Calculating wages for the incarcerated in practice

Mitigate damages?, some say yes:

>>Relayed by a practicing forensic economist:

....in my case, the plaintiff did no market work to
mitigate her losses, but that would have looked "bad" to the jury.

So I was asked to create mitigation for her by reducing her claimed WT damages
by the amount of a minimum wage job. We never lied and said she was
working at Burger King, but an explicit mitigation was introduced where
there was none.

....If I were I faced with this situation today, I would either refuse to create the
mitigation, or would insist on making it clear that the mitigation was
manufactured.

Here are some links that may help to better understand mitigation after prison:

http://www.thescoop.org/archives/2003/04/09/jobs-for-parolees/
http://www.karisable.com/crpunrpar.htm
http://www.bonds4jobs.com/bondingneed.html
http://www.pap.state.ga.us/criminal.nsf/0/
CFD33DBDB7F5C4A685256B4B0079A4FB?OpenDocument.

Unemployment stats for parolees in GA:
Unemployment Rate Averages - 2001

The data shown (The unemployment rate for parolees is over twice as high in every city):

Geographical
Area, General Public 2001, average Rate of Change from 2000, Parolee
2001, average Rate of Change from 2000

Georgia 3.85% +0.47 15.16% -1.17
Albany 5.25%* -2.21 23.58% +2.16
Athens 3.63%* +1.21 14.25% -5.75
Atlanta 3.33%* +0.34 13.33% -1.59
Augusta 4.56%* -0.02 17.25% -5.25
Columbus 4.61%* -0.10 20.58% +0.75
Macon 3.60%* -0.70 15.91% -4.50
Savannah 3.22%* -0.39 12.50% +0.25

Note: * General Public Average for each municipal area is for January - November 2001, and represents the counties served by the district parole office in that area
Information on Georgia's current parole population indicates that only one-half reported being employed full-time at the time of arrest for the offense that sent them to prison. Considering the average hourly wage that most parolees receive, it would be extremely difficult to support even one person on part-time employment.

Here's one from California:
http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/7730460p-8669937c.html

Criminal activity and lost earnings capacity calculations

The questions

Situation 1

When you are completing a vocational analysis and determining the next best vocational avenue for a person, what impact does a prior conviction have? By this I mean, what impact does the fact the time served was 10 years ago or just 6 months ago (and lets assume the person served more than 6 months)? Does the severity of the crime (possession of drugs or aggravated robbery) play a part? And what about the age of the former convict and at what age the time was served?

Situation 2

What would you vocational rehabilation experts do if the plaintiff committed a felony after the incident in which he was injured and is now serving, say, a 10 year sentence? In other words, the incident had nothing to do with the commission of the felony, but being in prison eliminates his ability to mitigate. Do you ignore the fact that he is in prison? Do you make an assumption as to what he could have mitigated absent the incarceration? Do you look at any earnings in prison, not that $0.30 per hour makes much of a difference. I am talking about a person who by now could have completed retraining and been placed in a job that would mitigate nearly all of his losses because his injuries weren't all that bad.