The Politics of Prison Labor

2min Snip

00:00

Play full episode

Summary

Transcript

Episode notes

I think that the prison system and I mean that to encompass a federal, state and local facilities. People don't like prison labor that quote competes with non-prison labor but of course we all compete with each other. So it's a weird thing to me. But then you have this idea that of training it seemed like a good idea to train prisoners to be able to do something when they get out so they don't become criminals again. There's a lot of political tension there, right? Oh absolutely.

Becky Pettit of the University of Washington and author of Invisible Men talks with EconTalk host Russ Roberts about the growth of the prison population in the United States in recent decades. Pettit describes the magnitude of the increase particularly among demographic groups. She then discusses the implications of this increase for interpreting social statistics. Because the prison population isn't included in the main government surveys used by social scientists, data drawn from those surveys can be misleading as to what is actually happening among demographic groups, particularly the African-American population.