If you ever notice the do-gooders always want to "retrain" prisoners as welders, bricklayers, electricians and as you point out computer programers. I say why not "retrain" them as brokers, investment bankers or lawyers! :o)
Tom L.
"John K. Taber" wrote:
> Doug Henwood said:
> Subject: Fwd: USE OF PRISONERS for productive work
>
> <
> [Thanks to Kirsten Nielsen; from the Wall Street Journal]
>
> USE OF PRISONERS for productive work simmers as an issue for unions.
>
> The number of prisoners doing work -- like making
> gloves or furniture -- rose to about 80,000 in 1998, mostly in state
> prisons, from 76,500 in 1997, says the Correctional Industries
> Association in Baltimore. The AFL-CIO backs the idea of inmates working
> but wants it done "carefully." Low-wage or unpaid "prison inmates are
> just one more group being added to the ever-expanding list of sources
> for cheaper labor," says Joshua Miller, an economist for the American
> Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
>
> Guards who are AFSCME members find busy prisoners easier to
> manage, but the AFL-CIO says the union is losing work like computer-data
> entry to inmates. The Federal Bureau of Prisons notes that Congress bars
> an adverse effect on any one industry by the 100 federal-prison
> factories.
> >
>
> Years ago I wrote a paper opposing Ribicoff's computer crime bill,
> and I touched on this very subject.
>
> In 1980 prison programming was a very small but growing industry
> for the Feds. Leavenworth programmed all sorts of applications,
> including fund disbursing programs, for the Dept of Agriculture,
> in COBOL (now, that is true punishment).
>
> But Federal prison industry is only part of the story. My
> impression was that the states were ahead of the Feds in using
> what amounts to slave labor for computer programming. At that
> time, Minnesota had a bill in Congress to permit interstate
> commerce for computer programs written in prison. The Federal
> law blocking interstate commerce in prison produced goods
> was seen as a detriment to the growth of such industry. I was
> unable to follow the bill closely enough to see if it passed.
>
> Since I was a programmer, I felt very threatened. The proposed
> "crime" was so badly defined that it invited abuse. In effect
> it criminalized computer programmers by defining common practices
> as offenses. As a result, management and an obliging prosecutor
> could put any of us in prison for no other reason than management
> irritation (the General Treedle offense for those of you who remember
> Catch-22). In my opinion, this is what happened between Intel and
> Randal Schwartz a few years ago. And learning that I could be forced
> to write COBOL programs for state governments or the Feds didn't
> cheer me up.
>
> I think that the Federal Bureau of Prisons is being disingenuous.