Prison work programs should expand opportunities for inmates to work, learn useful skills, and earn wages while developing a good work ethic. If these goals are met, the inmates will be able to pay restitution to those they have harmed, contribute to the support of their families, and develop skills that will ease their return to free society.

To maintain community support for these work programs, it is important that these goals be accomplished without displacing currently employed workers, and that the prison industries be responsive to the needs of their customers.

Justice Fellowship does not believe that these goals can be achieved under the current system of government-run prison industries. The solution is to replace the current programs with private industries, which are subject to market forces and pay inmates real-world wages. This means repeal of mandatory source as well as repeal of the existing statute that allows FPI to determine the price and adequacy of their performance under contracts with government agencies.

Any deductions from inmates wages should be designed to do the following (in this order): address the harm the offenders have caused any victims, contribute to support of their families, maintain contact with their families through postage and phone calls, and provide them with "gate money" on their release and a modest amount to spend on personal articles from the commissary.