20 ms·

How corporations buy and food made with prison labor

222 points by adrian_mrd 5y ago

moksly 5y ago
Global capitalism has been terrible since its inception. It’s a political and we’ve only liked it because we were on the benefitting end. Now that the west is moving into the economic shadow of China, we’re seeing more and more of the exploitation first hand. It would be lovely to say this was a new chance, but since Chiquita and the other banana companies had local farmers killed by local militia for their land in the 70-80ies the whole thing has been rotten to its core, and probably even before that. The prison labour of America is just crazy, and it’s only a thing because a very small elite makes a profit of it.
- Tade0 5y ago
  > Now that the west is moving into the economic shadow of China Is it actually? The results of the recent census paint a picture of a country which, in the long run, might become the largest economy in the world, but will struggle to maintain growth - more so than the west.
- namdnay 5y ago
  > Global capitalism has been terrible since its inception. It’s a political and we’ve only liked it because we were on the benefitting end. Now that the west is moving into the economic shadow of China, we’re seeing more and more of the exploitation first hand. It's ironic that you raise China in your comparison, because the chinese people have been massive beneficiaries of global capitalism.
  - cerved 5y ago
    and its forced labor practices
- filleduchaos 5y ago
  If there's one thing capitalism is very good at, it's externalising costs - and in my opinion that's precisely how it's kept its reputation (in the West, at least) as so much superior to any other economic system. It's very nifty. As long as all the vices are conveniently offshore in the places that people already don't really think or care about (or buried deep enough in the underbelly of your society, where it has the same effect), you can extol only the virtues and continue to reject any useful change. I'm starting to think that from a global lens the economic system doesn't even matter - none could really have mitigated the unbridled greed combined with the population explosion of humanity in the 20th century. Now most of us are stuck relying on the poverty and deprivation of others to support the vaunted quality of life of the 21st; food, clothes, etc can only be so cheap when somebody is willing (or even forced) to take pennies to produce them.
- spankyspangler 5y ago
  > Global capitalism has been terrible since its inception. Prison labor is not global capitalism it would be done even if nations were isolated. Prisons, judicial systems, slave labor, and exploitation of labor and labor conditions have all been far far worse at many or most times in the past since prehistory. What is the correlation with capitalism? > It’s a political and we’ve only liked it because we were on the benefitting end. Now that the west is moving into the economic shadow of China, we’re seeing more and more of the exploitation first hand. China is a dirty old dinosaur of an economy, it has double the carbon emissions of the US while only generating 2/3 of the GDP! Horrific carbon intensity. Not to mention all the other environmental destruction it causes. The worker exploitation, the corruption, the human rights abuses, the bullying of its neighbors. It's modernization strategy consists of copying from the west, and little else innovative, certainly not for its size and wealth. A single American company started less than 20 years ago has already surpassed its entire space program, which sees it losing control of its rockets in orbit and crashing them all over the globe. It will never be a leading country and will always be looked down on, at least until the crooked communist dictatorship at its core is dismantled. Not even when its GDP manages to eventually creep past the USA (has it even overtaken the EU yet?), not even if they ever managed to eclipse "the west" ($60 trillionish).
  - chopin 5y ago
    > China is a dirty old dinosaur of an economy, it has double the carbon emissions of the US while only generating 2/3 of the GDP! Does this account for the goods exported from China to the US? These should be added to the emissions caused by the US. The west exported much of their environmental problems to poorer nations, including China.
    - swongel 5y ago
      It doesn't, it also doesn't account for the fact that China has a larger population. The US only has about ~23% of China's population to sustain. GDP/CO2 is a silly metric to compare (No Patrick, selling financial products to increase GDP/CO2 isn't green). In reality China is just "greener" (in CO2 emission) than the USA if you measure more reasonable metrics like CO2 emission per capita.
- CountDrewku 5y ago
  >Global capitalism has been terrible since its inception. Cool. Now, do something useful and suggest a better option. Utopia doesn't exist.
londons_explore 5y ago
Is prison labor bad in all cases? By letting prisoners become familiar with expectations of a job, and get used to being paid, managing finances, and spending within their means, they're less likely to be forced to return to crime after they're released. Despite being 'inhumane', I suspect these programmes lead to better outcomes for people involved in them than prisoners who spend every day in a cell. Is there data to prove or disprove my hypothesis?
- Peckingjay 5y ago
  Not in all cases, but when coupled with the private prison system of the US which is less concerned with rehabilitation and more with the extraction of value from its "residents", you do get a problem.
- yesenadam 5y ago
  Well, I guess if you compare prison labour vs nothing, like that, then it sounds all good. If you compare slave/underpaid labour vs proper-wage labour, then it's probably putting people out of a job. Also, it sounds like the last thing the US needs is more commercial incentive to put people in prison.
- slumber86 5y ago
  From the piece: "incarcerated people working for the state’s correctional industries earn an average of $4.50 per day."
- simiones 5y ago
  Even if you were absolutely correct about improved outcomes (I don't know what/if the data shows), there is still a major problem that would still make prison labor as it exists today problematic or even immoral: it creates a huge incentive to imprison more people through various means (stricter laws, opposition to drug reform, mandatory minimums etc.). The prison industrial complex is a major lobby for these issues, so this is not just a theoretical concern. A system that would improve the life of people after prison without falling for this pitfall would have to entirely remove the profit motive from prison labor (for example by prohibiting the prison to keep any proceeds from prison labor, or by paying inmates competitive rates for the work they are doing, so that overall prison labor is guaranteed to be more expensive than just hiring/outsourcing etc).
ddtaylor 5y ago
> The answer to the first question, it turned out, may have been the Colorado prison system, where incarcerated people working for the state’s correctional industries earn an average of $4.50 per day I served a 1-year sentence in Federal prison and my _monthly_ salary was $0.59 - that's for the entire 30 day period. My job was to take cakes that were made daily and wrap them in plastic. In the area of the prison I was designated this meant my group of 4 people wrapped about 500 cakes per day. Some of the other people assigned to the group were elderly or disabled, so that meant that 2 of us usually wrapped all of the cakes. Before you attempt to give me any sympathy it's worth noting that I eventually did not have to do this job. I became friends with inmate clerk that coordinated all the ins-and-outs of the kitchen and he eventually said he had a way to avoid the cakes needing to be wrapped to begin with and that my job wasn't even really worth existing. Strangely enough, through paperwork, this actually caused me to begin making $5.20/mo for a job that I no longer had to do. For my last month there my wage was increased to $30/mo for my fake labor and the reason given was "because it would piss of person X". TL;DR - Prison job systems are arbitrary and stupid ways that most inmates use to entertain themselves. None of it matters.
- hellbannedguy 5y ago
  This sounds exactly what I heard from a guy who did a 6 year stint at San Quentin on a clerical error in the 90's. He said the job training was subpar. You basically do your time, and were dropped off at the San Rafael bus station with $200. (It's now $400.). Many guys went right back because of Probation infractions, like being in the presence of another felon. There are a lot of felons, especially when homeless. All it takes is pissing off the wrong cop. He told me he was falsely incarcerated. I didn't know what to believe, or say. I was young, and still kinda believed in the system. I do remember telling him there are nonprofit attorneys whom might take your case. He said, "I just don't care anymore.". I didn't quite understand, probably because of my young age. It turns out he was kept in jail over a clerical error. It didn't matter because he died homeless over a pnumonia.
jiofih 5y ago
I feel like this article is pointing a gun at the wrong faces. These companies are most likely doing this as a form of social giving. The amounts involved are minuscule for the industry. It touches on the question of rehabilitation but very superficially, when that should be the main point. Plenty of prison systems have voluntary work placement, not mandatory, and it benefits everyone. Buried at the very end: > In a series of interviews and surveys by the nonprofit Impact Justice for a six-part report on food in prisons, formerly incarcerated people reported widely varied experiences working in food production. In some cases, people said they received helpful training, enjoyed the fresh air, and snacked on food they grew. In other places, they found the jobs extremely difficult and were not allowed to eat the food they produced.
- robertlagrant 5y ago
  > were not allowed to eat the food they produced This does seem like a cynical take. In most agriculture jobs this would be the case.
  - JulianMorrison 5y ago
    That may be "normal" but it's still fucked up.
    - robertlagrant 5y ago
      In the same way that if you help make cars you can't have the cars.
      - JulianMorrison 5y ago
        This is called "alienation from your labour" It is normal for somebody who grows veggies to be able to eat one. It is normal for somebody who makes coffee, to be able to make themself a coffee. It is normal for somebody who makes cars to be able to make a car for themself. Our society of capitalism where you make these things for someone else and aren't permitted to have any is abnormal.
jiofih 5y ago
> Someone imprisoned in Arizona might work at a canning plant that produces taco sauce sold at Safeway and on Amazon, but the jar doesn’t come with a “packaged in prison” label or other disclosure. Well, thankfully we’re not doing that. If we’re advocating for prison work to become more healthy, that’s the wrong way to go - it’s transparency for the customer, but a form of discrimination for the workers. The product is not tainted because it was made by prisoners, but because your justice system sucks.
- crumbshot 5y ago
  > The product is not tainted because it was made by prisoners, but because your justice system sucks. The product is tainted because it was made by enslaved workers being exploited for their labour.
Havoc 5y ago
Without clicking guess whether article is about US or China
zeepzeep 5y ago
Just noticed how no one has mentioned how the criminalization of drug users creates thousands of free prison workers. I can't understand how prisons can be private... it creates an incentive for them to lobby keeping drugs illegal. There are so many horror stories, like prisons saying that they'll close if they don't get some more prisoners.
- gadders 5y ago
  It's not just corporations that lobby for the war on drugs to continue. So do Prison and Police Unions. https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2014/08/money-not-morals-drives-marijuana-prohibition-movement/ https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2014/08/money-not-morals-dr...
- onei 5y ago
  I guess I should be less surprised that the US has the highest incarceration rate in the world with incentives like that.
- okamiueru 5y ago
  From a fairly basic set of morals, both privatized prisons and health care are obviously wrong. Heavy rules and regulation could reduce the problem somewhat, but fundamentally, you have a business that wishes to profit. In terms of health care, it is providing less and charging more. In terms of prison, it's incarcerating more and spending less / treating worse. The US is IMO far into coo-coo land on the approach to both, and with so many of the things that make no sense there, it's deeply rooted in systemic racism.
  - fennecfoxen 5y ago
    > From a fairly basic set of morals... obviously wrong... "Privatized" prisons are a typical distraction from the deeper problems. California's prison system sterilized women as late as 2010, and those were public prisons. The state of Texas saved a little money by pulling inmates' teeth and putting them on liquid diets instead of supplying dentures, and only just started to reverse course in 2018. Even private actors actively conspiring to exploit people have a hard time matching the sadistic cruelty that the public and the law enforcement apparatus train on those who it has deemed un-peopled — even many of those merely accused of crimes, and not yet tried.
roflc0ptic 5y ago
It's utterly wild how there are people in the comments saying "maybe slave labor is actually good for the slaves." I don't even necessarily disagree with that possibility - sure, work provides meaning in life, it's better than sitting in a cage. The issue here is the perverse incentives of corporations profiting off of prison labor. Same issue as private prisons - no one should be making money off of keeping people in cages. If we as a society have to do that, fine, but it's unconscionable that it be a profitable venture.
- LightG 5y ago
  HN should introduce a "super-golden-upvote" which everyone is allowed to use once a year. This post would earn that.
- sampo 5y ago
  > It's utterly wild how there are people in the comments saying "maybe slave labor is actually good for the slaves." There are many countries that treat their prisoners as prisoners, not as slaves. Maybe prison work can be good in those countries? Just not in yours. There are many articles on how Norway is one of the best countries in rehabilitating prisoners, and in Norwegian prisons prisoners do work. I'd guess that prisoners work in all the countries that are among the world top in rehabilitation.
  - omginternets 5y ago
    Agreed. As usual, the debate in the US conflates several distinct issues, using a strangely deformed "fruit of the poisoned tree" logic. Here, the logic goes something like, "US prisons mistreat prisoners, therefore prison labor constitutes mistreatment". Mistreatment of prisoners through labor is an accidental property, not an essential one (as evidenced by countries like Norway).
- dalbasal 5y ago
  I sympathize with a lot of this, and we'd probably agree at the practical level. As a matter of principle though... the principle is violated inevitably. A prison guard "profits" (or rather, makes a living by) imprisonment. Any company supplying a prison profits. Community service is forced labour, etc. That said, I totally agree on incentives. It's dangerous, especially private prisons. The pay rate does bother me... I can see why real pay isn't done, but just paying pennies per hour does not sit well. Maybe a 3rd party should get the money, and this could take on a restorative rather than punitive aspect. There might even be a case for demonetize prison labour, supply the food directly to food banks instead of for market. The phrase, "debt to society" is used often. Debts are not redeemed by suffering, generally.
cerved 5y ago
The US penal system is an inhumane disgrace
williesleg 5y ago
Stay out of jail assholes. Join antifa.
antattack 5y ago
Here's possible link between prison work and government opposition to marijuana legalization: In 1995, Governor Bill Janklow established a temporary minimum-security unit of fifty male inmates in Pierre. These inmates were deployed on a variety of deferred maintenance projects throughout the Capital complex. That initial effort was a total success and the program was expanded to include all minimum-security inmates. [1] [1]https://doc.sd.gov/adult/work/ https://doc.sd.gov/adult/work/ [In 2020] South Dakota became the first state to simultaneously approve legalization of medical and recreational marijuana.[...] Thanks to a legal challenge backed by Noem, the initiative has been blocked, and it may never take effect.[2] https://reason.com/2021/04/21/how-an-anti-pot-governor-blocked-voter-approved-legalization-in-south-dakota/ https://reason.com/2021/04/21/how-an-anti-pot-governor-block...
dkdk8283 5y ago
If you want to be even more disappointed in the US look at UNICOR. Government agencies hire prisoners to do arbitrary work at costs the private sector cannot compete with. License plates are a commonly cited example of a product they produce. It’s slave labor as the prisoners are paid something absurdly low like a dollar a day.
badkitty99 5y ago
Garbage website
Thorentis 5y ago
In my opinion, actual community service of some kind is far preferable to prison, both to society, and to the prisoners. Why lock up perfectly fit human beings for life, when we as a society could say, you know what? This person murdered somebody, and as a way of paying back society, they're going to work as a trash collector for 20 years on minimum wage. Far cheaper than paying for their prison upkeep, and no perverse incentive from private prisons. Yes, there are issues around them running or reoffending. But I think tech might be able to solve these problems. We just choose the easy way out and pay tons of money to lock them up. I think there's a missed opportunity here.
- pmoriarty 5y ago
  Your plan sounds much more practical for non-violent offenders. For violent offenders, no amount of tech is going to keep them from hurting others.
throwaway59553 5y ago
My only opposition to this is that labor should be done by fully paid employees, and not having companies getting this legal avenue to cheap labor, and that most convicts should have been executed a long time ago instead of actually giving them an occupation to entertain their time.
program_whiz 5y ago
The US prison system is indeed practically slavery. However, that's not even the tip of the iceberg in terms of all the products and services being supported by slavery/servitude e.g. Apple, Nike, most clothes, electronics, and consumer goods, etc. We had a brief period without slavery in the 1950s after WWII, and due to labor shortages wages went up and the middle class soared. Problem is, such a situation isn't good for capital, and capital makes the rules -- access to free labor makes workers compete for lower wages and bigger profit margins. Consumers love the lower prices, even though the wages stagnate and it will probably lead to a revolution or UBI at some point.
tyingq 5y ago
Meanwhile, the prisoners eat this, or worse. https://www.themarshallproject.org/2020/05/11/ewwwww-what-is-that https://www.themarshallproject.org/2020/05/11/ewwwww-what-is... Also note the "Lunch - NONE" entry for every Saturday and Sunday. Texas figures 2 meals on the weekends is fine.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 5y ago
  I thought you were going to link to nutraloaf. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutraloaf https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutraloaf I don't know which is worse..
rootusrootus 5y ago
The labor should be billed out at minimum wage. The convicts should be required to pay taxes on it, pay some token amount as rehab to the system, etc. Threads like this always bring out the "OMG private prisons are immoral and explain everything about the US justice system" crowd. Turns out 8.1% of prisoners in the US are in private prisons. Maybe we want that to be 0%, but let's not pretend that it's a serious contribution to the way we run the justice system here. We've gotten exactly the system we voted for, repeatedly.
- world_peace42 5y ago
  Can they pay rent then with that money? Why do I need to pay rent, food, and healthcare for someone who decides to go on a stabbing spree?
  - rootusrootus 5y ago
    As I said, they can pay some token amount back to the system. We shouldn't incentivize people to stay in prison for the housing and pay, but we should provide some way for them to build up a financial cushion they can use when released to try and avoid landing right back in prison.
    - world_peace42 5y ago
      So I have to cover the rest(most of it)? Including a reasonable amount for the salaries of all of the employees, ad nauseum.
- Red_Leaves_Flyy 5y ago
  It's my understanding that private prisons are used as a wedge to open the door on the conversation about prison reform. Some, less fluent, people only bother to learn this much about it. Prisons have a lot of problems, let's not demean those fighting for the rights of people who've had their voices taken away from them just because they're not writing dissertations about the problems. If you've Only got one tweet worth of time and one issue to speak about choose the simplest one.
ratsmack 5y ago
I see no problem with prison labor as long as they are paid a competing wage and their wages go to support their incarceration and victims, if any.
TheRealPomax 5y ago
admins: the title should be "How corporations buy and sell food made with prison labor"
- tantalor 5y ago
  @dang
LatteLazy 5y ago
America needs to send a lot lot fewer people to jail. Once that is accomplished, I'd be a lot more relaxed about their conditions including workong...

222 points by adrian_mrd 5y ago

Global capitalism has been terrible since its inception. It’s a political and we’ve only liked it because we were on the benefitting end. Now that the west is moving into the economic shadow of China, we’re seeing more and more of the exploitation first hand. It would be lovely to say this was a new chance, but since Chiquita and the other banana companies had local farmers killed by local militia for their land in the 70-80ies the whole thing has been rotten to its core, and probably even before that. The prison labour of America is just crazy, and it’s only a thing because a very small elite makes a profit of it.

Tade0 5y ago
> Now that the west is moving into the economic shadow of China Is it actually? The results of the recent census paint a picture of a country which, in the long run, might become the largest economy in the world, but will struggle to maintain growth - more so than the west.
namdnay 5y ago
> Global capitalism has been terrible since its inception. It’s a political and we’ve only liked it because we were on the benefitting end. Now that the west is moving into the economic shadow of China, we’re seeing more and more of the exploitation first hand. It's ironic that you raise China in your comparison, because the chinese people have been massive beneficiaries of global capitalism.
- cerved 5y ago
  and its forced labor practices
filleduchaos 5y ago
If there's one thing capitalism is very good at, it's externalising costs - and in my opinion that's precisely how it's kept its reputation (in the West, at least) as so much superior to any other economic system. It's very nifty. As long as all the vices are conveniently offshore in the places that people already don't really think or care about (or buried deep enough in the underbelly of your society, where it has the same effect), you can extol only the virtues and continue to reject any useful change. I'm starting to think that from a global lens the economic system doesn't even matter - none could really have mitigated the unbridled greed combined with the population explosion of humanity in the 20th century. Now most of us are stuck relying on the poverty and deprivation of others to support the vaunted quality of life of the 21st; food, clothes, etc can only be so cheap when somebody is willing (or even forced) to take pennies to produce them.
spankyspangler 5y ago
> Global capitalism has been terrible since its inception. Prison labor is not global capitalism it would be done even if nations were isolated. Prisons, judicial systems, slave labor, and exploitation of labor and labor conditions have all been far far worse at many or most times in the past since prehistory. What is the correlation with capitalism? > It’s a political and we’ve only liked it because we were on the benefitting end. Now that the west is moving into the economic shadow of China, we’re seeing more and more of the exploitation first hand. China is a dirty old dinosaur of an economy, it has double the carbon emissions of the US while only generating 2/3 of the GDP! Horrific carbon intensity. Not to mention all the other environmental destruction it causes. The worker exploitation, the corruption, the human rights abuses, the bullying of its neighbors. It's modernization strategy consists of copying from the west, and little else innovative, certainly not for its size and wealth. A single American company started less than 20 years ago has already surpassed its entire space program, which sees it losing control of its rockets in orbit and crashing them all over the globe. It will never be a leading country and will always be looked down on, at least until the crooked communist dictatorship at its core is dismantled. Not even when its GDP manages to eventually creep past the USA (has it even overtaken the EU yet?), not even if they ever managed to eclipse "the west" ($60 trillionish).
- chopin 5y ago
  > China is a dirty old dinosaur of an economy, it has double the carbon emissions of the US while only generating 2/3 of the GDP! Does this account for the goods exported from China to the US? These should be added to the emissions caused by the US. The west exported much of their environmental problems to poorer nations, including China.
  - swongel 5y ago
    It doesn't, it also doesn't account for the fact that China has a larger population. The US only has about ~23% of China's population to sustain. GDP/CO2 is a silly metric to compare (No Patrick, selling financial products to increase GDP/CO2 isn't green). In reality China is just "greener" (in CO2 emission) than the USA if you measure more reasonable metrics like CO2 emission per capita.
CountDrewku 5y ago
>Global capitalism has been terrible since its inception. Cool. Now, do something useful and suggest a better option. Utopia doesn't exist.

londons_explore 5y ago

Is prison labor bad in all cases? By letting prisoners become familiar with expectations of a job, and get used to being paid, managing finances, and spending within their means, they're less likely to be forced to return to crime after they're released. Despite being 'inhumane', I suspect these programmes lead to better outcomes for people involved in them than prisoners who spend every day in a cell. Is there data to prove or disprove my hypothesis?

Peckingjay 5y ago
Not in all cases, but when coupled with the private prison system of the US which is less concerned with rehabilitation and more with the extraction of value from its "residents", you do get a problem.
yesenadam 5y ago
Well, I guess if you compare prison labour vs nothing, like that, then it sounds all good. If you compare slave/underpaid labour vs proper-wage labour, then it's probably putting people out of a job. Also, it sounds like the last thing the US needs is more commercial incentive to put people in prison.
slumber86 5y ago
From the piece: "incarcerated people working for the state’s correctional industries earn an average of $4.50 per day."
simiones 5y ago
Even if you were absolutely correct about improved outcomes (I don't know what/if the data shows), there is still a major problem that would still make prison labor as it exists today problematic or even immoral: it creates a huge incentive to imprison more people through various means (stricter laws, opposition to drug reform, mandatory minimums etc.). The prison industrial complex is a major lobby for these issues, so this is not just a theoretical concern. A system that would improve the life of people after prison without falling for this pitfall would have to entirely remove the profit motive from prison labor (for example by prohibiting the prison to keep any proceeds from prison labor, or by paying inmates competitive rates for the work they are doing, so that overall prison labor is guaranteed to be more expensive than just hiring/outsourcing etc).

ddtaylor 5y ago

> The answer to the first question, it turned out, may have been the Colorado prison system, where incarcerated people working for the state’s correctional industries earn an average of $4.50 per day I served a 1-year sentence in Federal prison and my _monthly_ salary was $0.59 - that's for the entire 30 day period. My job was to take cakes that were made daily and wrap them in plastic. In the area of the prison I was designated this meant my group of 4 people wrapped about 500 cakes per day. Some of the other people assigned to the group were elderly or disabled, so that meant that 2 of us usually wrapped all of the cakes. Before you attempt to give me any sympathy it's worth noting that I eventually did not have to do this job. I became friends with inmate clerk that coordinated all the ins-and-outs of the kitchen and he eventually said he had a way to avoid the cakes needing to be wrapped to begin with and that my job wasn't even really worth existing. Strangely enough, through paperwork, this actually caused me to begin making $5.20/mo for a job that I no longer had to do. For my last month there my wage was increased to $30/mo for my fake labor and the reason given was "because it would piss of person X". TL;DR - Prison job systems are arbitrary and stupid ways that most inmates use to entertain themselves. None of it matters.

hellbannedguy 5y ago
This sounds exactly what I heard from a guy who did a 6 year stint at San Quentin on a clerical error in the 90's. He said the job training was subpar. You basically do your time, and were dropped off at the San Rafael bus station with $200. (It's now $400.). Many guys went right back because of Probation infractions, like being in the presence of another felon. There are a lot of felons, especially when homeless. All it takes is pissing off the wrong cop. He told me he was falsely incarcerated. I didn't know what to believe, or say. I was young, and still kinda believed in the system. I do remember telling him there are nonprofit attorneys whom might take your case. He said, "I just don't care anymore.". I didn't quite understand, probably because of my young age. It turns out he was kept in jail over a clerical error. It didn't matter because he died homeless over a pnumonia.

jiofih 5y ago

I feel like this article is pointing a gun at the wrong faces. These companies are most likely doing this as a form of social giving. The amounts involved are minuscule for the industry. It touches on the question of rehabilitation but very superficially, when that should be the main point. Plenty of prison systems have voluntary work placement, not mandatory, and it benefits everyone. Buried at the very end: > In a series of interviews and surveys by the nonprofit Impact Justice for a six-part report on food in prisons, formerly incarcerated people reported widely varied experiences working in food production. In some cases, people said they received helpful training, enjoyed the fresh air, and snacked on food they grew. In other places, they found the jobs extremely difficult and were not allowed to eat the food they produced.

robertlagrant 5y ago
> were not allowed to eat the food they produced This does seem like a cynical take. In most agriculture jobs this would be the case.
- JulianMorrison 5y ago
  That may be "normal" but it's still fucked up.
  - robertlagrant 5y ago
    In the same way that if you help make cars you can't have the cars.
    - JulianMorrison 5y ago
      This is called "alienation from your labour" It is normal for somebody who grows veggies to be able to eat one. It is normal for somebody who makes coffee, to be able to make themself a coffee. It is normal for somebody who makes cars to be able to make a car for themself. Our society of capitalism where you make these things for someone else and aren't permitted to have any is abnormal.

jiofih 5y ago

> Someone imprisoned in Arizona might work at a canning plant that produces taco sauce sold at Safeway and on Amazon, but the jar doesn’t come with a “packaged in prison” label or other disclosure. Well, thankfully we’re not doing that. If we’re advocating for prison work to become more healthy, that’s the wrong way to go - it’s transparency for the customer, but a form of discrimination for the workers. The product is not tainted because it was made by prisoners, but because your justice system sucks.

crumbshot 5y ago
> The product is not tainted because it was made by prisoners, but because your justice system sucks. The product is tainted because it was made by enslaved workers being exploited for their labour.

Havoc 5y ago

Without clicking guess whether article is about US or China

zeepzeep 5y ago

Just noticed how no one has mentioned how the criminalization of drug users creates thousands of free prison workers. I can't understand how prisons can be private... it creates an incentive for them to lobby keeping drugs illegal. There are so many horror stories, like prisons saying that they'll close if they don't get some more prisoners.

gadders 5y ago
It's not just corporations that lobby for the war on drugs to continue. So do Prison and Police Unions. https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2014/08/money-not-morals-drives-marijuana-prohibition-movement/ https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2014/08/money-not-morals-dr...
onei 5y ago
I guess I should be less surprised that the US has the highest incarceration rate in the world with incentives like that.
okamiueru 5y ago
From a fairly basic set of morals, both privatized prisons and health care are obviously wrong. Heavy rules and regulation could reduce the problem somewhat, but fundamentally, you have a business that wishes to profit. In terms of health care, it is providing less and charging more. In terms of prison, it's incarcerating more and spending less / treating worse. The US is IMO far into coo-coo land on the approach to both, and with so many of the things that make no sense there, it's deeply rooted in systemic racism.
- fennecfoxen 5y ago
  > From a fairly basic set of morals... obviously wrong... "Privatized" prisons are a typical distraction from the deeper problems. California's prison system sterilized women as late as 2010, and those were public prisons. The state of Texas saved a little money by pulling inmates' teeth and putting them on liquid diets instead of supplying dentures, and only just started to reverse course in 2018. Even private actors actively conspiring to exploit people have a hard time matching the sadistic cruelty that the public and the law enforcement apparatus train on those who it has deemed un-peopled — even many of those merely accused of crimes, and not yet tried.

roflc0ptic 5y ago

It's utterly wild how there are people in the comments saying "maybe slave labor is actually good for the slaves." I don't even necessarily disagree with that possibility - sure, work provides meaning in life, it's better than sitting in a cage. The issue here is the perverse incentives of corporations profiting off of prison labor. Same issue as private prisons - no one should be making money off of keeping people in cages. If we as a society have to do that, fine, but it's unconscionable that it be a profitable venture.

LightG 5y ago
HN should introduce a "super-golden-upvote" which everyone is allowed to use once a year. This post would earn that.
sampo 5y ago
> It's utterly wild how there are people in the comments saying "maybe slave labor is actually good for the slaves." There are many countries that treat their prisoners as prisoners, not as slaves. Maybe prison work can be good in those countries? Just not in yours. There are many articles on how Norway is one of the best countries in rehabilitating prisoners, and in Norwegian prisons prisoners do work. I'd guess that prisoners work in all the countries that are among the world top in rehabilitation.
- omginternets 5y ago
  Agreed. As usual, the debate in the US conflates several distinct issues, using a strangely deformed "fruit of the poisoned tree" logic. Here, the logic goes something like, "US prisons mistreat prisoners, therefore prison labor constitutes mistreatment". Mistreatment of prisoners through labor is an accidental property, not an essential one (as evidenced by countries like Norway).
dalbasal 5y ago
I sympathize with a lot of this, and we'd probably agree at the practical level. As a matter of principle though... the principle is violated inevitably. A prison guard "profits" (or rather, makes a living by) imprisonment. Any company supplying a prison profits. Community service is forced labour, etc. That said, I totally agree on incentives. It's dangerous, especially private prisons. The pay rate does bother me... I can see why real pay isn't done, but just paying pennies per hour does not sit well. Maybe a 3rd party should get the money, and this could take on a restorative rather than punitive aspect. There might even be a case for demonetize prison labour, supply the food directly to food banks instead of for market. The phrase, "debt to society" is used often. Debts are not redeemed by suffering, generally.

cerved 5y ago

The US penal system is an inhumane disgrace

williesleg 5y ago

Stay out of jail assholes. Join antifa.

antattack 5y ago

Here's possible link between prison work and government opposition to marijuana legalization: In 1995, Governor Bill Janklow established a temporary minimum-security unit of fifty male inmates in Pierre. These inmates were deployed on a variety of deferred maintenance projects throughout the Capital complex. That initial effort was a total success and the program was expanded to include all minimum-security inmates. [1] [1]https://doc.sd.gov/adult/work/ https://doc.sd.gov/adult/work/ [In 2020] South Dakota became the first state to simultaneously approve legalization of medical and recreational marijuana.[...] Thanks to a legal challenge backed by Noem, the initiative has been blocked, and it may never take effect.[2] https://reason.com/2021/04/21/how-an-anti-pot-governor-blocked-voter-approved-legalization-in-south-dakota/ https://reason.com/2021/04/21/how-an-anti-pot-governor-block...

dkdk8283 5y ago

If you want to be even more disappointed in the US look at UNICOR. Government agencies hire prisoners to do arbitrary work at costs the private sector cannot compete with. License plates are a commonly cited example of a product they produce. It’s slave labor as the prisoners are paid something absurdly low like a dollar a day.

badkitty99 5y ago

Garbage website

Thorentis 5y ago

In my opinion, actual community service of some kind is far preferable to prison, both to society, and to the prisoners. Why lock up perfectly fit human beings for life, when we as a society could say, you know what? This person murdered somebody, and as a way of paying back society, they're going to work as a trash collector for 20 years on minimum wage. Far cheaper than paying for their prison upkeep, and no perverse incentive from private prisons. Yes, there are issues around them running or reoffending. But I think tech might be able to solve these problems. We just choose the easy way out and pay tons of money to lock them up. I think there's a missed opportunity here.

pmoriarty 5y ago
Your plan sounds much more practical for non-violent offenders. For violent offenders, no amount of tech is going to keep them from hurting others.

throwaway59553 5y ago

My only opposition to this is that labor should be done by fully paid employees, and not having companies getting this legal avenue to cheap labor, and that most convicts should have been executed a long time ago instead of actually giving them an occupation to entertain their time.

program_whiz 5y ago

The US prison system is indeed practically slavery. However, that's not even the tip of the iceberg in terms of all the products and services being supported by slavery/servitude e.g. Apple, Nike, most clothes, electronics, and consumer goods, etc. We had a brief period without slavery in the 1950s after WWII, and due to labor shortages wages went up and the middle class soared. Problem is, such a situation isn't good for capital, and capital makes the rules -- access to free labor makes workers compete for lower wages and bigger profit margins. Consumers love the lower prices, even though the wages stagnate and it will probably lead to a revolution or UBI at some point.

tyingq 5y ago

Meanwhile, the prisoners eat this, or worse. https://www.themarshallproject.org/2020/05/11/ewwwww-what-is-that https://www.themarshallproject.org/2020/05/11/ewwwww-what-is... Also note the "Lunch - NONE" entry for every Saturday and Sunday. Texas figures 2 meals on the weekends is fine.

Red_Leaves_Flyy 5y ago
I thought you were going to link to nutraloaf. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutraloaf https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutraloaf I don't know which is worse..

rootusrootus 5y ago

The labor should be billed out at minimum wage. The convicts should be required to pay taxes on it, pay some token amount as rehab to the system, etc. Threads like this always bring out the "OMG private prisons are immoral and explain everything about the US justice system" crowd. Turns out 8.1% of prisoners in the US are in private prisons. Maybe we want that to be 0%, but let's not pretend that it's a serious contribution to the way we run the justice system here. We've gotten exactly the system we voted for, repeatedly.

world_peace42 5y ago
Can they pay rent then with that money? Why do I need to pay rent, food, and healthcare for someone who decides to go on a stabbing spree?
- rootusrootus 5y ago
  As I said, they can pay some token amount back to the system. We shouldn't incentivize people to stay in prison for the housing and pay, but we should provide some way for them to build up a financial cushion they can use when released to try and avoid landing right back in prison.
  - world_peace42 5y ago
    So I have to cover the rest(most of it)? Including a reasonable amount for the salaries of all of the employees, ad nauseum.
Red_Leaves_Flyy 5y ago
It's my understanding that private prisons are used as a wedge to open the door on the conversation about prison reform. Some, less fluent, people only bother to learn this much about it. Prisons have a lot of problems, let's not demean those fighting for the rights of people who've had their voices taken away from them just because they're not writing dissertations about the problems. If you've Only got one tweet worth of time and one issue to speak about choose the simplest one.

ratsmack 5y ago

I see no problem with prison labor as long as they are paid a competing wage and their wages go to support their incarceration and victims, if any.

TheRealPomax 5y ago

admins: the title should be "How corporations buy and sell food made with prison labor"

tantalor 5y ago
@dang

LatteLazy 5y ago

America needs to send a lot lot fewer people to jail. Once that is accomplished, I'd be a lot more relaxed about their conditions including workong...