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But let's be objective with this, most of prison work is voluntary, and the desire to do something, anything, sometimes gets the best of us and due to that we'll do the volunteering, it's important to make that distinction, especially when I've been there and done that.
Now the obvious differences are prisons like Angola in Louisiana, which still has the same chaingang that they were depicted to have in movies decades behind us, there's no voluntary work there, those are prison work camps/concentration camps, and are tantamount to slavery, if not outright slavery, and are violent as hell, and these types of prisons can be found all across the American South, but especially along the Gulf Coast.
"You can work and spend your entire pittance on ramen noodles, or you can go stir-crazy in your cell and eat stewed cardboard" is a voluntary choice only in the most strictly pedantic sense.
That's being a bit Hyperbolic, and these aren't the types of prisons or jails where you're stuck in a cell all day, that's your misconception, the only people who are locked up like that are the ones that have proven themselves too dangerous to be around others, or at least that's how it's supposed to be when our prison system is working correctly, and the only prisons where that's consistently their prison existence is the SuperMax prisons, because again, those people are too dangerous to let roam without supervision.
Mostly it's just a chance to get out from behind the walls and the fences, sure they'd rather be free, but I'm sure we'd all rather they not do shut that gets them put in prison, and regardless of your feelings towards prisons people who commit crimes, real crimes, belong there, or some form of prison that emphasizes rehabilitation.
Opinions on whether it's "working correctly" is likely going to vary depending on whether you're running a factory that depends on prison labor. Right now I think those factory owners would agree that it's working correctly.
And you are certain there is no reprisal against anyone that refuses?
Most guards could not give a shit less, they're there to do their jobs and go home, so if you're not going to volunteer some other person will, or they'll just take whomever did volunteer. Sure you might run into some dickhead guard that demands it but that guard is just a symptom of our broken system and is most likely operating in a manner that would get them in trouble if the right people are notified.
But as I said to another person who replied to me that then you have prisons like Angola, which are basically just concentration camps, they staff the place with brutal guards purposely to keep the place viciously violent, and every single one of the prisons like Angola should be shut down with the staff prosected.
So it really depends on the prison, but the majority are of the more mellow variety, although overpopulation makes the more mellow prisons drastically less mellow.
The Private Prisons have contracts to fulfill, your optimistic belief that folks all volunteer is laughable.
I have no idea who's downvoting your comments or why, you're providing a perspective most of us nerds don't have.