I'm actually amazed at the statistic that only 3% return to prison. There are actually very little resources for those getting released, and if your entire family and friends are gone, you have no support network to fall back on. Perhaps getting out above retirement age gives you access to more charities and a small state pension that will allow you to find a place to live and buy food.
One of the saddest cases I know of is a man who did 50 straight years then needed money when he got out, so his daughter persuaded him to go shoplifting with her and he got arrested immediately and sent back for another three years.
Surely there would be an indictment alleging what he did?
I am of the opinion that incarceration should be "for the benefit of society"; that the person should be behind bars because because they are a threat to society. If they're done with thing because, they may do it again. And that incarceration should be working helping that person become one that would _not_ repeat that crime. Life sentences should only ever be the case for someone that will always be a threat to society.
I get that people want closure/revenge, and understand that. I'm sure I would feel the same in many cases. But ... it just doesn't help anything. And sure there's an argument for it being preventative (don't do the crime or you'll do the time), but lots of studies have shown that's has little validity.
> None of us want to be defined solely by the person we were in our youth, or by the worst thing we ever did. The men serving life without parole feel the same way.
Fair, but if it's likely that you're the type of person that _will_ do catastrophic harm to society again if you get out, then there's a fair argument that you should not be out.
Sure, but general deterrence benefits the society, too. Case in point: for many years, California effectively decriminalized petty theft, and it caused a lot of grief to normal people. That's an argument for harsher punishment: even if most shoplifters / porch pirates / smash-and-grab people are not hardened criminals, you want to send a message to anyone contemplating that lifestyle.
To give another example: almost no one gets behind the wheel with the intent to kill. But if you severely punish drunk / negligent driving, more people will pause before doing it.
How do you know whether a murderer won't be a repeat murderer?
Wow.
How do you empathize, or trust that it's not just a ploy to try to get out?
I think you'll find that you're making assumptions that it would benefit you to avoid making.
These people have also already shown their character, at least at one point in their life. They're capable of heinous acts and being deceptive is pretty in line with that
It's a much higher bar for them to clear than everyone around me needs to
It's not like they'll have a retirement fund.
Those criminals need to be in jail for life.
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, *except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted*, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”It was used en masse with turn of the century vagrancy laws to arrest Black people who didn't have enough cash on hand, then send them to other states to work and/or die in coal mines as essentially slave labor.
Even happened to children who committed minor crimes.
The 13th Amendment provides incentive to incarcerate, and with private prison industries existing period, that incentive probably should not exist at all.
Permitted, not "enshrined". It doesn't mandate it, it allows it. And despite being allowed, all US convicts are paid wages. No one is sentenced to labor, hard or otherwise.
It isn't. It's just often preferable to sitting in a cell 23 hours per day.
>The "wages" are typically something like 25 cents per hour,
Why should a felon be permitted to earn whatever it is that you think they should be paid (the wages of a free man)? They are being punished. One of the aspects of the punishment is that they can't go out and get a good-paying job.
> and sentences can be extended if you refuse to work
This is a blatant lie. Sentences can't be extended without additional convictions. While it's not impossible to be charged with crimes committed in prison (murders occur there often enough), no one's being convicted of "refusing to work in prison".
I know that this blew up a few years on reddit, but maybe you should learn about it from more reputable sources.
This is technically true but substantively false. Fixed duration sentences in most US jurisdictions (life sentences are different) are come with essentially automatic substantial reductions for good behavior which are removable for poor behavior with minimal process, avoiding the hassle of judicial process for offenses in prison, and frequently “refusing work” is a cause for removing those reductions.
So, technically, its not an “increased sentence” for refusing work. But, in practice, that’s exactly how it functions.
Alabama: Refusing to work is a "medium-level violation", which can be punished by forfeiting good time, which extends their sentence. See https://governor.alabama.gov/assets/2023/01/EO-725-Good-Time..., https://www.al.com/news/2025/12/alabama-prison-inmates-lose-...
Louisiana: Inmates are often sent to solitary confinement (among other punishments) if they refuse to work. https://apnews.com/article/prisons-labor-lawsuit-investigati...
Tennessee: "Any prisoner who refuses to participate in such programs when work is available shall have any sentence reduction credits received pursuant to the provisions of T.C.A. § 41-2-123 or T.C.A. § 41-2-146 reduced by two days of credit for each one day of refusal to work. [...] Pursuant to T.C.A. § 41-2-120(a), any prisoner refusing to work or becoming disorderly may be confined in solitary confinement or subjected to such other punishment, not inconsistent with humanity, as may be deemed necessary by the sheriff for the control of the prisoners, including reducing sentence credits pursuant to the procedure established in T.C.A. § 41-2-111. Such prisoners refusing to work, or while in solitary confinement, shall receive no credit for the time so spent. T.C.A. § 41-2-120(b)." This whole page is a particularly horrific read. https://www.ctas.tennessee.edu/eli/punishment-refusing-work
> Why should a felon be permitted to earn whatever it is that you think they should be paid (the wages of a free man)?
Yes, anyone working should be paid at least minimum wage. If we don't think they should earn that much then we simply shouldn't allow them to work. It should not be legal to force anyone to work (I know this will require a constitutional amendment to enforce).
The reason, beyond the obvious that slavery is immoral, is that allowing forced labor for close to zero pay incentivizes incarcerating more people for longer sentences to increase the size of this nearly free labor pool.
https://www.bop.gov/inmates/custody_and_care/work_programs.j...
I suppose you could consider 15 cents an hour “paid wages”, but to me that’s just a bad veneer for what our system truly is.
I am neither of those things. And Google will only bring up half-assed activist blogs. Go find a Westlaw or LexisNexis terminal, search there instead. No one's being sentenced to labor in US civilian courts (can't say for courts martial, maybe some jackasses committing crimes while in the army are sentenced to labor).
>I suppose you could consider 15 cents an hour “paid wages”,
If it is money, and the amount is above zero, then it is not my consideration that it's "paid wages", it is empirical fact. Words have objective meanings, except for leftists.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labor_in_the_United_Stat...
Arkansas, Georgia, and Texas did not pay inmates for any work whether inside the prison (such as custodial work and food services) or in state-owned businesses. Additionally, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and South Carolina allowed unpaid labor for at least some jobs.
It’d be inaccurate to say that no one is paid for their labor, but it’s dishonest to claim that all prisoners receive wages, especially when it’s not always the case, it’s an order of magnitude below the federal minimum, and they are forced to pay above-market prices for necessary goods, as others have pointed out.
You can also review Council v. Ivey about parole denial to continue forced labor through one of those fancy terminals.
I'm not going to preach about my friend being a victim of a cruel system or whatever. He deserved to be punished, no doubt about it. He committed crimes; there were victims to those crimes. My feeling, however, is that the people of Missouri are the victims, the taxpayers. They had to pay to jail a dude for 20 years (they paid for his college education, too, through some sort of convict-college program). I'm confident there's a better way to punish/rehabilitate non-violent offenders that doesn't cost the tax payers 20 years of jailing.
Funny-not-funny tidbit: My friend was released in early-2021. He was released after serving 20 years, only to be "locked down" on the outside because of Covid.
> They're a fun read.
Strong agree.
Moot
Edit: We've got a Project Hail Mary movie how about Bobiverse