Road Work

According to a new report from the Justice Department’s Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) as of June 30, 2002 there were more then 2 million inmates in prison. Now to me that’s a substantial work force sitting around on MY dime. Here is my idea, why not require ALL able bodied inmates to work 6 hours a day (I use 6 because I know you have to transport them back and forth to prison) 5 days a week. Pay them minimum wage, take them out and have them do the state/local road repair and construction work. Most of the labor involved in road construction is simple manual labor. I know I know it will take more guards! Lets do some simple math: According to http://www.bls.gov/oco/ocos248.htm Highway, street and bridge construction workers make about $14.48 per hour. That comes to $144.80 per hour for a 10 man crew, now lets use 10 inmates @ $5.50 per hour and 2 guards @ $14.50 (I just did a job search on Monster and averaged a couple salaries being offered to get this number) to watch them and we get $84.00 per hour. Not bad a savings of $60.80 per hour. Ok so the math is real simple and I know there are many details and issues I haven’t included but I think the idea is sound.