Aaarrgh !!! - Normally I'd Hand A Homeless Person A Buck, Some Quarters, A Cigarette...

[daredtowork]

54. There is prison slave labor in California

Prisoners have died fighting forest fires. One of the objections to reforming the prison labor system is the State needed these disposible people to fight forest fires.

However my big objection is the current welfare system essentially forces people into criminal actvity to survive: for some people that's more dignified than begging or prostitution. The reason is that welfare doesn't come close to covering shelter costs ($336/month for 3 out of 12 months) and attempting to cover costs of non-food basic necessities through casual labor like babysitting (if you report it) is sabotaged because its deducted from the rent money.

This is the example I regularly give because its fairly easy to convey the level of imposed absurdity. Due to the difficulty I had interacting with the office of the responsible County Supervisor Keith Carson (he also cut the line off at me at a public event where many politicians could have heard this J'ACCUSE.), I have begun to suspect the absurdity is deliberate. Poor people who are being squeezed out of the bottom of the workforce are "encouraged" into criminal modes of survival because social services is putting them in a situation that otherwise leads to homelessness. Once they start breaking the law, the police and court system just pick them off for induction into the prison-labor complex.

In prison people aren't unsightly beggars: they are subjected to State discipline and forced to work: in return they get food, shelter, minimal health care, and various privileges they can earn through good behavior. Out of sight, out of mind. Until we need them to fight a forest fire.