Prison Industries: Turning Warehouses into Factories with Fences

Abstract

During my tenure in the federal judiciary, I have spoken and written often about penal and correctional institutions and the policies and practices that ought to be changed. People go to prison only through the judicial process, and every judge is concerned about the effectiveness of the correctional process even though he or she has no direct responsibility for management. Based upon my observations as a judge and upon visits to prisons in America and most countries of Europe for nearly 30 years, and recently in the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, I have long recognized that we have not gone about the matter in the correct way. When our country is embarked upon a multibillion dollar prison construction program, it is fair to ask: Are we going to build more expensive human warehouses, or should we change our thinking and move toward factories with fences around them, where inmates can acquire education and vocational training and then produce marketable goods? One thoughtful scholar of criminal justice has described the situation in terms harsher than mine: