Legacy Site Term Paper

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corporations' access to prison labor. Questions: How, why and whom do we imprison? How is money best spent? Five sources. APA.

Corporations and Prison Labor

Most people's familiarity of prison labor comes from the media, particularly from movies. Chain gangs working on railroads or highways can be seen in movies such as 'Cool Hand Luke' and 'O' Brother Where Art Thou.' Another popular movie, 'The Shawshank Redemption' depicted the use of convict labor for other types of contract labor such as roof tarring. Manufacturing automobile state license plates is another use of prison labor familiar to most of the general public. But, how does the general public feel about the use of prison labor, and moreover, how do laborers in the private sector feel about companies using prison labor instead of them? Is the use of prison labor good for the economy? Is it good for the prisoners, for the prisons? And just how good is it for the corporations?

The use of prison labor in the United States is as old as the country itself. Prisons earned most of their operating cost by leasing prison labor to the businesses in the private sector, making profits as much a concern as prisoners (Du Pont 72). Since then, the use of prison labor has steadily dropped, from forty-four percent in the 1930's to eleven percent by the 1990's. One reason for the decline is the resentment from the labor movement threatened by competition (Du Pont 72). However, in the last few years, it has resurfaced as a major source of labor for many major corporations.

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Supporters claim it is good for business and gives prisoners training in skills that will afford them viable employment when they are released from prison. However, many see it as slave labor and unfair competition in the labor market. Pac Serives, a packaging firm, claims its affiliate, Exmark, only uses prison labor for the work overflow. A few of the companies that use prison labor through Exmark are Microsoft, JanSport, Starbucks, U.S. West, and Costco (Microsoft pg). Many see the use of prison labor as a dangerous trend.

The United States imprisons more people than any other country in the world. With roughly two million people behind bars, this number is "more than three times the number of prisoners in 1980" (Schwartz pg). California has built twenty-one new prisons in the last twenty years and have five under construction, and plans for another ten. Moreover, one in ten "adult Georgians can expect to spend time in prison, twice the national average...only the federal prison system added more inmates than Georgia, despite a declining crime rate" (Cook A1). Since 1970, Georgia's population has increased seventy-eight percent, its inmate population has increased a staggering 417% (Cook A1).

The prison industrial complex is a booming business for "construction, guarding, administration, health, education and food service...One of the fastest-growing sectors of the prison industrial complex is private corrections companies" (Schwartz pg). Many corporations have discovered that prison labor is as profitable as using overseas sweatshops. Moreover, corporations, such Trans World Airlines, are….....

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