Creating a 40-Hour Work Week for Prisoners

In 1988, there were 700,000 people in state and federal prisons. In 2008, 700,000 people will be released from prison. Based on past projections, nearly two-thirds of these ex-prisoners will be rearrested within 3 years of their release. The time to start addressing this “revolving door” problem is during incarceration. Yet most prisoners, instead of being held accountable for gaining the skills they need to be productive upon release, spend their time in idleness. This module describes the failures of the current approach to incarceration, proposes the establishment of a 40-Hour Work Week for prisoners that would replace idleness with productivity and make prisoners accountable for gaining the skills they need to become responsible members of their communities upon release, provides suggestions on how to roll out the event, and offers responses to possible critiques.

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