Well certainly. I support inmates learning working skills so that, those who get out, can start earning a real living and not have to fall back into crime to support themselves.
However, I also don’t want a justice system that is incentivised to convict people because businesses are willing to contribute to some politician’s, or DA’s campaign because they know that once elected they can start up a business in the prison and have people create profitable products or services for free.
One possible compromise is to allow businesses to intern inmates, who are due to eventually be released. The business can pay them the market rate, with the money going towards those the inmate has harmed or a state fund that would be used to pay victims for wrong done to them, until the inmate has paid fully for his crime.
I just don’t see how it creates an incentive...sure on paper it’s possible, but it would take Third-World-like corruption for that to come to fruition, and we are nowhere close to that.
Another possible compromise might be to only use convict labor for public-works projects, to eliminate the profit motive entirely and really focus on the whole “debt to society” angle.