Province looking at proposal to have inmates help fill sandbags in flood fight

Sounds like a good idea.

Never happen.


My guess is that in some way shape or form, a judge will find it violates their Constitutional Rights.

The first Commandment of the Canadian Prison System.

Thou Shalt Not Work

Already did.

That exact thing has been going on here in Ab for years. When I was a kid, living up near Peace River, big spring-time flood. Couple buddies and I hitched into town. Lots of prisoners from the PCI filling sand bags and doing flood control.

I don't see how this is news, I thought it was SOP. Same with fighting forest fires. I would like to see more of this, give the inmates something useful to do, probably feel better about themselves. I guess the only problem is if they take away jobs from regular folks.

Not taking jobs from anyone! We are already paying for the inmates upkeep anyway so why not get something back for the community. The inmates used in such circumstances are those in minimum security, usually with a release of 6 mos or less. And yes, the inmates do actually like doing this type of work as it 'gets them out of the house for a while'! They do get 'paid' to a maximum of $5.00/day which is put into their inmate account. Good luck trying to find anyone 'on the street' who will do manual labour for a bowl of soup and 5 bucks a day!

Do you see the contradiction here? I'm not talking about emergency situations where it's all hands on deck. But if we get inmates doing jobs for cheap that ordinary citizens could make a living from, that is not a good idea.

Stony Mountain isn't minimum security. They can truck the sand in, some bags, some shovels. There's no danger.

There was lots of us 'on the street' volunteering our time in '97. Wal-Mart gave us rubber boots, Dominoes brought us pizza, Timmy Ho brought the coffee. I actually had to drive to three different locations before I found somewhere that there was room for more people to work.

I'd say keep the $5/day.

That's not true, andy. You need to know what the alternative is. If having inmates do some task that some private citizen is doing, that gives that citizen the opportunity to do something more lucrative. You're only looking at one side of the coin.

My feeling is that inmates should HAVE to earn their keep. If they don't want to work, then they should starve, same I as would if I refused to work. Heat the cells individually. If you don't pay your gas bill, you better blow someone for a warm blankie or cuddle up with Bubba. I like my next-door neighbour, but I don't want to pay for his food and shelter; I sure as hell don't want to pay for his recidivist kid's food and shelter.

That's not true, andy. You need to know what the alternative is. If having inmates do some task that some private citizen is doing, that gives that citizen the opportunity to do something more lucrative. You're only looking at one side of the coin.



To be clear, I wasn't talking about emergency situations, but inmates doing ongoing jobs that are normally done by citizens. Unless you have negative unemployment, I don't see how giving jobs to inmates will allow citzens the opportunity to do something more lucrative. That citizen is not being held in the lower paying job by force, but by circumstance. If you throw him out of work with a prisoner, pretty soon you might just have another prisoner to add to your workforce. Sounds like a neo-con wet dream.

Do you see the contradiction here? I'm not talking about emergency situations where it's all hands on deck. But if we get inmates doing jobs for cheap that ordinary citizens could make a living from, that is not a good idea.



No contradiction at all! Given the fact that we are taliking about 'emergency' situations. But why not expand the idea to include cleaning up garbage on the streets and hiways, shovelling snow for those unable to do so for themselves, Maintaining parks etc.
Come to think of it. When I was a kid, living out in the country not far from the prison, we actually did see prisoner work crews cleaning up along the ditches. Wonder what happened to that?

Because we pay people to do those things. (Shoveling snow, fine, that's not a full time job anyway.) And if you stop paying those people they won't have a job. Shouldn't non criminals come before criminals?

What if we instituted a floor laying program for prisoners. When you were getting your start, and you had to compete with that, would you be happy?

Because we pay people to do those things. (Shoveling snow, fine, that's not a full time job anyway.) And if you stop paying those people they won't have a job. Shouldn't non criminals come before criminals?

What if we instituted a floor laying program for prisoners. When you were getting your start, and you had to compete with that, would you be happy?


You sure know how to twist things up! Maybe in Hongcouver things are done different. But I doubt it!
Here in AB when someone with virtually no education can get a job in the patch for 20+ bucks an hour, we have a serious shortage, actually we can't even find people to do these menial tasks at anything approaching a reasonable price. Highways get cleaned up ONCE per year by 4-H and other than that, some sections are done strictly under a voluntary basis which gets the volunteer company or family their name on a sign! Couple weeks ago, my BiL phoned around Edmonton to try to get someone to come shovel the snow off his sisters one story bungalow. he finally settled on the cheapest one he could find. The same week-end. With my hand bandaged up I went up on my neighbors roof and shovelled the snow off completely. Took me 1:45!

As I said to Lemmy, it's different if you have negative unemployment. The problem then is it gets institutionalized and nothing change when the employment picture changes. So if they do it, put in a clause that it's only done during periods of full employment.