Sheriff Steve Prator of Caddo Parish, Louisiana, is very, very upset over a new set of laws passed in the state that will early-release a bunch of his county prisoners — non-violent and non-sex offenders.
Is it because of the threat to the public safety? Is it because these are all bad, bad hombres who should continue to make Louisiana “the most imprisoned state” in the nation?
Well, yeah, he thinks that. But he also has far, far deeper concerns, caught on video.
The [prisoners] that you can work, the ones that can pick up trash, the work-release programs—but guess what? Those are the ones that they’re releasing! In addition to the bad ones … they’re releasing some good ones that we use every day to wash cars, to change the oil in our cars, to cook in the kitchen, to do all that where we save money, well, they’re going to let them out!
Never mind it’s going to save the state $262 million. Sheriff Prator’s concerned that it’s going to cost a bit extra to keep his patrol cars washed.
Good to see his priorities (and love of cheap convict labor) are straight. Because free oil changes for his people by “good” prisoners are far, far more important than whether those folk actually deserve to be in prison, can be afforded by the state to be in prison, or could actually be “good” labor in the outside world.
Sorry, Sheriff — maybe your deputies will have to learn to do their own cooking.
La. Sheriff Furious at New Laws Allowing for Release of ‘Good,’ Nonviolent Inmates Because ‘We Use Them to Wash Cars’
In case you ever wondered about the way (some) correctional officers see their inmates, I lead you no further than to Caddo Parish, La., Sheriff Steve Prator, who is ranting and raging mad about new criminal-justice reform laws that will go into effect next month—because it will mean getting rid of cheap labor.
Life's tough for the Praetor Urbanus. All those public slaves going to waste.
Did they just admit that their officers have an economic incentive to arrest able-bodied innocents?
There's an obvious and Lincolnian solution: sign him up to be a good convict and do all that work.
+David Ratnasabapathy But that would mean that there's a disincentive to arrest those who are physically unable to do prison work. "Yes, he murdered his girlfriend, but he's a meth head who weighs 85 pounds! Why would we arrest him?"
Wonder what the unemployment rate is in Caddo Parish.
+John E. Bredehoft – In prison or out? I'm guessing the in prison unemployment rate is vanishingly low.
Maybe we could pay the released prisoners to cook and wash cars and change oil? That's job creation.
Slavery in an other form. This would come to an end if prisoners that were forced to work were paid minimum wage like they should be.
It would be one thing if these programs were actually set up as rehabilitative (e.g., we're teaching prisoners how to be auto mechanics so that when they get out they have a job they're trained for, and as part of that they do oil changes on the sheriff's vehicles), or even restitutive (paying money into a fund for victims of their crimes) or community service (since folk don't usually cavil at non-prisoner community service rulings), or even explicitly voluntary efforts that show "good behavior" toward early release.
But if you get to the point were you are complaining that people are being released from jail who might otherwise be put to good use washing your car picking up trash, then it's clear the corruption in the system as set in, just as with municipalities that rely on civil asset forfeiture to fund their police department, thereby incenting the police to seize assets regardless of the justice in doing so.