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Working on databases from prison

(turso.tech)
849 points dvektor | 4 comments | 16 Jun 25 12:32 UTC | HN request time: 1.007s | source
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chatmasta ◴[16 Jun 25 13:29 UTC] No.44289323[source]▶
How does the compensation work? The US prison system has a bit of a nasty reputation when it comes to exploiting prison labor, so I hope those practices aren’t carrying over into these more forward-looking types of initiative… but at the same time, surely Turso isn’t paying full SWE salary?
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laufey ◴[16 Jun 25 13:44 UTC] No.44289450[source]▶
Just curious, why would you expect him to be paid less? I know historically pay is bad for prisoners, but if he's working the same hours and is just as productive as any other employee, shouldn't he be paid the same? I could potentially see paying someone less if they were coming in with much less experience than what's usually hired for in the role, but that doesn't seem to be the case here.
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wffurr ◴[16 Jun 25 13:51 UTC] No.44289497[source]▶
The 13th amendment specifically allows slavery of prisoners.

Edit: I don’t mean to imply the author isn’t paid fairly by Turso. A few posts down, the CEO of Turso asserts that they do pay fairly. The OP in this thread might reasonably wonder about this because several states do in fact use prisoners as unpaid slave labor.

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pyuser583 ◴[16 Jun 25 15:35 UTC] No.44290587[source]▶
It's unclear whether the carve out for prisoners applies to just "involuntary servitude" or "slavery and involuntary servitude."

In practice, only "involuntary servitude" has been used. "Community service" - unpaid - is a very common low level sentence.

The eighth and fourteenth amendments almost certainly forbid enslavement - permanently becoming human property - as a criminal sentence.

Even before the 13th amendment, enslavement as a punishment not common, if it happened at all.

There is almost no case law on the 13th amendment. There are no legal slaves in the US today, and there have not been since the 19th century.

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tristan957 ◴[16 Jun 25 15:51 UTC] No.44290741[source]▶
If we pay people 40 cents an hour just to say they aren't slaves, they they are slaves for all intents and purposes. They are put in poor working conditions working for for-profit companies, making much less than minimum wage. How is it legal for the State to not provide sunscreen or shade for inmates doing outdoor manual labor?

https://theappeal.org/louisiana-prisoners-demand-an-end-to-m...

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brulard ◴[16 Jun 25 22:27 UTC] No.44293956[source]▶
A prisoner costs taxpayers around $50k a year on average in US. If their "take-home" wage is $0.40/h, it may still be generous.
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const_cast ◴[17 Jun 25 06:39 UTC] No.44296272[source]▶
That cost should be taken by our government and the tax payer, as a disincentive to locking people up.

If you can lock someone up and get close to free labor for it, then we're going to start locking a lot of people up. I mean, it's free labor. Which is why we used to give people 20 years for possession of marijuana. What, you think it's just a coincidence we were throwing primarily black Americans away in prison for ludicrous amounts of time where they'll spend their days picking cotton?

That's what happens when imprisoning people is cheap.

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brulard ◴[17 Jun 25 16:22 UTC] No.44300867[source]▶
If a prisoner costs $50k a year, and "if" he would work a job where he would make $50k a year and if he didn't receive a dime from it, does it look to you like a free labor? He merely makes up for what he costs the system, not taking into consideration the likely damage that he has done that made him end up in prison in the first place. And I don't expect prisoners to have anywhere close to $50k salary jobs.
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const_cast ◴[17 Jun 25 18:53 UTC] No.44302533[source]▶
The problem here is you’re really asking for abuse with this mentality.

Prisoners should cost money, lots and lots of money. Otherwise we might just decide to imprison you and extract your labor. And that is exactly why we used to see 20 years for possession.

What, did you think we were just burning money for kicks?

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1. brulard ◴[17 Jun 25 19:49 UTC] No.44303166[source]▶
That's what I tried to refute in my previous comment. So in case I miss something, explain to me how is it economical for someone to enslave you, if it costs him $50k/year and he will almost certainly extract less value from your work (from data i found $20-$25k/year jobs are common for prisoners). That's the exact opposite of free labor. It is very expensive labor. I would agree if the cost was like $10k and you would extract considerably more from the job done. But it is not the case. Maybe in countries where they don't spend much on prisons what you say works. I don't think it does in US or in any other developed country
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2. tristan957 ◴[17 Jun 25 20:51 UTC] No.44303819[source]▶
Government is not a business, nor is it 0-sum. Well-functioning societies with low rates of recidivism invest much more in their prisoners. We should be investing money into prisoners, so that they can re-integrate into society and become successful tax-paying citizens, just like the premise of the blog post we are commenting on. As the co-founder said, the Department of Corrections in Maine takes a cut of the inmate's salary.

NPR did a great article on the prison system in Norway: https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/05/31/410532066/.... They are quoted as spending $90,000 per prisoner with a recidivism rate at half the US rate.

3. const_cast ◴[17 Jun 25 21:03 UTC] No.44303934[source]▶
Cheap labor is still valuable, I don't know what to tell you. 20k salary net is very cheap. I don't know why you think it's expensive, because it's not. What you're maybe missing is the job needs to be done regardless - it's not like if we stop using prisoners for labor that need for labor just - poof - disappears.
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4. brulard ◴[18 Jun 25 11:25 UTC] No.44308892[source]▶
Do you mean that the benefit of cheap labor goes to private companies, but the cost stays with the taxpayers? If so, I see the logic. If we are talking about imprisoning someone, because we get cheaper labor for example inside the prison, than that doesn't make sense. Of course I count that the job needs to be done.

Scenario A (person not imprisoned):

- Prison cost: $0

- Labor cost: $25k (hire someone)

- Total cost: $25k

Scenario B (person imprisoned):

- Prison cost: $50k

- Labor cost: $0 (prisoner does it)

- Total cost: $50k