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Bill: Prison Labor Act
Details
Submitted by[?]: Democratic Socialist Union
Status[?]: defeated
Votes: This is an ordinary bill. It requires more yes votes than no votes. This bill will not pass any sooner than the deadline.
Voting deadline: March 2178
Description[?]:
| As it stands, prisioners are made to work during their senteances. While we don't have much of a problem with this, it does raise a concern. Many of the parties here are screaming about the high unemployment, and the DSU agrees that unemployment is a problem. We believe that prison populations doing labor makes it even harder for people to get jobs, especially construction workers, as localities get large free labor pools from the prisons. In order to alleviate this problem, we propose that prisoners not be made to do work except small voluntary jobs. Making the work voluntary and giving a very small wage for it will also likely reduce tensions in prisons. |
Proposals
Article 1
Proposal[?] to change Prison policy concerning prisoner labor.
Old value:: Able-bodied prisoners have to work during the day.
Current: Prisoners can do certain jobs in prison, voluntarily, for a small wage.
Proposed: Prisoners can do certain jobs in prison, voluntarily, for a small wage.
Debate
These messages have been posted to debate on this bill:
| Date | 20:45:33, January 26, 2006 CET | From | Agrarian Party of Mordusia | To | Debating the Prison Labor Act |
| Message | 1 They shouldn't receive wage at all. They are the ones that have to pay back what they did to society. 2 They should do work, or else they might get busy doing other things we don't want them to do, like studying law, or write numerous letters to Amnesty International. |
| Date | 21:08:26, January 26, 2006 CET | From | Democratic Socialist Union | To | Debating the Prison Labor Act |
| Message | (OOC: Agree with the wage..sadly there's no option for that. ) Actually... we interpret the small wage as non-monetary, but as in a small senteance reduction (for those eligable). For every period of time you work under good behavior, you'd reduce your time needed to serve by a small portion. This would give incentive to work and for good behavior. |
| Date | 21:11:17, January 26, 2006 CET | From | Democratic Socialist Union | To | Debating the Prison Labor Act |
| Message | (OOC: Agree with the wage..sadly there's no option for that. ) Actually... we interpret the small wage as non-monetary, but as in a small senteance reduction (for those eligable). For every period of time you work under good behavior, you'd reduce your time needed to serve by a small portion. This would give incentive to work and for good behavior. |
| Date | 22:27:49, January 26, 2006 CET | From | Agrarian Party of Mordusia | To | Debating the Prison Labor Act |
| Message | Sentence reduction? MACHIAVELLI: "No well ordened republic should ever cancel the crimes of its citizens by their merits; but having established rewards for good ctions and penalties for evil ones, and having rewarded a citizen for good conduct who afterwards commits a wrong, he should be chastised for that without regard to his previous merits, and a state that properly observes this principle will enjoy long its liberty. (The Discourses, 1517) It is only fair in regards to the victim as to the criminal, that his/her punishment should be clear. If you sentence someone to spend 10 years in prison, and release him after 5 - either sentence him to 5 years, or be consequent. |
| Date | 05:43:10, January 27, 2006 CET | From | Democratic Socialist Union | To | Debating the Prison Labor Act |
| Message | Well, usually courts senteance longer knowing that only half will be served. At least that's often the case. Depends on the judge really. Fact is, prisons cannot hold people for the entire senteances simply because of room. This issue is not remotely black and white as most people think. The legal system is very confusing for most people, and misconceptions sadly often carry the way. ..and do we really want a Machiavellian society here? |
| Date | 07:21:59, January 27, 2006 CET | From | Agrarian Party of Mordusia | To | Debating the Prison Labor Act |
| Message | What do you have against Machiavelli? He was a fine man, with honorable thoughts how people should govern the state. I'm just saying: the legal system should be transparant. I have no problem with people spending less time in jail, but they should not come out earlier, because this is unfair to them, their victim(s) and the legal system itself. |
| Date | 17:52:28, January 27, 2006 CET | From | Democratic Socialist Union | To | Debating the Prison Labor Act |
| Message | Ok, that's a very fair argument and we'll just have to agree to disagree on that. What about the employment though? People NEED jobs and some can't get them because of the massive free labor pool that prisioners provide localities. Something has to be done there. We don't have a problem with prisioners working (assuming the conditions are humane), but the fact is that right now they're taking valuable jobs that law abiding citizens need more. Several of the last few bills the DSU proposed had other parties screaming that unemployment prevented it being useful/even made it harmful. Why then is not everyone in support of this? That is our real motivation; to alleviate some of the unemployment. If the unemployment rate in the future were to be at an acceptably low level then we can bring up the issue of reinstating prison labor at that time. For now, our people are suffering at the hands of incarcerated prisioners. It's not supposed to work like that. |
| Date | 18:32:24, January 27, 2006 CET | From | The Mordusian Green Party | To | Debating the Prison Labor Act |
| Message | Against. Prisoners should not benefit from their incarceration - except if they repent of their crimes. Besides, we accept the argument that prison workers might take valuable employment away from non-criminals. We also oppose the production systems that is based on near slavery conditions. |
| Date | 19:04:46, January 27, 2006 CET | From | Agrarian Party of Mordusia | To | Debating the Prison Labor Act |
| Message | People NEED jobs Then why don't you want prisoners, who have the ability/chance to have a zero percent unemployment, not to work? :D Do you even know what kind of work prisoners do? First, they have to take care of themselves: there's acleaning team, a cooking team, a laundry team, a library team, etc. So they have the ability to do these kind of (nice) jobs. Besides that, they might learn a professional, something to do while in prison: learn how to make chairs out of some wood, how to repare the car of the main ward... |
| Date | 06:35:11, January 28, 2006 CET | From | Democratic Socialist Union | To | Debating the Prison Labor Act |
| Message | What?....The way this looks to me is that prisioners do manual labor outside the prison for public works projects that could be better worked by citizens needing jobs. Prisioners are there to serve time, not to take away jobs from our law abiding citizens. LAW ABIDING CITIZENS need jobs, not the prisioners. It'd be nice if both could work, but right now our people must take priority because of the unemployment situation. |
| Date | 09:15:28, January 28, 2006 CET | From | Agrarian Party of Mordusia | To | Debating the Prison Labor Act |
| Message | "Able-bodied prisoners have to work during the day" Does it say anywhere in the current law that they "have to work during the day for 16 hours with no food in the bruning sun doing slave labour"? |
| Date | 10:00:46, January 29, 2006 CET | From | Socialist Front of Mordusia | To | Debating the Prison Labor Act |
| Message | The fact that these people have commited crimes does not give us the right to exploit their labour without paying them. They are in prison as a punishment - Not to become an asset to the state. We vote for. |
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Voting
| Vote | Seats | |||||||
| yes | Total Seats: 91 | |||||||
| no |
Total Seats: 508 | |||||||
| abstain | Total Seats: 0 |
| Random fact: Bill descriptions must be in English, or at least include a full English translation. Bill titles may appear in a language that is appropriate to the nation and are not required to be translated into English. |
| Random quote: "There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order." - Ed Howdershelt |