I don’t know for sure, but I think that you’re charged both to be in prison and for things like food, so if you refuse to work (for awful pay) you’ll go hungry. Though likely your room won’t be taken, I guess.
Disclaimer: I know almost nothing about the topic and very well may be entirely wrong.
You won’t go hungry. They do have to feed you no matter what. I’m not sure what the pay rate is for being a farm worker but it probably puts a little on your commissary account so you can get new socks, ramen, coffee, a candy bar, or other “luxuries”.
The truth is that it’s so mind numbingly boring in prison that they’ll have more volunteers than they need. People are itching for any hint of normalcy and a job is that hint. Others want that extra commissary money because they don’t have families to put money on their books. Still others see it as an opportunity to possibly get contraband back to their cell or pass info in and out of the prison.
There’s no shortage of volunteers for even the most menial labor from prison.
Sure thing! It’s more complex than I’m letting on and my state doesn’t pay for labor but most do. And it’s not really volunteering if it’s your only opportunity to not be in a gray building for years. It’s survival. And to get the “opportunity” to volunteer you have to be really good, which also means keeping the people that aren’t good off your back because they’ll just blame everyone involved if something goes wrong. And you have to be in good with the guards because if you piss one off they’ll make sure that you have infractions that keep you from going out to do something.
I’ve had both friends and family that have gone to prison so I read up a little on how it works. I’m lucky I didn’t go in my misspent youth.
They charge you more than you make, to be sure that you’re heavily in debt and likely to return to crime out of desperation at some point shortly after release. Either that or they get rich from your labor, and get even more rich from your family paying the bill. It’s absolutely completely fucking insane to charge prisoners to be held against their will in prison, especially considering the prison profits from the prisoner. We live in a fucked up society where our leaders do nothing for us, or our problems, and everything for the wealth of a select few.
