The last ten years have seen a shift on both sides of the Atlantic towards a more progressive welfare system, where benefit payments have become linked to work requirements. The policy, part of Bill Clinton’s welfare reforms of the 1990s, has been a notable success both in the US and now in Britain under the Labour government’s New Deal. But there is still a group, totalling nearly two million in the US, which remains exempt from the new system. Prison inmates are the only group still to receive unconditional state support whilst being out of work.
To many this is an acceptable drag on the state and is not something to be questioned. However, there is a view in the US that prisoners should be given the opportunity to help pay for their incarceration by working while being in prison. Leading this argument is the American think-tank The Progressive Policy Institute. In their publication Prison Labor: It’s More than Breaking Rocks, the group highlights a number of recommendations: to allow private sector companies to employ prisoners from state and federal prisons; to allow free movement of goods and services produced by prison labour; and to authorise that all federal prisoners who can work do work, provided that work is available.
The policy is yet to be implemented in the US but has nevertheless come in for criticism from the unions. From a zero-sum perspective this hostility is understandable. The fear is that growing prison labour will come at the expense of law-abiding civilian labour and in the short-term this may well be true. Certain low-skilled labour may lose out to its cheaper, imprisoned equivalent but in wider terms, the growth in productivity that prison workers could offer would increase economic growth, thus creating new jobs for previously displaced workers. Indeed, in the medium term the Progressive Policy Institute argue that, far from creating unemployment, prison labour actually ‘adds to overall GDP.’ Furthermore, this macroeconomic advantage is coupled with likely future benefits to law-abiding citizens, who can expect to see profits from prison labour projects being used to offset costs to the taxpayer for locking prisoners up.
The predicted economic growth is not, however, the only benefit that might come with bringing prisoners into the labour market. The second predicted improvement is related to recidivism. Re-offending is a persistent problem in both the US and the UK and those behind the prison labour reforms believe it could have a real impact in cutting the huge numbers of prisoners who persistently re-offend. The PPI cite a clear correlation between prisoners who had received work experience and training in prison and their ability to stay on the right side of the law once released.
In Britain, the attitude towards inmates becoming employed outside the prison is apprehensive. The links between work experience and a decrease in recidivism are accepted; however, relationships with the private sector are not necessarily seen as the best way forward. The Howard League for Penal Reform acknowledges the need to foster a link between prison work and the experiences an inmate can expect to encounter when he enters the national job market, but their research suggests that public/private initiatives are not always beneficial. The League argues that while some schemes succeed in giving inmates a decent salary and a positive view of legal employment, others are more akin to slave labour, as the private employer simply pays enough to cover costs and keeps wages low.
Regardless of their position, both the Howard League and the PPI seem agreed that there needs to be an overhaul of prison work schemes. It is how thick the dividing line should be between prison and the national job market that is being debated.