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In Maine, prisoners are thriving in remote jobs

(www.mainepublic.org)
245 points voxadam | 1 comments | 22 Sep 25 22:51 UTC | HN request time: 0.206s | source
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taurath ◴[22 Sep 25 23:07 UTC] No.45340733[source]▶
If we get serious about actual rehabilitation in prisons instead of punishment there’s never been a better time to be able to learn just about anything on your own time. But we’d have to stop dehumanizing criminals. Dehumanization seems to be the trend that the US is leading on right now.

We can also be concerned about the incentives for prison labor - for profit prisons and all the many service providers that get paid a mint. Phone calls in many prisons are like $10. Labor gangs and the such. It’s just horrible how badly we treat people in the US for some middleman to make money.

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1. gchamonlive ◴[22 Sep 25 23:28 UTC] No.45340906[source]▶
> Dehumanization seems to be the trend that the US is leading on right now.

Here in Brazil criminals are extremely dehumanized as well and used as electoral fodder. Leave them to rot in amounts proportional to the anger of the population against criminality as it rises again in the country, or at least the perception of it.

They are used to quickly let this social pressure out without actually solving anything and without making the population safer.

It would be really nice if remote work could serve as a viable vector for rehabilitation. Everyone involved would benefit from it, we just have to beware of the wrong kinds of incentives, so that people don't get thrown in jail only to serve as cheap remote labor later.