Should prisoners be allowed to earn minimum wage?
I do believe that prisoners should make minimum wage. They are should not be treated as slaves
despite the loophole the 13 amendment leaves by stating “no involuntary servitude except for those who
have been duly convicted of a crime”. This loophole has allowed prisons to become another form of
modern-day slavery by forcing inmates to work for pennies on the dollar and certain states pay their
inmates nothing for their labor. This is a vivid example of exploitation. These people should be there to
pay for a crime and be working on having a better life when they come out not making private companies
and prisons rich. Some say cheap labor is a way for the prison to recoup money spent as the average
inmates’ costs around 30,000 a year to feed and house. I feel like that is great because it puts pressure on
officials to make sure the people in prison really need to be there. Some inmates also have no support
system on the outside which probably played a part in how they ended in prison. Giving them minimum
wage would allow them a chance to get on their feet and decrease recidivism rates. America has the
highest incarceration rate in the world, and we are supposed to be America the free, to me this shows a
breakdown somewhere along the system that need to be fixed.