esigned to rehabilitate prisoners, the prison labor initiative, they contended, could be rehabilitative. This idea was based on the assumption that it the program would teach inmates new skills and thereby improve their self-esteem.
In a letter to the editor, dated March 26, 1989, one of the proponents of the initiative set forth an argument favoring prison labor as providing a competitive advantage to business (Goldman, 1989). According to this argument, the focus of the initiative on the production of consumer items from domestic industries would enable manufacturers to use prison labor to become competitive again with foreign imports. Thus, prison labor would help to reduce the trade deficit.
In his article. which was ambivalent about passage of Proposition 139, Harry Bernstein (1989) indicated that he, and the general population, viewed the chang
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