Passage 1
The state’s property right in the prisoner’s labor exists by virtue of the 13th
Amendment of the Constitution of the United States which provides that slavery
or involuntary servitude may be a punishment for crime, after due process of law.
This property right the state may lease or retain for its own use, the manner being
set forth in state constitutions and acts of legislatures. To make this of material
value the prisoner’s labor must be productive. The distribution of the product of the
prisoner’s labor inevitably presents the problem of competition. The confounding
of the evil of penal servitude with the methods of production and the methods of
distribution which have grown out of it has produced a confusion in the thought
underlying prison labor regulation by legislative enactment.
The usual penological analysis of prison labor into lease, contract, piece-price,
public account and state-use systems is impossible to use in an economic analysis
of the labor conditions involved. Economically two systems of convict production
and two systems of distribution of convict-made goods exist; production is either
by the state or under individual enterprise: distribution is either limited to the
preferred state use market or through the general competitive market. In the light
of such classification the convict labor legislation of the current year shows definite
tendencies toward the state’s assumption of its responsibility for its own use of the
prisoner on state lands, in state mines and as operatives in state factories; while
in distribution the competition of the open market, with its disastrous effect upon
prices, tends to give place to the use of labor and commodities by the state itself
in its manifold activities. Improvements like these in the production and distribution
of the products mitigate evils, but in no vital way effect the economic injustice
always inherent under a slave system. The payment of wage to the convict as a
right growing out of his production of valuable commodities is the phase of this
legislation which tends to destroy the slavery condition. Such legislation has made
its appearance, together with the first suggestion of the right of choice allowed to
the convict in regard to his occupation…
The expression of these tendencies found in the legislation of 1911 comes to view in
divers[e] states and a confusion of statutes in which every shade of development is
present…The prisoner received compensation for labor in six states…his dependent
family was given assistance in five…while Nevada gave him the right to choose
between working on the roads or working indoors…The antagonism of organized
labor to the distribution of the products of the convict’s labor on the open market
resulted in the passage in Montana, Oregon and California of laws requiring branding
of convict made goods.
In a word, the economic progress in prison labor shown in the legislation of 1911 is
toward more efficient production by the elimination of the profits of the leasee,
more economical distribution by the substitution of a preferred market where the
profits of the middleman are eliminated in place of the unfair competition with the
products of free labor in the open markets, and finally the curtailment of the slave
system by the provisions for wages and choice of occupation for the man in penal
servitude.
National Prisoners’ Aid Association. (1911). The Review, Volume I, No. 9. Project
Gutenberg.
Which of the following, if true in the author’s present cultural milieu, would
make his argument less likely to be accepted?
A) Data that the author’s proposal would increase take-home wages for union
members in multiple sectors of the economy
B) Evidence to suggest that choosing an occupation has no overall impact on
the market’s efficient distribution of resources
C) Information to suggest that, according to American legal restrictions, states
do not have the authority to regulate or profit from prisoners’ labor
D) Early colonial authorities regulated prisoners’ labor long before the U.S.
Constitution
Correct answer is C
The author’s primary argument throughout this passage is that various pieces
of legislation passed in 1911 have fundamentally altered the framework in which
prison labor is regulated, distributed, used for production, and ultimately made
into a profit, with subsequent changes in how prisoners themselves are treated.
The entire passage hinges on the author’s analysis of laws passed in 1911, and their
interpretation of these laws’ overall impact. If additional information were presented
to ultimately imply that states cannot regulate or profit from prisoner’s labor
according to properly-established U.S. law, then the basis of the author’s argument
is destroyed, for all of these laws were invalid and states should not be involved
in regulating prison labor in the first place. For this reason, Answer C is correct
because this would entirely shift the whole contextual framework upon which the
author has premised this passage.
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