Decarceration Nation (with Josh And Joel)

It is interesting to me that we are releasing this episode on equal pay day. Not because I want to distract from women's equal pay but because it is a common cause (and there are plenty of women in prison earning pennies on the hour). The Shawshank Redemption is not just a great movie, it gets a lot of the details of prison life right. Scenes from the movie were quoted every day in every prison and jail I was in. The article I referred to as "Talk Poverty" was published on many platforms, the point is that the people involved in the system are very aware that they are getting benefit from cheap labor. The never-ending debate over if prison labor is exploitation or a way to fill dead time is discussed in this LA Times article. The article also explains the problem of having too many inmates and too few jobs. There was a recent time when many major companies were using prison labor, many of these companies have stopped using this practice. If you are wondering how exploitative prison labor is legal it