On 30/01/2012 12:02, Dave Plowman (News) wrote:
In ,
Steve wrote:
On the simple point of undercutting labour, that is not a problem -
China is already doing that.

For clearing out canals, removing graffiti, etc as has been suggested?
And you're suggesting the Chinese labour is unskilled, which it isn't, and
unskilled is the only sort of work prisoners could be expected to do.

IIRC prisoners at Styal Prison used to assemble Volex dimmer switches.

Light manufacturing and assembly work is perfectly possible in the lower
category prisons.

As we already have to pay for imprisoning
people, getting them to work for no pay would simply be repatriating
work that has been outsourced and would produce "profit" (reducing
prison costs) at no cost to UK jobs.

Have you thought about the costs surrounding this work? Supervision of
prisoners etc? That's likely to cost more than their work brings in.

They have to be supervised anyway. The cost of some additional
supervision vs the sums charged to companies to produce their goods
would surely permit some small element of profit, no matter how tiny -
as I said before, it used to be done.

I personally would prefer that they were given decent training towards
future work, but as that is costly and difficult, even getting them to
do basic work and be used to working full time would be an advantage.

SteveW