Break their shackles and let us hand them a hammer.
That is the message the National Association of Homebuilders, the Alliance of Automobile Manufacturers, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce sent Congress in a letter urging their support of prison reform. The sooner the Senate sends the so-called FIRST STEP Act to President Trump, the sooner they promise to start hiring.
Industry isn’t just looking for warm bodies, though. The undersigned have committed to going “behind prison walls” to teach prisoners “skills that are specifically tailored to the jobs we have difficulty filling.”
“Industries such as trucking, construction, and manufacturing are desperate for good workers,” they write, “and would welcome the opportunity to offer second chances to incarcerated individuals seeking to turn their lives around.”
As capital searches for labor, here the needs of big business align with those of society. The market demands new workers and our country, as evidenced by the bipartisan support the bill received in the House, wants to reform our often needlessly harsh prison system. Congress, the industry associations seem to say, could solve two problems at once.
The problem is acute. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are 7 million job openings while 6.1 million people remain unemployed. If those free men won’t get to work, perhaps the recently freed will be more willing.
This is alarming. First, it shows that some in society would rather sink to the bottom even as a rising tide lifts the rest of the economy. Second, it demonstrates the inadequacy of the current education system when employers are looking to prisons rather than high schools to fill the ranks of their work force.
Those problems aside, the support of prison reform is heartening. It is an example of corporate responsibility, a term that so often sounds like a cliche. Here it is not.
“Not only is this good for our industries, it will also benefit public safety,” the industry leaders write. “After all, when incarcerated individuals can successfully transition from ‘Prisons to Paychecks,’ they are far more likely to turn away from crime for good.”
Congress should listen to them.
