Sure, that's probably all true. I'm just trying to contrast the reality of living outside of prison (a substantial amount of money goes to living expenses) to living in prison (you have or should have no expenses).

To me if you pay prisoners a normal wage it would seem too much like a reward for breaking crime, given that we pay all their normal expenses as well.

Going to prison is no reward. No sane person would go to prison for the chance to earn minimum wage.

Furthermore, as the article states, prison services are substandard or entirely missing. Either fix that and we can talk deductions above normal taxes or allow the prisoners to earn minimum wage or more and to keep their earnings.

> No sane person would go to prison for the chance to earn minimum wage

It's not minimum wage. It's minimum wage plus room and board plus shitty food and healthcare. Even for someone young and healthy, albeit uneducated, a few years in prison could yield a nest egg. For someone with a chronic health condition, getting sentenced could be the smart move. (This is true even today, depending on your city and state.)

The price of prison labor, what companies and the government pay for it, should be no less than prevailing wages. Ideally, indexed to the county the prison is in. What the prisoner is paid out of that should deduct some amount, again ideally related to a local cost-of-living index, that goes into a rehabilitation fund.

Pros:

minimum wage (but not really), shitty room, shitty food, shitty healthcare

Cons:

minimum wage (yeah, not really), shitty room, shitty food, shitty healthcare,

AND

- loss of freedom,

- loss of reputation,

- loss of privacy,

- no prospect of advancement,

- no raises,

- even shittier neighbors (on average),

- holidays without your family,

- almost impossible to get a job when you're out,

- no vacation or other time off,

- no or almost no sex or intimacy with your loved ones,

- being treated like shit every day,

- the threat of solitary,

- being in solitary,

I could go on, but why bother.

Poverty is no peach either. Do you really think there aren’t Americans for whom that situation, plus the promise of tens of thousands of dollars to one’s name in a few years, would not be an insane choice?

It’s crap that’s reality. But it’s true, and between the prison population and those folks, I would argue for prioritising the latter. (Naturally, it’s better to do both.)

Still not finding this a persuasive argument. If there are such people, they are an insignificant proportion of both poor people generally and the prison population particularly.

I mean, really?

You want to trade your freedom and clean criminals record for minimum wage plus room and board?

No sane person would do that.

Prisoners should receive their wages less income taxes. Anything else creates a moral hazard, as we have seen with prisons for profit.

That doesn’t mean wages could not be garnished if there is a judgement against the prisoner.

>a substantial amount of money goes to living expenses

Then charge them for those living expenses. Pay them a normal wage for outside, and then charge them what it would cost to rent a tiny room you share with another person plus the real cost of a boiled egg plus a peanut butter sandwich. I imagine they'd end up with something like 90% of their wage left.

Ah, being forever branded as an undesirable, being abused by staff, losing your ability to walk outside when you want and have contact with regular people, having very little to do for ridiculous amounts of time, plus having to take care not to drop the soap to not get surprise sex

Truly better and more rewarding than being marginally poorer outside

It sounds pretty miserable, but there are plenty of people of have committed no crime, work, pay their expenses, and are miserable. Yet the government pays no bills and provides no help.

> Yet the government pays no bills and provides no help.

They are not wards of the state nor are they locked up. That’s a huge win.

The correct solution isn’t to make prisoners more miserable, but to make everybody less miserable.