Labor, slave? indentured? coerced?

[sexobon]

Originally Posted by DanaC

... If there are financial incentives to locking people up - and once locked up they are available as a pool of cheap labour for the state in which they are imprisoned, then the system is dangerously skewed towards exploitation.

They should pay these people a proper wage - held in lieu until their sentence is complete perhaps - but a wage that matches what they would be paid if they were not incarcerated. ...

[Bold Mine]

The State pays for their incarceration and the taxpayers fund the State. If neither is permitted to recoup some of that loss through services rendered, services that the State would have to pay others to do with taxpayers funding, then the State and taxpayers should be able to deduct from prisoners' wages the full cost of their incarceration.

If the taxpayers have to pay for the prisoners' room, board, medical expenses ... etc. AND pay them competitive wages for labor on top of it --- well, then crime pays doesn't it?