Do you believe that the use of prison chain gangs deserves a place in modern society?
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7 Answers
Not in the way they were used in the past, but I have seen where they have prisoners on the side of highways picking up garbage. They dont appear to be wearing chains.
To me, it would be a chance to get out for the day and away from the same routine.
A chain gang does not. A chain gang is an implicit extra punishment.
A voluntary prisoner work force certainly has a place. Prison crews are a great asset working on wildfires and weather emergencies.
In my county, prisoners (both from the county jail and the state prison nearby) are often seen out with rakes, picking up trash, cutting county-owned land, etc.
They all wear their black-and-white prison garb, and they wear vests that say “prisoner”. They are accompanied by two (or more) armed guards.
As I understand it, outdoor (out-of-prison) work details like this are coveted. Not just anyone gets to be outside the walls, so they’re on their best behavior while they’re doing their work. Also, there are certain criminals (violent crimes, for example) that are never allowed out to do work.
It depends. If the conditions are human and up to OSHA standards, yes. I also think we should bring back work farms. Only the healthiest prisoners should do this work. Passing a physical examination would be manditory. And the work should not be contracted privately. This is to avoid the situation we had in the South and other places in the U.S.
One cousin was the sheriff, one a judge, two or three on the county commission and one cousin a construction contractor that would lease prison labor. A need for a road or school building would arise. The cousins on the county commission would issue a no-bid contract to the contractor cousin. The sherrif cousin would start arresting vagrants and minorites on trumped up charges to meet the labor demand. The judge cousin would set obnoxiously high bails for the newly arrested. The contractor cousin would bail the vagrants out and “owe the court” the bail money. The judge cousin would remand the prisoners into the care of the contractor cousin who would keep the prisoners in barracks on their property under guard and behind barbed wire (think Cool Hand Luke). The prisoners would have to work off the debt to the contractor including their “food and rent costs.”
That is how roads, schools and municipal buildings got built in the South for a century after the Civil War. And all the cousins got kickbacks which they poured into Cadillacs and their election campaigns including the campaigns of more cousins to ensure they had all the local government bases coverd—and jobs for life.
If the vagrant earned his freedom too soon, the contractor would contact his cousin the sheriff and re-arrest the vagrant for vagrancy as they were walking out of town. Some people spent fifteen years in those barracks on misdemeanor charges. Some were shot while trying to excape and others died from poor living conditions. All that can be avoided.
I think that it would be better for many prisoners to work out in the fresh air daily growing the food for the prison on the prison work farm with the same legal protections and sanitary laws workers on the outside have. No more than 40 hours a week. No overtime. This would prevent abuse. I don’t think they should be contracted out to do county road and constructin work unless some independent government body outside the county can monitor the transactions closely in order to prevent the abuse described above.
^^Check that guy’s eyes out. He’s one evil mutherfucker.
Man, I don’t like anything about that guy’s face. He’s the poster boy for shit-eating grins, slits for beady eyes, the too-carefully groomed toothbrush mustache over rat’s teeth. That’s the kind of guy you know is trouble and you might as well just shoot him on sight.
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