A friend of my wife recently joked about the paltry child-support checks she receives from the father of her 9-year-old daughter. Her laughter caught my attention, because the derisive tone suggested that she had long ago lost the ability to cry about it.
“It was nine dollars and something,” she said. “But I guess I shouldn’t complain, because it was better than the month before. That one was six dollars and something.” The actual check, dated Sept. 7, 2005, was $9.30.
The father of the child was convicted of forgery in May 2004 and is currently serving time at Utah State Prison. His mandatory release date is in May 2009. I called the prison, seeking information about his work status and salary, and though his case worker couldn’t reveal personal details over the phone, he did give me a rough picture of prison labor.
“Most of the inmates in that unit make 40 cents an hour,” said the caseworker, who asked that I not use his name. “We have more inmates than jobs, so we try to spread the work around. Most of the guys put in four hours a day as janitors, food handlers, tier washers, and other basic maintenance positions.”
At 40 cents an hour, inmates are earning $1.60 a day. Assuming that an inmate works five days a week, he makes $32 a month. In that context, the $9.30 child support payment starts to make sense.
As low as the prison wages are in Utah, Colorado’s are even bleaker. Convicts who work for the state of Colorado (in general prison maintenance jobs) are capped at 60 cents a day. Inmates who work for private industries fare only slightly better.
Given the public’s strong biases about criminals, I know it’s futile to argue about the fairness of the drug war that has filled up our prisons, the tendency of our system to prey disproportionately on minorities and the poor, our draconian sentencing laws, the devastating impact on the children of inmates, and the evils that are perpetrated when we allow private industry, with its profit motives, to own and operate prisons.
Instead of worrying about justice, let’s consider the issue of prison wages from the perspective of our own pocketbooks. When we farm out workers to private industry at slave rates, taxpayers foot the bill for overhead, transportation, guards, health care, etc. Corporations are attracted to prison labor for the profit margins.
Low wages in prisons drive down wages everywhere. Prisons compete with deplorable Third World countries for corporate contracts, and that hurts the working poor and forces more of them to resort to state assistance.
Most prisoners already are compelled to give the bulk of their tiny wages to their victims and/or children, but if they actually earned a fair income, those payments could have some effect. Instead, the mothers of their children often end up on welfare, many live in subsidized housing, many of their children are receiving free lunches at school, and we’re all forced to support these families.
The victims, if they’re lucky, have insurance or their own finances to help them get restored. If they’re not lucky, they too rely on the taxpayers to keep them afloat.
These are just some of the direct costs. The long-term costs of throwing inmates into prisons and isolating them from the community are harder to measure. From a rehabilitative standpoint, I have to believe that everyone would benefit if prisoners earned a fair wage and could use it to support their families and victims. They would get a sense of accomplishment and connection; the recipients would be better off; taxpayers wouldn’t have to carry so much of the load; and the prisoners might be better prepared for life on the outside.
My wife’s friend has given up the hope of ever receiving real help from her daughter’s father, but the rest of us can’t afford to give up hope.
