UNWISE AND VICIOUS.
Is it not surprising that legislators who are responsible for this compulsory idleness do not see its unwisdom and viciousness?
Instead of permitting the convict to earn his maintenance by his own labor, a fellow-laborer outside the prison walls is taxed to support him in idleness, an idleness which only intensifies whatever criminal propensities he possesses, instead of curing them, and increases his capacity for depredations upon society when the prison doors are open to him.
In other words, for every man within prison walls who does not earn his maintenance, some man outside has to earn it for him. The Divine decree, “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat thy bread,” is reversed in the case of the man who eats his bread in the sweat of some other man’s face.
Joshua L. Baily.