Are prisons not paying people enough? If so, should prisoners be paid minimum wage? The answer is no, prisoners should not be paid minimum wage for multiple reasons. The taxes and cost would be much to high, they’re in prison for a reason and a punishment is well deserved and if prisons paid high amounts then people could possibly go their on purpose.
Firstly, even if the prison did want to pay prisoners minimum wage it would be nearly impossible, and with catastrophic results. America is already so far into debt and we pay taxes in order to pay prisoners to stay in a cell, have food and fresh water. These cost an immense amount of money; “We now incarcerate more than 2.2 million people.” This is a quote from the Angola prison Warden, Burl Cain. So if there are just 2.2 million people in just one state then, imagine how many people are in prisons in the 50 states.
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People may say that prisoners must pay an unreasonable amount for cost to go get supplies in prisons or how that maybe prisoners can’t help support their families or pay doctor fees. In contradiction to this, those prisoners are already being cared for and they get all the necessities to live such as a good shelter, food and clean water. Duwane Engler, a former prison inmate who worked at a goat cheese farm within the prison says “When you're in prison, you have to work anyways. If you're in a maximum facility, you're going to do work...These guys actually get out, they have a purpose, and they make more than 60 cents a day.". So hearing from past experience of a inmate it seems like prisons already require you to do work with no pay as a result of punishment, however these prisons let you have the freedom to work outside of the usual restricted boundaries and pay you money. This sounds like a much better alternative rather than be locked up in a four sided cell, being forced to work for no pay at all and the job is inhumane and