not a good trend.

I think this is not the way to go They will be taking jobs away from people who do need to pay rent and companies should not profit from prison labor. I do not think it is a good idea to give any kind of personal information to someone who is in prison because they stole people's money or broke into someone's homes. I understand it happens in this country and I think it is a very bad idea.

I think that we should spend more resources in helping prisoner's improve their education and maybe some vocational training if they are interested but not put them to work to make money for corporations.

On one hand, I'd like to see things like this to be able to keep prisoners doing something constructive.
It's also why I had thought that prisons would be a great place to make the crap we get from China.

Then on the other hand, I could see this becoming exploited too easily. All it would take is some collusion between govt and business and you have a ready made slave population.

I guess, seeing as how I don't trust something like this to not become slave labor, I have to say it's a bad thing.

Too bad that you can't trust others to not make something with potential for good turn out bad.

Private AND public prisons are growing at a disturbing rate. We already imprison our citizens at a shocking rate compared to other nations, and it's getting a lot worse, quickly. In Obama's budget for 2013, public prisons are one of the very few areas to receive major increases in funding, indicating that our government EXPECTS to be imprisoning a lot more people than they are right now. That should worry us enough, but private prisons are exploding even more, because they are PROFITABLE.

Obama 2013 Budget: Grow Prisons, Keep Gitmo
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002392306

Financial growth of the private prison industry
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002430630#post4



Profiting from slave labor populations is the goal of the one percent; make no mistake about it. And the police/surveillance state they're also building will make it easy to fill all those new, profitable prison cells... When you're cracking down on minor drug violations/escalating the war on marijuana, and when you're creating a vast surveillance infrastructure that will allow police to see everything people do on the streets AND follow everything they say or do online and on the telephone, it will be no problem at all to fill those slots.

Attaching the imprisonment of human beings to a profit motive is wrong. It is dangerous. It is evil. When prison is a business, it is like any other business; it must GROW. It must GROW to profit its shareholders and justify its existence. We are allowing the creation of an entire business sector that will seek to imprison and enslave us in order to sustain and grow itself and provide profit to its owners.

We should be very, very disturbed by these developments. Corporations would like nothing more than massive prison populations filling their jobs for as little as a few cents per hour.

Wake up, America. Look at this in context. Notice what is being done to our country, now that the corporations have the political power they have always wanted. We are headed for very dark times unless we do.

I'm not sure if it still is. I know someone in prison who has done this kind of work. It isn't slave labor nor does it steal jobs.

My point of view is you can't force them to do it. They should be offered the chance to work. Most of them that would be allowed to work in that kind of a program will be released at some point. Having some marketable skills provides them with a chance to rehabilitate themselves and not end up back in jail or prison.

I have no idea about the prison system in the other 49 states, but Oregon has made major cuts in training programs and social services. If the state is paid for the contract and the inmate are paid as well, the remainder of the money should be put in to programs for rehabilitation like drug and mental health treatment. Coming up with a model for rehabilitating those who can be should be a priority.