Poor? On Assistance? No fun for you!

In the latest move to make being poor more miserable than it already is, the state of Kansas has banned the use of welfare benefits for going to the movies, the swimming pool or even buying underwear if it could be characterized as "lingerie." No lace trimmed undies for you, young woman. Why? According to one legislator, because being on assistance means "you're sort of less than other people." Yup, she said that. Less than other people. Because apparently being poor is a moral issue. You just wouldn't be poor if you were 'good' rather than.....poor. Here's the story.

Halden Prison - how rehabilitation should work

I write a lot about the prison-industrial complex, particularly as it had developed in the United States. That's also the basis for my forthcoming novel, Laborforce. In the novel, corporations are able to cherry pick inmates based on particular skill sets needed at any given time. When I first began writing, I thought the premise was far-fetched. Sure, I knew that the cherry office furniture that graced the law library at the state agency where I worked more than twenty years ago was produced by Pennsylvania prisoners under the label Big House. But that wasn't for profit - that was a way to produce office furnishings for government offices. And it seemed a step up from chain gangs and pressing license plates in terms of skill development and marketability post-incarceration. What I never imagined was artisans products produced by prisoners for private industries. And yet, that's what is happening today in the United States, as my prior posts show. The premise isn't so far-fetched at all. But there is a better way - a way that encourages rehabilitation and reduces recidivism without also creating a modern day prison plantation. The most advanced, most humane prison in the world may be Halden Prison, outside Oslo, Norway. there prisoners engage in crafts, read, play board games and serve out their sentences in an environment that looks more like a college campus that a prison - certainly it looks nothing like a US prison. Inmates learn skills, train for work they can perform once released and generally are treated like human beings who made a mistake rather than as chattel useful only for making a buck for profiteers. It's quite refreshing and also happens to work.

The morality behind Prison Architect

Back when my youngest was a young teen, we bought him a computer game called Theme Park. The object was to build an amusement park in a way that drew crowds, got them playing games of chance and eating junk food and made a hypothetical profit. It was fun and relatively innocent. The worst that could happen was that some imaginary theme park guests threw up their sodas on a ride. So when I came across a new computer game called Prison Architect, I taken aback. Have we really sunk to the point where we've made a literal game out of the prison-industrial complex? Apparently so. As explained in a recent New Yorker article, the game in which you design your own penitentiary - complete with execution chamber - is making millions. How sick is that? We've devolved from carousel design to death room design in just a decade or so. The game includes scenarios like preparing for a killer's execution. It's a sign that we've lost touch with our humanity when everything is a game, when the idea of putting a human being to death is some kind of entertainment. And yet, what can we expect from a culture that so devalues a large segment of the citizenry and thinks of them as nothing more than a resource to be exploited for profit. Prisoners work for nothing or a few dollars per day, citizens face jail over unpaid parking fines, and companies big and small benefit from our high rate of incarceration. It should come as no surprise that someone made a game out of it. One does wonder, though, what's next? Which will we see first? Plantation Owner, in which the object is to buy slaves as cheaply as possible to run the farm? Or will it be Concentration Camp, in which the object is genocide?

Hipster Artisanal Goods Produced by Prison Labor

If nothing else, the Hipster prides himself in eating, drinking and otherwise consuming artisanal goods produced in small batches - preferably locally grown, brewed or handcrafted. It's all a very anti-establishment, anti-mass-consumerism sustainable approach. The beer is brewed down the street, the coffee comes from small-farm, fair trade exchanges, the clothing is used or handcrafted. Retailers like Whole Foods have embraced the Hipster, promising partnerships with local farmers, craftsmen and producers. My local Whole Foods, for example, carries locally caught Georgia Wild Shrimp and hand-crafted soaps from Savannah based Nourish and a large selection of other products produced, grown or caught within 50 miles or so. It's enough to warm a Hipster's righteous heart. But wait. What if that tilapia in the fish case came from a fish farm on prison grounds where inmates are lucky to make $1.50 per hour for tending giant fish tanks full of dinner? How would our Hipster feel? Would he shrug and think that at least the tilapia on his dinner plate isn't being caught by literal slaves somewhere in Southeast Asia, whose masters are overfishing fragile waters? Or would he at least worry that the fish farm is undercutting other fish farms that have to pay - gasp - minimum wage? A recent bit of investigative journalism by Pacific Standard sheds light on the dark origins of some Hipster favorites, including some of that Whole Foods tilapia. In "From our Prison to Your Dinner Table," reporter Graeme Wood shows how everything from cuddly children's stuffed animals to wine grapes are sewed, grown, picked and otherwise tended by cheap prison labor on the vast grounds of Colorado prisons by an inmate population of around 4,000 convicts. The products may be artisanal in the sense that they are small batch and hand-crafted, but whatever other benefits the prisoners may receive from the work they perform, it's hardly fair trade.