"Staff criticised the facility whereby inmates could have ‘private cash’ sent in (if they had funds outside prison or if their families could afford it). One instructor said, ‘It creates a two-tier system. Those who haven’t got their own are more disadvantaged still, while others have lost the incentive to work.’ In 1996 this problem was partly addressed by the new framework for incentive schemes which restricted prisoners’ access to private cash though not eliminating their reliance on it.
Work instructors interviewed, along with other staff, believed that ‘getting a little bit of money’ was prisoners’ most important reason for taking part in work, though prisoners themselves said otherwise. In fact inmates’ views on how much prison workers should be paid, and why, were surprisingly varied. Out of 127 workers 36 per cent suggested amounts not exceeding £10 a week and 21 per cent suggested between £11 and £20, while at the other end of the scale only 6 per cent suggested more than £50. A quarter of the prisoners asked did not specify an amount, though 17 per cent of the whole sample said that prison pay should be comparable to outside wages. Thus the majority suggested very modest sums.
Many inmates offered more than one reason for the amount they proposed. The commonest reason (given by 55 per cent) was that prison pay should enable them to buy goods at the prison shop (tobacco, phone cards, toiletries, food supplements, etc.) without having to borrow from their fellows. But among the other reasons, 21 per cent of people mentioned saving for release, 13 per cent sending money to their families and 7 per cent paying board. Also, 17 per cent said prison pay should not be as much as outside because after all they were in prison; and while 14 per cent said the pay should reward inmates fairly for their work a handful (4 per cent) said it must take account of what the prison (or workshop) could afford.
Thus altogether there was a variety of views among prisoners. The figures given in the preceding two paragraphs do not represent a complete survey of inmates’ views on prison pay (because interview time did not allow it), but they have interesting implications. They suggest that as long as prison supplied the necessities of life many inmates saw prison pay as simply weekly pocket money and would accept a modest amount, provided it enabled them to buy what they wanted at the shop without getting into debt. But when they looked beyond their immediate needs prisoners wanted to earn money for more ‘adult’ purposes, especially savings to tide them over on release and also to help their families. (These results are consistent with the National Prison Survey, which found that 93 per cent of prisoners, when asked, wanted to be paid more in order to save, and 76 per cent wanted to send money to their families.) At the same time, though the idea of pay comparable to outside was naturally attractive, not all thought it would be justified in prison."
- Frances H. Simon, Prisoners’ Work and Vocational Training. Routledge: London and New York, 1999. p. 111-112