Opinion: There’s a good reason prison labor looks an awful lot like slave labor

To the editor: Earlier this year, writing for the conservative National Review, the same Chandra Bozelko, who now extols the virtue of compulsory prison labor at what she asserts is minimum wage, wrote:

“Certainly, prison labor walks and quacks like slavery. The Prison Policy Initiative found that the average inmate’s wage is 93 cents an hour — and can go as low as 16 cents — when they’re employed by private companies that use prison labor. I was a correctional laborer for almost six years. … After deductions, I earned between $5.15 and $8.75 per week.”

All able-bodied federal prisoners are “required” to work. Thanks to a gaping loophole in the 13th Amendment, it’s legal for corporate America to exploit it. But make no mistake — compulsory prison labor is slave labor.

Ernest A. Canning, Thousand Oaks

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To the editor: The belief that prison labor is a lot like slave labor might have gotten its start when the pay the inmates receive was exposed.

A common wage paid to a working inmate is 12 cents an hour. Inmates who work as firefighters in California pull down the handsome wage of $1 per hour when they are actually battling a fire.

Whoever wrote the headline for this article left out the best part. The print headline read, “Why prison labor isn’t slave labor.” It should have read, “Why prison labor isn’t slave labor — but it’s close.”

Rob Macfarlane, Newport Beach

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