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Letter: Give inmates a higer wage

Deseret News - 11/27/2018

In Utah, the average prison inmate will make 60 cents an hour, allowing for them to make up to $7.20 a day. The average Utahn would have been paid $7.20 for one hour of work.

Prison labor is a way governments try to recoup some of the cost of incarceration by “pimping” out their prisoners as captive labor. The U.S. incarceration rate is the highest in the world, adding up to about 1.5 million people.

The jobs these inmates are doing are not what movies have accustomed our minds to thinking of. They package coffee for Starbucks, wrap software for Microsoft and manufacture school supplies. These jobs are paid for by big companies who are looking for low-wage work, which is often done by inmates and immigrants.

Demanding to pay the prisoners a minimum wage would up open up opportunities for low-wage workers to get minimum-wage jobs while boosting the economy and allowing inmates the opportunity to create savings.

Utah’s recidivism rate rests at 46 percent with property crime, specifically larceny-theft being the highest incarceration rate. Raising the minimum wage and giving an opportunity for prisoners to create savings would decrease the recidivism rates, creating lower spending for taxpayers.

Rebeca Ramirez

St. George

CREDIT: Rebeca Ramirez