|
For several years now I've been writing about the increasing use and abuse of inmates as a source of cheap labor --- labor which can be used as a recreational resource on public lands for the purposes of outsourcing, privatization and increased fee generation.
 The American Recreation Coalition in conjunction with the National Park Service, Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, Army Corps of Engineers and InterActiveCorps have actively pursued this idea and have gone so far as to offer up the use of inmates as a tool in their jointly prepared "Toolbox for the Great Outdoors".
Here's a short quote from that source:
[Description -Federal and state courts are a source for community service labor, including skilled labor, and penalties and fines can provide project funding.
Purpose -Identify persons and organizations with specific talents and capabilities and with a debt to society to augment the resources of federal recreation and resource agencies.]
In today's free-market obsessed world, the chain-gang concept is old fashioned and in my numerous blog entries on this topic, I've done my best to share today's state-of-the-art thinking on what some now consider to be the appropriate use of an underutilized resource.
Search the Wild Wilderness blog for the term "inmates" and you'll see how valuable a resource prisoners are becoming -- especially as federal recreation budgets are slashed and as paid employees are let go.
Pasted below is an article which extends this thinking to it's next logical level, that being using prisoners as a source of body parts. After this, there is only one more level possible. Someday, someone will suggest killing prisoners and paying the prisoner's family a cash benefit in exchange for their lives. That's as far ad the free-market system can go.
Scott
--- begin quoted ---
March 08, 2007
S.C. considers cutting prison time for inmates who donate organs
SEANNA ADCOX - Associated Press
COLUMBIA, S.C. - Inmates in South Carolina could soon find that a kidney is worth 180 days.
Lawmakers are considering legislation that would allow prisoners to
donate organs or bone marrow in exchange for time off their sentences.
A state Senate panel gave the nod to an inmate organ and tissue
donation program Thursday; debate was postponed on whether the
incentive could be added because legislators worried it may not be
allowed under federal law.
"People are dying. I think it's imperative that we go all out and see
what we can do," said the bills' chief sponsor, Sen. Ralph Anderson,
D-Greenville. "I would like to see us get enough donors that people are
no longer dying."
The measure approved by the Senate Corrections and Penology
Subcommittee would set up a volunteer organ and tissue donor program in
the state Corrections Department to teach inmates about the procedures
and the need for donors. The incentive bill on which lawmakers want
legal advice would shave up to 180 days off a prison sentence for a
donation.
South Carolina advocates for organ donations said the incentive policy would be the only one of its kind in the nation.
Federal law makes it illegal to give organ donors "valuable
consideration." Lawmakers want to know whether the term could apply to
time off of prison sentences.
"We want to make this work, we really do," said Sen. John Hawkins,
R-Spartanburg. "But I want to make sure no one goes to jail for good
intentions."
Mary Jo Cagle, the chief medical officer of Bon Secours St. Francis
Health System in Greenville, urged senators to find an allowable
incentive. She said the two-bill package offers "the opportunity for a
unique kind of social justice."
"We have a huge need for organs and bone marrow," Cagle said.
But Melissa Blevins, executive director of Donate Life South Carolina,
said any incentive would break the law and the principle behind
donations. "It really muddies the water about motive. We want to keep
it a clearly altruistic act," she said.
Under the proposals, money for medical procedures and any prison guard
overtime pay would be paid by the donor recipient and charitable
groups. The state would also be able to decide which inmates are
permitted to donate.
Corrections Department Director Jon Ozmint said he believe inmates would donate even without the incentive.
"There are long-term inmates who would give if they knew a child was
dying," he said. "They're lifers. They know they're going to die in
prison."
In South Carolina, 636 people are on a waiting list for organ
donations. Last year, 291 people received organ transplants - 90
percent of them from dead donors. About 50 people awaiting transplants
die each year, Blevins said.
|
- Privatization 
