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And a massive cash cow if you're selling the products of the cheap labour that goes on in US prisons. http://www.cio.com/article/595304/Prison_Labor_Outsourcin

And a massive cash cow if you're selling the products of the cheap labour that goes on in US prisons. http://www.cio.com/article/595304/Prison_Labor_Outsourcing_s_Best_Kept_Secret_ http://www.cio.com/article/595304/Prison_Labor_Outsourcing_s... http://newworkerfeatures.blogspot.com/2010/02/us-prison-labour-return-to-slavery.html http://newworkerfeatures.blogspot.com/2010/02/us-prison-labo... Paying someone who you have in complete physical bondage under $1 an hour is slave labour as far as I'm concerned, even if it is nominally voluntary. At best its unconscionably exploitative. Add to that the fact that the US govt. is legally bound to prefer prison labour over any other for the production of body armour, weapons etc. for the security agencies. EDIT: Here's another fun stat: america has more black people in prison than in college: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/2223709.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/2223709.stm Although we in the UK are definitely doing pretty well at emulating uncle sam: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/06/uk_prisons_in_the_uk/html/1.stm http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/06/uk_prisons_...

ugh 16y ago
It is slave labor. The US constitution bans slavery except for prisoners. Here is the text of the Thirteenth Amendment, Section 1: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” – edit: To add a bit more substance, here is an article about the recent Georgia prison strike and the Thirteenth Amendment: http://prisonlaw.wordpress.com/2010/12/16/prison-labor-and-the-thirteenth-amendment/ http://prisonlaw.wordpress.com/2010/12/16/prison-labor-and-t...
- vaksel 16y ago
  to me that means that labor has to be ordered by the judge as part of the punishment
  - ugh 16y ago
    That’s what I thought when I first read the text but apparently not. Quote from the article I linked: “In light of its plain text, the Thirteenth Amendment has generally been interpreted to bar legal challenges to unpaid or minimally paid prison labor.”
  - chc 16y ago
    I'm not so sure. If it's ordinary for prisoners to work for minimal compensation, and the judge orders you to go to prison, he has implicitly included the possibility of labor in that sentence. There are a lot of other aspects of prison that would not fly when you're dealing with a free person but which are generally considered to be implicit when you're sent to jail.
- thomasfl 16y ago
  If this continue, soon the US will become worse than the Soviet Gulag. Only 14 million people passed through the Gulag from 1929 to 1953, with a further 6 to 7 million being deported and exiled to remote areas of the USSR. In the US 7,225,800 people at yearend 2009 were on probation, in jail or prison, or on parole — about 3.1% of adults in the U.S. cresident population, or 1 in every 32 adults. (Source wikipedia.) I also recommend reading Norwegian criminologist Nils Christie, on why the US should empty their prisons: http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/17-10/ff_smartlist_christie http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/17-10/ff_smartl...
- bugsy 16y ago
  The Constitution prohibits slavery except as a punishment for crime. The punishment for each crime is set by a judge during sentencing after a guilty conviction and it is very specific. Sentencing a prisoner to punishment in the form of prison for 10 years is not the same as sentencing to punishment of slave labor for 10 years. The two are completely different. If a judge has not sentenced the prisoner to slave labor as punishment, it is not Constitutional to have prison slave labor. Slave labor convictions for blacks were very common in the South from reconstruction up until World War II when they fell out of favor. For 70 years from 1870 to 1940 it was quite routine whenever slave laborers were needed for companies to pay local sheriffs to round up blacks on bogus charges such as loitering, convict them in sham trials, and then sell them to corporations to do hard labor 6 days a week 14 hours a day. This is extensively documented in Blackmon's "Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II."
  - ugh 16y ago
    The article I linked to claims that the language of the amendment bars legal challenges to unpaid or minimally paid prison labor. (It also mentions the book you mentioned.) The Thirteenth Amendment which is ostensibly about slavery would seem to ban prison labor outside of prisons. That’s the connection I wanted to make. Is there something to that? I know that I’m casting a wide net. Prison labor is certainly not the same as slavery as it existed in the US decades ago. I do think, though, that I’m at least somewhat justified in calling prison labor slavery. Prisoners are forced to do it and they are not paid or paid very little. (This is not necessarily a moral judgment. Just because something meets some definition doesn’t mean it’s wrong.)
    - bugsy 16y ago
      "The Thirteenth Amendment which is ostensibly about slavery would seem to ban prison labor outside of prisons." That seems like quite a stretch and isn't really consistent with the language.
      - ugh 16y ago
        It seems like at least some law professors agree with you but courts have generally decided otherwise: http://prisonlaw.wordpress.com/2010/12/16/a-different-take-on-prison-labor-and-the-thirteenth-amendment/ http://prisonlaw.wordpress.com/2010/12/16/a-different-take-o...
Anechoic 16y ago
EDIT: Here's another fun stat: america has more black people in prison than in college: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/ americas/2223709.stm This claim is a little misleading - the absolute numbers are true (or close enough depending on your source) but it compares blacks in all age groups in jail with blacks going to college. If you limit the comparison to college-aged blacks, there are far more blacks in college then prison.
- JonnieCache 16y ago
  A good point. It is still not exactly encouraging that these two figures should be anywhere near each other, considering it is not only young people that should be going to college. EDIT: I wonder what would happen if you injected the racial makeup of the prison/university management and staff into the calculations.
  - true_religion 16y ago
    Two things you should consider: 1. Prison terms often last longer than the average university education. 2. Once you've finished your term in university, there's not much encouragement (regardless of racial group) to continue. For example: You have a BS in Computer Science, and are now working. Why should you go back for a MS? Or a PHD? Or Post Doc?
    - bugsy 16y ago
      Those are excellent points. The number of years of one's life spent in prison on average for the population vs number of years spent in college on average for the population might be one other way to look at it and it would come out looking even worse.
  - yters 16y ago
    What about other racial groups?
- forensic 16y ago
  what is college age though? there are plenty of 30 year olds who go to college
oiuytuikolikuhy 16y ago
Not really thinking creatively though. Why replace children in a chinese sweatshopa earning 80c an hour with prisoners being paid $1 hour. Wouldn't it be more profitable to replace people being paid $1000/hour with prisoners at $1/hour? Imprison the bankers, have them continue to work from prison for $1 - use profit to pay off national debt.

ugh 16y ago

It is slave labor. The US constitution bans slavery except for prisoners. Here is the text of the Thirteenth Amendment, Section 1: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” – edit: To add a bit more substance, here is an article about the recent Georgia prison strike and the Thirteenth Amendment: http://prisonlaw.wordpress.com/2010/12/16/prison-labor-and-the-thirteenth-amendment/ http://prisonlaw.wordpress.com/2010/12/16/prison-labor-and-t...

vaksel 16y ago
to me that means that labor has to be ordered by the judge as part of the punishment
- ugh 16y ago
  That’s what I thought when I first read the text but apparently not. Quote from the article I linked: “In light of its plain text, the Thirteenth Amendment has generally been interpreted to bar legal challenges to unpaid or minimally paid prison labor.”
- chc 16y ago
  I'm not so sure. If it's ordinary for prisoners to work for minimal compensation, and the judge orders you to go to prison, he has implicitly included the possibility of labor in that sentence. There are a lot of other aspects of prison that would not fly when you're dealing with a free person but which are generally considered to be implicit when you're sent to jail.
thomasfl 16y ago
If this continue, soon the US will become worse than the Soviet Gulag. Only 14 million people passed through the Gulag from 1929 to 1953, with a further 6 to 7 million being deported and exiled to remote areas of the USSR. In the US 7,225,800 people at yearend 2009 were on probation, in jail or prison, or on parole — about 3.1% of adults in the U.S. cresident population, or 1 in every 32 adults. (Source wikipedia.) I also recommend reading Norwegian criminologist Nils Christie, on why the US should empty their prisons: http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/17-10/ff_smartlist_christie http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/17-10/ff_smartl...
bugsy 16y ago
The Constitution prohibits slavery except as a punishment for crime. The punishment for each crime is set by a judge during sentencing after a guilty conviction and it is very specific. Sentencing a prisoner to punishment in the form of prison for 10 years is not the same as sentencing to punishment of slave labor for 10 years. The two are completely different. If a judge has not sentenced the prisoner to slave labor as punishment, it is not Constitutional to have prison slave labor. Slave labor convictions for blacks were very common in the South from reconstruction up until World War II when they fell out of favor. For 70 years from 1870 to 1940 it was quite routine whenever slave laborers were needed for companies to pay local sheriffs to round up blacks on bogus charges such as loitering, convict them in sham trials, and then sell them to corporations to do hard labor 6 days a week 14 hours a day. This is extensively documented in Blackmon's "Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II."
- ugh 16y ago
  The article I linked to claims that the language of the amendment bars legal challenges to unpaid or minimally paid prison labor. (It also mentions the book you mentioned.) The Thirteenth Amendment which is ostensibly about slavery would seem to ban prison labor outside of prisons. That’s the connection I wanted to make. Is there something to that? I know that I’m casting a wide net. Prison labor is certainly not the same as slavery as it existed in the US decades ago. I do think, though, that I’m at least somewhat justified in calling prison labor slavery. Prisoners are forced to do it and they are not paid or paid very little. (This is not necessarily a moral judgment. Just because something meets some definition doesn’t mean it’s wrong.)
  - bugsy 16y ago
    "The Thirteenth Amendment which is ostensibly about slavery would seem to ban prison labor outside of prisons." That seems like quite a stretch and isn't really consistent with the language.
    - ugh 16y ago
      It seems like at least some law professors agree with you but courts have generally decided otherwise: http://prisonlaw.wordpress.com/2010/12/16/a-different-take-on-prison-labor-and-the-thirteenth-amendment/ http://prisonlaw.wordpress.com/2010/12/16/a-different-take-o...

Anechoic 16y ago

EDIT: Here's another fun stat: america has more black people in prison than in college: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/ http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/ americas/2223709.stm This claim is a little misleading - the absolute numbers are true (or close enough depending on your source) but it compares blacks in all age groups in jail with blacks going to college. If you limit the comparison to college-aged blacks, there are far more blacks in college then prison.

JonnieCache 16y ago
A good point. It is still not exactly encouraging that these two figures should be anywhere near each other, considering it is not only young people that should be going to college. EDIT: I wonder what would happen if you injected the racial makeup of the prison/university management and staff into the calculations.
- true_religion 16y ago
  Two things you should consider: 1. Prison terms often last longer than the average university education. 2. Once you've finished your term in university, there's not much encouragement (regardless of racial group) to continue. For example: You have a BS in Computer Science, and are now working. Why should you go back for a MS? Or a PHD? Or Post Doc?
  - bugsy 16y ago
    Those are excellent points. The number of years of one's life spent in prison on average for the population vs number of years spent in college on average for the population might be one other way to look at it and it would come out looking even worse.
- yters 16y ago
  What about other racial groups?
forensic 16y ago
what is college age though? there are plenty of 30 year olds who go to college

oiuytuikolikuhy 16y ago

Not really thinking creatively though. Why replace children in a chinese sweatshopa earning 80c an hour with prisoners being paid $1 hour. Wouldn't it be more profitable to replace people being paid $1000/hour with prisoners at $1/hour? Imprison the bankers, have them continue to work from prison for $1 - use profit to pay off national debt.