Prison camps for welfare recipients?
A Tea Party-backed NY gubernatorial candidate has suggested welfare recipients be housed in unused jails. Does anyone agree with him?
posted on August 25, 2010, at 11:10 AM

Carl Paladino suggests using former state prisons as camps for those on welfare to learn how to find work. Photo: Corbis SEE ALL 39 PHOTOS

Best Opinion: Crooks and Liars, Jeff Graham, NY Post

Carl Paladino, a wealthy real estate developer and Republican candidate for New York governor, has suggested transforming former state prisons into voluntary work camps for people on welfare. Paladino said those who enrolled in his "Dignity Corps" would receive training in job hunting, "personal hygiene" and other skills typically lacking in people who "come from dysfunctional homes." Even though the Tea Party-backed candidate said the program would be voluntary, anti-poverty groups reacted to the suggestion with disgust. "Being poor is not a crime," one advocate for New York City's low-income residents told the Associated Press. Is anyone getting behind this idea? (Watch a local report about Paladino's proposal)

This is typical welfare-hating Republican bluster: What an outrage, says Karoli at Crooks and Liars. Do Republicans really want to take us back to a time when the "poor went to poorhouses" and were "treated like chattel"? Welfare gives Americans "an opportunity to survive with at least a foothold to a better life." If Paladino keeps up with this, the Democrats "might win by the biggest landslide in New York history."
"GOP NY Governor candidate Paladino argues for welfare camps"

But we need to find alternatives to our handout culture: Of course New York's liberals are self-righteously outraged by this, says Jeff Graham at his Major Graham blog. But there's nothing wrong with an "efficiently run county dormitory" for those without housing, nor anything wrong with "helping people." Even if the prison idea is a "bit harsh," at least Paladino is attempting to find solutions to a welfare state that is spinning out of control.
"Paladino's 'Dignity Corps'... guaranteed liberal outrage"

Just the latest outrageous outburst from Paladino: This isn't the only time Paladino's "inflammatory rhetoric" has raised suggestions about his fitness for public office, says Fredric U. Dicker at the New York Post. This is the same man who compared healthcare reform to the 9/11 attacks, and suggested one Manhattan Dem should be "imprisoned in Attica" and "beaten by angry taxpayers." The only surprise here is he's "gaining in opinion polls."

http://theweek.com/article/index/206430/prison-camps-for-welfare-recipients

i wonder if it would such a great idea if they didn't have a job?

Hey, tell us specifically how this differs from the WPA or the Civilian Conservation Corps ... ? Same concept, different time. Might be one more idea whose time has come - again ... Matter of fact, how would it be any different from, say, 'housing projects' .... ?

I got a better idea, drug tests for welfare recipients! That will weed out at least half of them and this includes ALCOHOL!

Want help? FLY STRAIGHT OTHERWISE QUIT WASTING OUR MONEY!

This country is too full of God Damn Milkers!

I personally think that there should be a time limit for anyone on welfare. Same thing goes for unemployment. There are tons of jobs out there, even if they are working in a fast food restaurant. I don't believe that anyone should be paid to sit at home.

I also support the drug tests for those on welfare along with mandatory birthcontrol. If you can't support the ones you have then you should be having anymore.

I think the idea of housing for those that continue to stay unemployed and on welfare is a good idea.

Just my opinion.

Valid opinion...you are speaking about China right?

To the topic, I heard a candidate in Florida said the same T-baggery thing last week. Egads~!!!!

Y'know, the time limits you speak of USED to exist for unemployment ... 26 weeks, and you're off. Not no more. The DemoComs have made it a 99-week ride and are looking to extend it even more, so it's more profitable to be unemployed than it is to look for a job. Easier to control the 'sheeple' class, y' know.

Mandatory birth control was tried in, I think, Alabama in either the '70s or '80s ... oh, the outrage. 'We need the breeding class!' was pretty much the rallying cry ... and the court agreed.

As for housing, the 'housing projects' that were designed originally as 'temporary' housing while people 'got back on their feet' is now seen by the occupants as generational and heritable property that they think of as 'owning' ... check how this played out in New Orleans after Katrina ...

Just thought you might like to know your ideas aren't as radical as some others might try to tell you they are ...

Dignity Camps, huh?!?

Being housed in an unused prison is a morale booster and would inspire work ethic and personal hygiene. Hmmmmmm.......

I am really wondering what people consider a welfare recipent?

Please I am really curious.... could someone give me a run down of a profile of a welfare recipient?

isn't this the same as Job Corp? If not, what is the difference?

Job Corps is targeted at young adults 16 to 24.

ok but it's the same thing but targets different ages, basically?

No, this would be different.

Just trust me on this one... I don't have the energy with this headache to go through the difference between Job Corps and proposed program.

There is a time limit on welfare and also unemployment.

No welfare recipient can sit at home on welfare since the 1990s and there has always been a work search program associated with unemployment

Outside of the outrageous idea of the housing of the poor as if they are a scourge of society, the prejudice ideals that people who need help have "hygiene issues that need to be addressed" and "other skills absent in dysfunctional families, shows that she is NOT in touch with those who end up on welfare. Showing the prejudice and out right discrimination of the right wing in this country.

People who end up having to ask for help are articulate, well and averagely educated, clean, non lazy and usually very unhappy to be at the welfare office people who have had some unfortunate things happen in their lives.

People have to do volunteer work and school to get welfare anyway so noone lays around on welfare.

fight the war against poverty, NOT the poor....

Welfare recipients are already imprisoned in plain sight.
Doesn't matter if there are bars or not.

your right

just outa sight, outa mind huh...so just round up all these people and put them in a prison... do you realize what you sound like? how many millions of people are out of work right now? 10% of 400 million is 40 million people there darlin. Are they all gonna get jobs at McDonalds?? but your working, so why should you care? what are they gonna do, just take people out of their house, or apartment and "put them away?" the germans started out that way to, by saying we have a nice place for jews to go, call Auschwitz...

Ach, nein ... Es wurde genannt 'Theresienstadt' ...