>>Are you proposing to dismantle the whole industry based on inmate labor? We should have some compassion towards those who make living out of that. If you remove the marijuana laws and a few others, who will work for just food and shelter? Besides, it's the only industry where the hourly rates are competitive with the chinese.

Reality is that robots will soon be the spinning Jennies of our lifetimes, so there's only a little bit of time left to preordain the elites and streeties of a dystopian future. On the subject of inmates: IMHO it's a strong hypothesis that Poverty is a huge driver of theft, drugs and street violence. As I keep saying, the Northern Ireland situation shows a change within a few short years from poverty and sectarian violence including Bloody Sunday and even mortaring of the Houses of Parliament in London and assassination of a UK politician on English soil by the Provisional IRA, to a scenario where young people laugh when you tell them that this stuff was happening in living memory. You don't see black youth mortaring Canada's parliament or assassinating politicians, so it's the racism of low expectations to believe that they won't respond the same way to prosperity and opportunity.