10 ms·

Prisoners in the US are part of a hidden workforce linked to popular food brands

144 points by wolverine876 3y ago

juanani 3y ago
[dead]
akira2501 3y ago
> They also say workers are learning skills that can be used when they’re released It doesn't sound like this is a job training program where valuable skills are being taught in a learning environment. It doesn't sound like they care what the prisoners are likely to be able to do when released, as I don't think a 65 year old farm hand doing piece work for his retirement is going to reduce recidivism. Finally it's all in an environment where the prisoners are punished for not working, which is done nowhere outside of a prison, so what type of work _ethic_ are you actually building here. This is a paper thin excuse to deprive prisoners of their civil rights.
- dopidopHN 3y ago
  Civil right? Well those prisoner should have thougt of 13 amendment first before committing a crime! ( sarcasm )
- codexb 3y ago
  Hard manual labor has long been accepted as an appropriate punishment for crimes. Prisoners are deprived of rights... by due process... by a jury of their peers. That's intentional. It's a feature, not a bug.
  - plasmatix 3y ago
    Allowing anyone to benefit from forced labor sounds like an invitation for corruption.
    - red-iron-pine 3y ago
      compared to what, the rest of the economy or political establishment? the difference is that the people getting screwed over were judged guilty of crimes by a jury of their peers or other due process.
    - codexb 3y ago
      There is some truth to this statement. Historically, work detail for prisoners benefitted society as a whole -- litter cleanup, public works projects, license plate manufacturing, etc.
  - Modified3019 3y ago
    Outright slavery has been accepted for most of the history of humanity. Appeals to tradition are probably not the way to go when deciding how we can be a better society.
  - pinkmuffinere 3y ago
    I think the question is whether we continue to see that as a feature. It is recently popular to see prison as a rehabilitation rather than a punishment —- ie can we (safely) turn this life around instead of punish it. I’m not opposed to hard manual labor in principle, but it’s hard for me to believe it’s the best use of those lives.
  - probably_satan 3y ago
    [flagged]
  - jacquesm 3y ago
    In some countries.
  - rsynnott 3y ago
    All sorts of things have been long accepted as an appropriate punishment for crimes, until people said "yeah, perhaps not". Most developed democracies have banned forced prison labour; the US is a bit of an outlier here.
  - lesuorac 3y ago
    > Prisoners are deprived of rights... by due process... Nice sound bite; but not really true. It's certainly true a process is followed but that process is pretty shitty. Plenty of people get released after the murder weapon is actually tried for fingerprints and low-and-behold it was somebody else! How does a person go through trial with even the murder weapon being tested? It's not required by the process. Plenty of people have been convicted because "their bite marks match". Is there actually some peer-reviewed standard of bite marks where if I gave you somebody's bite and a bite mark you could match them together at 90% accuracy? No. How are non-reproducible methods used to incarcerate people? The process doesn't require accuracy. For more, John Oliver: Forensic Analysis [1] [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScmJvmzDcG0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScmJvmzDcG0
- juliangmp 3y ago
  > This is a paper thin excuse to deprive prisoners of their civil rights. If only... they don't even need an excuse, the 13th amendment has a literal exception for "punishment for crime" :)
narrator 3y ago
These articles always cherrypick the most sympathetic cases. They never say, here's this triple murderer who never worked a day in his life, don't you feel sorry for him? They also don't mention that prisons aren't free to run.
- tarxvf 3y ago
  Is it not a problem that there exist sympathetic cases at all? This is even before starting into the many innocent people in prison.
- aredox 3y ago
  Prison work as extensively done here is unconstitutional. Period. https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/alabama-prisons-slavery-lawsuit-rcna129813 https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/alabama-prisons-... https://blogs.loc.gov/inside_adams/2021/06/convict-leasing-system/ https://blogs.loc.gov/inside_adams/2021/06/convict-leasing-s...
  - resolutebat 3y ago
    The 13th Amendment abolishes slavery unless you're a convicted criminal. "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."
    - jk20 3y ago
      [dead]
    - aredox 3y ago
      Read the articles linked: "the labor exploitation in American prisons goes far beyond even what the Constitution allows."
- bilbo0s 3y ago
  Not to put too fine a point on it, but didn't you just cherry pick a case?
karmakurtisaani 3y ago
Prisoners - when illegal immigrants are not cheap enough.
- 0xEF 3y ago
  That they do this to unprotected populations is proof positive that if labor laws did not exist, employers would happily pay all us less and work us more.
  - danuker 3y ago
    And yet, there still are illegal immigrants.
    - ben_w 3y ago
      Immigrants, legal or illegal, can walk out of jobs that are bad enough. Prisoners, by the sound of things, can't refuse even when it's an option on paper… and sometimes it isn't even an option in theory.
      - wahnfrieden 3y ago
        They can’t walk out when routinely under threat of deportation via retaliation often with business town managers and sheriffs partnered with ICE
        ben_w 3y ago
        You think the threat of deportation is in any sense equivalent to solitary confinement or extra years in a prison sentence? To someone who immigrated for work, and decides that the specific and only work they're able to do thanks to how they arrived isn't worth it due to the pay and conditions, the threat of deportation is a very weak threat — more than literally nothing, but very very weak.
        wahnfrieden 3y ago
wtcactus 3y ago
I don't have a problem against this if certain checks are in place, and I think it should be expanded. Society shouldn't pay twice for a crime against their citizens. Criminals should be punished, but society should profit from them while imprisoned, not pay even more to have them do time in prison. The only reasons I see for a prisoner not to work full time while incarcerated, are: - They have some illness or impairment. - They want to study (and get good grades) while in prison to change their criminal lives.
- tetris11 3y ago
  Hell, I have no problem with Capitalism if certain checks are in place, but we all know how perverse incentives have a way of occluding those checks over time.
- coldtea 3y ago
  Summed the mentality that gives the US the worst crime and recidivism rates in the western world perfectly!
- PostOnce 3y ago
  We've wrongfully imprisoned and executed plenty of innocent men. Another case of freeing a man after 48 years wrongfully jailed just weeks ago https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-67782907 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-67782907 It's not something we used to do, it's something we still do. What checks take care of this?
- nilsherzig 3y ago
  But if the prisons makes a profit for every inmate, they might no longer be interested in releasing / reintegrating them back into society, right? And (correct me if I'm wrong) there already are some cases in which people got prison sentences to make somebody else a profit.
  - PostOnce 3y ago
    Indeed. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal
iglio 3y ago
Just 23¢ to $1.15 is the typical hourly pay [1], work is not always voluntary, and not up to the same employee protection/safety standards as true employment [2]. Labour (and profit) sourced from the incarcerated creates problematic incentives, so needs proper oversight and regulation. [1] https://www.bop.gov/inmates/custody_and_care/unicor_about.jsp#costs https://www.bop.gov/inmates/custody_and_care/unicor_about.js... [2] https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/field_document/2022-06-15-captivelaborresearchreport.pdf https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/field_document/2022...
- MacsHeadroom 3y ago
  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." "except as a punishment for crime"
  - defrost 3y ago
    Any other gems of stupidity from 1865 we should abide by? A report published by the American Civil Liberties Union in June 2022 found about 800,000 prisoners out of the 1.2 million in state and federal prisons are forced to work, generating a conservative estimate of $11bn annually in goods and services while average wages range from 13 cents to 52 cents per hour. Five states – Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi and Texas – force prisoners to work without pay. The report concluded that the labor conditions of US prisoners violate fundamental human rights to life and dignity. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/27/slavery-loophole-unpaid-labor-in-prisons https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/27/slavery-loop... Clearly not everybody is in line with holdovers from the cotton fields of central north america. https://harvardpolitics.com/prison-labor-is-a-human-rights-abuse/ https://harvardpolitics.com/prison-labor-is-a-human-rights-a...
    - makeitdouble 3y ago
      My main realization becoming an adult was that time is linear but social progress isn't. The same way we look at ancient Greece philosophers thinking they had some pretty good ideas, a non trivial amount of people look at a century ago's society thinking some of it should be restored or expanded. The reason slavery (disguised in many forms) is still a thing isn't because it takes time, and more because a number of people actively work in that direction. I'd assume those 1865 bits weren't left by mistake and forgotten. I don't know how we can deal with that issue, but I think it will fundamentally be a tough battle.
jongjong 3y ago
This kind of stuff is why I reject the notion that the west has truly abolished slavery. It has been abolished in name only. There is still wage slavery and sweat shops. And also, there are implications in terms of market monopolization if only certain large corporations have access to the prison slave labor. It can create unfair, anti-competitive markets which harms people outside of the prison system.
- boffinAudio 3y ago
  Indeed. The moral authority - indeed 'imperative' - that many use to justify the Wests' crimes around the world, simply dissolves in face of the fact that the USA is still very much a slaver state. The rest of the world sees this, Americans don't. That needs to change, for the positive.
- wolverine876 3y ago
  I agree that it's not truly abolished, but I strongly disagree with the implication, as I read it, that nothing has changed. Look at labor conditions 100 and 200 years ago; it's night and day. Much more to do. We can't rest here.
assimpleaspossi 3y ago
If they weren't doing this work, what would they be doing? I would think they would rather get out of their confined areas and do something physical. The pay they receive is typically minuscule so I don't know the advantage there. I'm not sure why they are paid at all. Perhaps some other benefit should be given such as more free time or better inside job. These people are in these types of jails because they did awful things to normal, decent people. They cannot always be believed when they complain about beatings. I have no way of knowing if that's always true or true at all. If it were true, why would the prison allow them to speak to reporters? This doesn't all make sense to me to have sympathy for dangerous criminals.
pinkmuffinere 3y ago
I frequently wonder if there is an opportunity to start a company/nonprofit by using prison labor in a more ethical way, providing better conditions, reasonable pay, personal development —- the things these companies are claiming but then failing to do. Why aren’t there such programs? Has this been tried? It seems these companies aren’t presently trying to improve the conditions, but maybe at first they were?
- jacquesm 3y ago
  Of course there is no such opportunity. The entrenched parties aren't going to give up their nearly free labor force without a serious fight.
- probably_satan 3y ago
  [flagged]
- james_david 3y ago
  I once worked for a firm that developed a small, worker owned business that was owned and managed by incarcerated folks. The business was vertically integrated with the jail and produced food served in the cafeteria. It was unique and very much relied on the song willingness of the correctional staff, but such a thing is possible.
- SauciestGNU 3y ago
  I'm sorry and I suspect you mean well, but there is no ethical way to utilize coerced/slave labor. If we want to be concerned with rehabilitation we should look at what some successful prisons have done with educational programs. The trick to reducing crime is to help people find a way to live better through legal means than they would through crime.
  - Georgelemental 3y ago
    Punishing crime is also necessary. El Salvador provides the model here: they locked up all their criminals, and are now using prison labor to build hospitals, schools, water treatment plants, and other public works projects to benefit all honest citizens. The result: crime rate has fallen off a cliff, and the economy is booming. https://twitter.com/nayibbukele/status/1751748220156268626 https://twitter.com/nayibbukele/status/1751748220156268626
mschuster91 3y ago
Pay the prisoners fairly, deduct a portion for the cost of incarceration, and keep a large chunk saved away so that the prisoner, once released, has enough money to start a new life without needing to fall back to crime just to survive. Easy as that.
- ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
  It doesn't seem fair to charge prisoners for the cost of their incarceration - it strikes me as a system open to abuse. Prisoners should be able to not work and not accrue debt for that choice (it may not be a choice for medical issues etc) and then it would be unfair to only charge those that do work.
  - speeder 3y ago
    Trust me. In some countries either you charge prisoners... Or you don't make prisoners (meaning kill criminals even for small crimes. Or let them roam free and have the population kill them instead).
    - ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
      Well that sounds like a false dichotomy to me. There's always going to be some prisoners that are either too ill or considered too dangerous to be allowed to work, so how do they get charged for their stay? Also, the prisoners that have no reasonable chance of recovering their freedom are not going to have much incentive to work and what do you do when they go into arrears - put them in double prison?
- ben_w 3y ago
  > deduct a portion for the cost of incarceration How much is a portion? Cost per prisoner varies a lot, but a quick google suggests the US average cost per prisoner is about 50%-100% of gross national average salary depending on who I ask. (And the cost per prisoner in the UK is about double national average gross salary).
probably_satan 3y ago
[flagged]
anon-sre-srm 3y ago
- For-profit prisons - Very high carceral rate - Slave labor - Executions, which civilized people don't do - Undocumented migrants exploited purposefully in agriculture and manufacturing, creating a workforce unlikely to ever complain to anyone - Even more extreme and unbelievable are the undocumented migrant children who are trafficked and exploited well past any sense of child labor regulations. Some sponsors are working them like a 19th c. London street gang because there is no meaningful oversight or regulation.
- nataliste 3y ago
  [flagged]
  - mista2nith 3y ago
    [dead]
pastacacioepepe 3y ago
Tell me again how the country with the highest incarcerated population in the world and prisoner slavery is a beacon of freedom. Forgot to mention, the prison system is built to be profitable for corporations. Truly a miracle of capitalism and Western democracy.
mchannon 3y ago
I got “paid” $0.18/hr. in a federal complex in Colorado to make bologna sandwiches and other slop for other inmates on lockdown. They took out over $1/hr. (the difference expropriated from remittances I received from family) to put toward “restitution”. Slaves break even. This was closer to being held for ransom. I feel a deep sense of shame to reside in a country where the majority of the populace is fine with it. Some with a shit-eating grin.
- p3rls 3y ago
  Why would you even show up for 0.18 cents? Could you have collectively gone on strike with the other prisoners? Would that have been held against you for sentencing? I thought federal prison was the "nice" one. I'd imagine you could just write in a notebook and sell it as a blog/book after prison and do better but everything I know about that environment was learned from Tim Robbins in Shawshank.
  - moralestapia 3y ago
    It's forced labor, they don't have a choice.
    - edgyquant 3y ago
      Yes they do, I’m not aware of any prisons in the US where you have to do the work it’s just it looks good to a parole board.
      - red-iron-pine 3y ago
        and if you don't you just get to sit in a box and stare at the wall all day.
      - nickthegreek 3y ago
        You not being aware of it doesn't mean it doesnt exist. > Five states – Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi and Texas – force prisoners to work without pay. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/27/slavery-loophole-unpaid-labor-in-prisons https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/27/slavery-loop...
dkn775 3y ago
I used to work for a state agency and there was a truck that delivered office supplies called "$STATE Correctional Enterprises", all the office furniture was made by prisoners. I didnt have a problem with that to be honest because the cost savings were benefiting the taxpayer in theory. I have also looked at many prisons on google maps and you will see tons of blue collar businesses (Cintas, Pitt Ohio etc.) within the perimeter road of the complex.
Georgelemental 3y ago
I've been impressed recently by El Salvador's "Plan Cero Ocio" ("Zero Leisure Plan") to allow prisoners to work to compensate for some of the damage they have done to society. Notably, unlike the US system from OP, the labor does not go to for-profit companies, but to public works projects like hospitals, roads, and schools that benefit all of society. Another good read on carceral labor: https://archive.is/20230812162826/https://www.theamericanconservative.com/angola-revisited/ https://archive.is/20230812162826/https://www.theamericancon...
- wolverine876 3y ago
  Why is it called "Zero Leisure Plan". It sounds like the trope that people in prison have it good.

144 points by wolverine876 3y ago

[dead]

> They also say workers are learning skills that can be used when they’re released It doesn't sound like this is a job training program where valuable skills are being taught in a learning environment. It doesn't sound like they care what the prisoners are likely to be able to do when released, as I don't think a 65 year old farm hand doing piece work for his retirement is going to reduce recidivism. Finally it's all in an environment where the prisoners are punished for not working, which is done nowhere outside of a prison, so what type of work _ethic_ are you actually building here. This is a paper thin excuse to deprive prisoners of their civil rights.

dopidopHN 3y ago
Civil right? Well those prisoner should have thougt of 13 amendment first before committing a crime! ( sarcasm )
codexb 3y ago
Hard manual labor has long been accepted as an appropriate punishment for crimes. Prisoners are deprived of rights... by due process... by a jury of their peers. That's intentional. It's a feature, not a bug.
- plasmatix 3y ago
  Allowing anyone to benefit from forced labor sounds like an invitation for corruption.
  - red-iron-pine 3y ago
    compared to what, the rest of the economy or political establishment? the difference is that the people getting screwed over were judged guilty of crimes by a jury of their peers or other due process.
  - codexb 3y ago
    There is some truth to this statement. Historically, work detail for prisoners benefitted society as a whole -- litter cleanup, public works projects, license plate manufacturing, etc.
- Modified3019 3y ago
  Outright slavery has been accepted for most of the history of humanity. Appeals to tradition are probably not the way to go when deciding how we can be a better society.
- pinkmuffinere 3y ago
  I think the question is whether we continue to see that as a feature. It is recently popular to see prison as a rehabilitation rather than a punishment —- ie can we (safely) turn this life around instead of punish it. I’m not opposed to hard manual labor in principle, but it’s hard for me to believe it’s the best use of those lives.
- probably_satan 3y ago
  [flagged]
- jacquesm 3y ago
  In some countries.
- rsynnott 3y ago
  All sorts of things have been long accepted as an appropriate punishment for crimes, until people said "yeah, perhaps not". Most developed democracies have banned forced prison labour; the US is a bit of an outlier here.
- lesuorac 3y ago
  > Prisoners are deprived of rights... by due process... Nice sound bite; but not really true. It's certainly true a process is followed but that process is pretty shitty. Plenty of people get released after the murder weapon is actually tried for fingerprints and low-and-behold it was somebody else! How does a person go through trial with even the murder weapon being tested? It's not required by the process. Plenty of people have been convicted because "their bite marks match". Is there actually some peer-reviewed standard of bite marks where if I gave you somebody's bite and a bite mark you could match them together at 90% accuracy? No. How are non-reproducible methods used to incarcerate people? The process doesn't require accuracy. For more, John Oliver: Forensic Analysis [1] [1]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScmJvmzDcG0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScmJvmzDcG0
juliangmp 3y ago
> This is a paper thin excuse to deprive prisoners of their civil rights. If only... they don't even need an excuse, the 13th amendment has a literal exception for "punishment for crime" :)

narrator 3y ago

These articles always cherrypick the most sympathetic cases. They never say, here's this triple murderer who never worked a day in his life, don't you feel sorry for him? They also don't mention that prisons aren't free to run.

tarxvf 3y ago
Is it not a problem that there exist sympathetic cases at all? This is even before starting into the many innocent people in prison.
aredox 3y ago
Prison work as extensively done here is unconstitutional. Period. https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/alabama-prisons-slavery-lawsuit-rcna129813 https://www.msnbc.com/opinion/msnbc-opinion/alabama-prisons-... https://blogs.loc.gov/inside_adams/2021/06/convict-leasing-system/ https://blogs.loc.gov/inside_adams/2021/06/convict-leasing-s...
- resolutebat 3y ago
  The 13th Amendment abolishes slavery unless you're a convicted criminal. "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."
  - jk20 3y ago
    [dead]
  - aredox 3y ago
    Read the articles linked: "the labor exploitation in American prisons goes far beyond even what the Constitution allows."
bilbo0s 3y ago
Not to put too fine a point on it, but didn't you just cherry pick a case?

karmakurtisaani 3y ago

Prisoners - when illegal immigrants are not cheap enough.

0xEF 3y ago
That they do this to unprotected populations is proof positive that if labor laws did not exist, employers would happily pay all us less and work us more.
- danuker 3y ago
  And yet, there still are illegal immigrants.
  - ben_w 3y ago
    Immigrants, legal or illegal, can walk out of jobs that are bad enough. Prisoners, by the sound of things, can't refuse even when it's an option on paper… and sometimes it isn't even an option in theory.
    - wahnfrieden 3y ago
      They can’t walk out when routinely under threat of deportation via retaliation often with business town managers and sheriffs partnered with ICE
      - ben_w 3y ago
        You think the threat of deportation is in any sense equivalent to solitary confinement or extra years in a prison sentence? To someone who immigrated for work, and decides that the specific and only work they're able to do thanks to how they arrived isn't worth it due to the pay and conditions, the threat of deportation is a very weak threat — more than literally nothing, but very very weak.
        wahnfrieden 3y ago

wtcactus 3y ago

I don't have a problem against this if certain checks are in place, and I think it should be expanded. Society shouldn't pay twice for a crime against their citizens. Criminals should be punished, but society should profit from them while imprisoned, not pay even more to have them do time in prison. The only reasons I see for a prisoner not to work full time while incarcerated, are: - They have some illness or impairment. - They want to study (and get good grades) while in prison to change their criminal lives.

tetris11 3y ago
Hell, I have no problem with Capitalism if certain checks are in place, but we all know how perverse incentives have a way of occluding those checks over time.
coldtea 3y ago
Summed the mentality that gives the US the worst crime and recidivism rates in the western world perfectly!
PostOnce 3y ago
We've wrongfully imprisoned and executed plenty of innocent men. Another case of freeing a man after 48 years wrongfully jailed just weeks ago https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-67782907 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-67782907 It's not something we used to do, it's something we still do. What checks take care of this?
nilsherzig 3y ago
But if the prisons makes a profit for every inmate, they might no longer be interested in releasing / reintegrating them back into society, right? And (correct me if I'm wrong) there already are some cases in which people got prison sentences to make somebody else a profit.
- PostOnce 3y ago
  Indeed. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal

iglio 3y ago

Just 23¢ to $1.15 is the typical hourly pay [1], work is not always voluntary, and not up to the same employee protection/safety standards as true employment [2]. Labour (and profit) sourced from the incarcerated creates problematic incentives, so needs proper oversight and regulation. [1] https://www.bop.gov/inmates/custody_and_care/unicor_about.jsp#costs https://www.bop.gov/inmates/custody_and_care/unicor_about.js... [2] https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/field_document/2022-06-15-captivelaborresearchreport.pdf https://www.aclu.org/sites/default/files/field_document/2022...

MacsHeadroom 3y ago
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." "except as a punishment for crime"
- defrost 3y ago
  Any other gems of stupidity from 1865 we should abide by? A report published by the American Civil Liberties Union in June 2022 found about 800,000 prisoners out of the 1.2 million in state and federal prisons are forced to work, generating a conservative estimate of $11bn annually in goods and services while average wages range from 13 cents to 52 cents per hour. Five states – Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi and Texas – force prisoners to work without pay. The report concluded that the labor conditions of US prisoners violate fundamental human rights to life and dignity. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/27/slavery-loophole-unpaid-labor-in-prisons https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/27/slavery-loop... Clearly not everybody is in line with holdovers from the cotton fields of central north america. https://harvardpolitics.com/prison-labor-is-a-human-rights-abuse/ https://harvardpolitics.com/prison-labor-is-a-human-rights-a...
  - makeitdouble 3y ago
    My main realization becoming an adult was that time is linear but social progress isn't. The same way we look at ancient Greece philosophers thinking they had some pretty good ideas, a non trivial amount of people look at a century ago's society thinking some of it should be restored or expanded. The reason slavery (disguised in many forms) is still a thing isn't because it takes time, and more because a number of people actively work in that direction. I'd assume those 1865 bits weren't left by mistake and forgotten. I don't know how we can deal with that issue, but I think it will fundamentally be a tough battle.

jongjong 3y ago

This kind of stuff is why I reject the notion that the west has truly abolished slavery. It has been abolished in name only. There is still wage slavery and sweat shops. And also, there are implications in terms of market monopolization if only certain large corporations have access to the prison slave labor. It can create unfair, anti-competitive markets which harms people outside of the prison system.

boffinAudio 3y ago
Indeed. The moral authority - indeed 'imperative' - that many use to justify the Wests' crimes around the world, simply dissolves in face of the fact that the USA is still very much a slaver state. The rest of the world sees this, Americans don't. That needs to change, for the positive.
wolverine876 3y ago
I agree that it's not truly abolished, but I strongly disagree with the implication, as I read it, that nothing has changed. Look at labor conditions 100 and 200 years ago; it's night and day. Much more to do. We can't rest here.

assimpleaspossi 3y ago

If they weren't doing this work, what would they be doing? I would think they would rather get out of their confined areas and do something physical. The pay they receive is typically minuscule so I don't know the advantage there. I'm not sure why they are paid at all. Perhaps some other benefit should be given such as more free time or better inside job. These people are in these types of jails because they did awful things to normal, decent people. They cannot always be believed when they complain about beatings. I have no way of knowing if that's always true or true at all. If it were true, why would the prison allow them to speak to reporters? This doesn't all make sense to me to have sympathy for dangerous criminals.

pinkmuffinere 3y ago

I frequently wonder if there is an opportunity to start a company/nonprofit by using prison labor in a more ethical way, providing better conditions, reasonable pay, personal development —- the things these companies are claiming but then failing to do. Why aren’t there such programs? Has this been tried? It seems these companies aren’t presently trying to improve the conditions, but maybe at first they were?

jacquesm 3y ago
Of course there is no such opportunity. The entrenched parties aren't going to give up their nearly free labor force without a serious fight.
probably_satan 3y ago
[flagged]
james_david 3y ago
I once worked for a firm that developed a small, worker owned business that was owned and managed by incarcerated folks. The business was vertically integrated with the jail and produced food served in the cafeteria. It was unique and very much relied on the song willingness of the correctional staff, but such a thing is possible.
SauciestGNU 3y ago
I'm sorry and I suspect you mean well, but there is no ethical way to utilize coerced/slave labor. If we want to be concerned with rehabilitation we should look at what some successful prisons have done with educational programs. The trick to reducing crime is to help people find a way to live better through legal means than they would through crime.
- Georgelemental 3y ago
  Punishing crime is also necessary. El Salvador provides the model here: they locked up all their criminals, and are now using prison labor to build hospitals, schools, water treatment plants, and other public works projects to benefit all honest citizens. The result: crime rate has fallen off a cliff, and the economy is booming. https://twitter.com/nayibbukele/status/1751748220156268626 https://twitter.com/nayibbukele/status/1751748220156268626

mschuster91 3y ago

Pay the prisoners fairly, deduct a portion for the cost of incarceration, and keep a large chunk saved away so that the prisoner, once released, has enough money to start a new life without needing to fall back to crime just to survive. Easy as that.

ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
It doesn't seem fair to charge prisoners for the cost of their incarceration - it strikes me as a system open to abuse. Prisoners should be able to not work and not accrue debt for that choice (it may not be a choice for medical issues etc) and then it would be unfair to only charge those that do work.
- speeder 3y ago
  Trust me. In some countries either you charge prisoners... Or you don't make prisoners (meaning kill criminals even for small crimes. Or let them roam free and have the population kill them instead).
  - ndsipa_pomu 3y ago
    Well that sounds like a false dichotomy to me. There's always going to be some prisoners that are either too ill or considered too dangerous to be allowed to work, so how do they get charged for their stay? Also, the prisoners that have no reasonable chance of recovering their freedom are not going to have much incentive to work and what do you do when they go into arrears - put them in double prison?
ben_w 3y ago
> deduct a portion for the cost of incarceration How much is a portion? Cost per prisoner varies a lot, but a quick google suggests the US average cost per prisoner is about 50%-100% of gross national average salary depending on who I ask. (And the cost per prisoner in the UK is about double national average gross salary).

probably_satan 3y ago

[flagged]

anon-sre-srm 3y ago

- For-profit prisons - Very high carceral rate - Slave labor - Executions, which civilized people don't do - Undocumented migrants exploited purposefully in agriculture and manufacturing, creating a workforce unlikely to ever complain to anyone - Even more extreme and unbelievable are the undocumented migrant children who are trafficked and exploited well past any sense of child labor regulations. Some sponsors are working them like a 19th c. London street gang because there is no meaningful oversight or regulation.

nataliste 3y ago
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- mista2nith 3y ago
  [dead]

pastacacioepepe 3y ago

Tell me again how the country with the highest incarcerated population in the world and prisoner slavery is a beacon of freedom. Forgot to mention, the prison system is built to be profitable for corporations. Truly a miracle of capitalism and Western democracy.

mchannon 3y ago

I got “paid” $0.18/hr. in a federal complex in Colorado to make bologna sandwiches and other slop for other inmates on lockdown. They took out over $1/hr. (the difference expropriated from remittances I received from family) to put toward “restitution”. Slaves break even. This was closer to being held for ransom. I feel a deep sense of shame to reside in a country where the majority of the populace is fine with it. Some with a shit-eating grin.

p3rls 3y ago
Why would you even show up for 0.18 cents? Could you have collectively gone on strike with the other prisoners? Would that have been held against you for sentencing? I thought federal prison was the "nice" one. I'd imagine you could just write in a notebook and sell it as a blog/book after prison and do better but everything I know about that environment was learned from Tim Robbins in Shawshank.
- moralestapia 3y ago
  It's forced labor, they don't have a choice.
  - edgyquant 3y ago
    Yes they do, I’m not aware of any prisons in the US where you have to do the work it’s just it looks good to a parole board.
    - red-iron-pine 3y ago
      and if you don't you just get to sit in a box and stare at the wall all day.
    - nickthegreek 3y ago
      You not being aware of it doesn't mean it doesnt exist. > Five states – Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi and Texas – force prisoners to work without pay. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/27/slavery-loophole-unpaid-labor-in-prisons https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/sep/27/slavery-loop...

dkn775 3y ago

I used to work for a state agency and there was a truck that delivered office supplies called "$STATE Correctional Enterprises", all the office furniture was made by prisoners. I didnt have a problem with that to be honest because the cost savings were benefiting the taxpayer in theory. I have also looked at many prisons on google maps and you will see tons of blue collar businesses (Cintas, Pitt Ohio etc.) within the perimeter road of the complex.

Georgelemental 3y ago

I've been impressed recently by El Salvador's "Plan Cero Ocio" ("Zero Leisure Plan") to allow prisoners to work to compensate for some of the damage they have done to society. Notably, unlike the US system from OP, the labor does not go to for-profit companies, but to public works projects like hospitals, roads, and schools that benefit all of society. Another good read on carceral labor: https://archive.is/20230812162826/https://www.theamericanconservative.com/angola-revisited/ https://archive.is/20230812162826/https://www.theamericancon...

wolverine876 3y ago
Why is it called "Zero Leisure Plan". It sounds like the trope that people in prison have it good.