals a day

The state prison here has a rodeo twice a year and it is also like a crafts fair because there are quite a few prisoners who have developed excellent woodworking skills. You can get furniture there that is made from real wood that is 1000x better than the plasterboard garbage you find in stores. They also grow a lot of their own food and build most of the stuff that they need in the prison so they are practically self sufficient instead of outsourcing everything to Wackenhut.

[jeffkrol]

They also get room and board as well as 3 meals a day

The state prison here has a rodeo twice a year and it is also like a crafts fair because there are quite a few prisoners who have developed excellent woodworking skills. You can get furniture there that is made from real wood that is 1000x better than the plasterboard garbage you find in stores. They also grow a lot of their own food and build most of the stuff that they need in the prison so they are practically self sufficient instead of outsourcing everything to Wackenhut.

You do realize this goes against the basic "law" of gov. not competing w/ private enterprise.............