"I tend to think it's a good thing for prisoners to have work to do. "
Hmmm!!
Sorry Joe, sound a little "Idle hands for the Devil's workshop, idle lips are his workshop' to me
Surely it depends what work and why.
My father was incarcerated during the Spanish Civil War; he had been wounded in the fighting so he was limited in what he should have been doing, but the fascists forced him to work, 'for the good of his soul'.
He was an avid reader but the few books on offer were so heavily censored, again, 'for the good of his soul' as to be worthless
He used to tell with a deal of satisfaction how he first read Upton Sinclair's magnificent exposé on the Chicago meat industry, 'The Jungle' in prison because the authorities thought it was a travel book
MacColl told us how, during the Depression, he and many of his unemployed mates went into the Public Libraries to shelter from the rain - it was there MacColl got his live and knowledge of literature, which led him to become a playwright and actor,
Work for work's sake can be as demeaning and soul-destroying as solitary confinement and, as Wysiwyg extremely 'manipulative' and profiteering - it has little to do with rehabilitation - just the opposite
Jim Carroll