Washington State Kicks Unemployed to the Curb in Favor of $1/hr Prisoners.

WA. State apple growers paying prison authoritie​s $22.00 per hour per inmate for labor -
inmates keep $1 to $2 per hour

105 inmates picking apples in Grant

After saying last week that prison labor would be too costly, state officials received a call from desperate growers agreeing to pay program costs of $22 an hour for each offender.

“That amount covers things like transportation, housing and guards, who are in the fields with the inmates…“The offenders themselves will be paid the minimum wage, from which the state will deduct child support, legal and financial obligations, cost of incarceration and crime-victim compensation, leaving each with pay of between $1 and $2 an hour.”

Many unemployed men and women would be willing to perform this work for $22.00 per hour in Wa. State but by doing it this way the state gets $20.00 per hour and the inmates get $1.00 to $2.00. 

This is becoming a sickness for our society with Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Colorado, Idaho and now Washington replacing immigrant labor with inmate labor – and profiting from that transition. 

This works out to $2,310 per hour paid to the state for work by the 105 inmates.
The inmates  - in total, all 105 of them - will get to keep a whopping $105.00 to $210.00 out of the $2310 - for their hard work. 

Is it possible this is how it is intended by authorities in Georgia and Alabama? 
Substantial wages paid to the state with $1.00 to $2.00 per hour only, going to the inmate? 

What a racket – incarcerate the immigrants at a profit, substitute their labor with inexperienced convict labor to generate profits for corrections. 

Is this truly not a new form of slave labor?

Authored and brought to my attention by
Bob Sloan -

Investigative journalist and Daily Kos Blogger