Knowing what I know, I can't really get on board with the notion that everyone in prison has been "proven guilty." As mentioned in the link I provided, only about 5% of cases actually even go to trial. Because of the way our fucked-up bail system works, TONS of perfectly innocent people are conned into pleading guilty. Why would ANYONE ever plead guilty for something they didn't do? Well, here's an example:
Let's say you were arrested for stealing a riding lawn mower that you never so much as
looked at. That's grand theft - a felony - so the judge sets your bail at ten thousand dollars. That might as well be ten million for all you'd be able to produce it. Unfortunately, you can't even come up with the (completely nonrefundable, even if you're found innocent) thousand dollars demanded by a bondsman. The fact that they won't let you go to work means you can't even pay your bills until they let you out. If you don't, your shit will be dumped on the sidewalk and (again, even with an innocent verdict) you'll get out of jail homeless, with ZERO belongings. (Sorry about your car, but that got impounded as soon as you were evicted and it's $200 plus $60 a day if you want it back.)
After sitting in jail for two or three months, on the brink of losing EVERYTHING, your lawyer comes along and tells you a couple of things. Number one is that the courts are backed up, so it's gonna be about another year until they can get around to trying you. Meanwhile, since you don't have a criminal record, the prosecutor is willing to give you time served and a year of probation... IF you plead guilty to this crime you didn't commit. Even if you're found GUILTY, the maximum sentence for that crime will be a year - about three months LESS than you'd sit there awaiting trial. Of course, you can go home
today if you just sign this paper pleading guilty. Remember, even if you're found INNOCENT, you'll still be homeless and jobless and without a vehicle, so tell me what you think you'd do in that situation? Imagine how much more difficult that decision would be if you were a black man in a very white and racist jurisdiction.
The bottom line is that you can't just assume that everyone in prison deserves to be there because they were either "proven guilty" (often meaning little more than a prosecutor talked a jury into convicting - people are routinely convicted on nothing more than eyewitness testimony and circumstantial evidence) or they "confessed." As I've pointed out, those who "confess" are often forced to do so by a VERY cruel and unfair system.
I'd also like to reiterate my point that it shouldn't be cheap and easy for taxpayers to just throw people in prison and let them rot. Making the process "self-funding" is probably one of the main reasons we have more prisoners (both raw numbers and per capita) than ANY other nation in the world... and that includes fascist shit holes like Myanmar and North Korea. Prison is supposed to be a
last resort and yet we're happily throwing
children into the penal system for the least little excuse!
So, knowing all of this, do you
still think that most people in prison totally
deserve to be used like slaves? I don't. Even the ones that are actually and literally GUILTY of their accused crime don't deserve to be forced to make their captivity cheap, easy, and profitable for society. The more you force people to provide valuable services for free, the more people will get locked up JUST to feed the demand for free labor. You heard it from this one sheriff with your own ears! A few years back, some asshat
in California made a very similar lament about their parole system. "If we let too many prisoners go, we won't have enough people to fight off these wildfires."
Every once in a while, declare peace. It confuses the hell out of your enemies. (76th Rule of Acquisition)