Advancing prison wage reform bill a just, prudent step from lawmakers

In a bit of good news out of Carson City this week, Nevada lawmakers offered bipartisan support for a bill to end the abhorrent practice of paying state prison inmates pennies on the dollar for work they do while incarcerated.

This legislation, which will require that inmates be paid minimum wage for their labor, is a terrific and long-overdue reform.

To their credit, lawmakers recognized it as such. The bill sailed through a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee with enthusiastic support from both Democrats and Republicans.

In what can only be described as a pleasant surprise, those backing the bill included Republican Sen. Ira Hansen of Sparks, a notorious party-line warrior and radical social conservative.

But good for Hansen and his colleagues on the committee for getting behind the prisoner compensation bill.

Currently, inmates receive grossly unfair pay for jobs that are often difficult and even hazardous. In one particularly alarming case in point, inmates who fight wildfires are paid just $1 per hour. In other fields, auto repair workers make as little as 60 cents per hour, maintenance workers get 50 cents per hour and workers in garment factories are paid $1 per hour.

This rank injustice is an outcropping of a long and ugly tradition of devaluing prisoners’ lives — sometimes specifically to benefit those in search of near-slave labor. Several states pay inmates either nothing or a pittance for their work.

Credit Sen. Dina Neal, D-north Las Vegas, for working to end this injustice in Nevada. She sponsored the bill, which also would do away with a state-mandated deduction in inmate pay that goes toward prison capital projects. Deductions for family support obligations and victim restitution would remain in place, however, which is reasonable and responsible.

The bill, should it pass, will be a firm step toward transforming Nevada’s correctional institutions from places where people are merely warehoused to the rehabilitative facilities they’re supposed to be.

Paying a fair wage to inmates offers benefits across our society. For the inmates, it allows them to purchase necessary items while behind bars — hygiene products, food items, etc. — and puts them on far better financial footing once they’re released. Inmates already face enough challenges in re-entering society without being thrown onto the streets penniless, so paying them a fair wage while they’re behind bars is just and compassionate.

It also demonstrates the value of honest work to prisoners and develops their work habits. Cheating them of a fair wage simply reasserts the idea that abuse is the way of the world — the last thing you want to teach inmates. The bill, on the other hand, offers a positive and constructive message: It incentivizes convicts to learn valuable trades and leave prison with employable skills.

It also benefits all of society to give inmates a bit of a financial cushion, which will help sustain them as they find a way to provide for themselves and their families, find housing, etc. With some money in their pockets, they’re less likely to turn back to crime out of desperation. Beyond money for their own use, inmates can send their earnings back to family members, tightening the family bonds that matter after release. The pride and connection inmates feel by helping their families while behind bars translates into a determination to live a crime-free life after release.

And as Neal noted, the faster inmates can find work and a place to live, the less they’ll need further government assistance.

Now that the bill is off to a good start, we urge lawmakers to keep it rolling.

Should it pass, it will add to several commendable reforms in corrections and criminal justice that Nevada’s state leadership has approved in recent years, including a ban on private prisons and a significant overturning of War on Drugs-era sentencing guidelines that had resulted in a grossly disproportionate incarceration of minority Nevadans.

Although Republicans and Democrats haven’t agreed on all of these measures, it’s been refreshing to see instances where both sides recognize the importance of making progress on these issues. At a time of extreme political polarization in the nation, it’s good to see reminders that our leaders on both sides of the aisle in Carson City can and do come together on important issues at times.