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I’m not sure where it fits in in this discussion but doesn’t the US use it’s prison population for forced labour? Am I missing something?
by zeristor 4y ago
I’m not sure where it fits in in this discussion but doesn’t the US use it’s prison population for forced labour?
Am I missing something?
- ceejayoz 4y agoYes; slavery is explicitly permitted under the Constitution as a criminal punishment, even today. It's pretty gross. > 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. I think there's still a significant difference between that and the Saudi maid example, where they've not even been convicted of a crime of any kind.
- BirAdam 4y agoAlthough, the existence of this does create the prison industrial complex. It also drives things like mandatory minimums, the drug war, and other negative aspects of US law. Because there is a financial incentive for convictions and incarceration, more laws with prison as the sentence are made. Lobbyists from major corporations often support these laws, and then purchase the labor from the prisons.
- ceejayoz 4y agoI agree entirely, and it's still not quite the same thing.
- padjo 4y agoIt doesn’t fit in this discussion, unless you want to use one repellent practice to justify another repellent practice.
- naasking 4y agoI'm not sure I see the argument that forced labour as punishment for breaking the law is intrinsically wrong. Community service is compelled labour with the threat of prison of you don't comply. If that seems reasonable to you, then we're not really debating whether compelled labour is the problem so much as the conditions under which it happens.