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In many states it's, at the very least, coerced. Having a prison job often comes with deals of better behavior and a shorter sentence (!!!). When you're being

In many states it's, at the very least, coerced. Having a prison job often comes with deals of better behavior and a shorter sentence (!!!). When you're being told that just working for 2 dollars an hour might lower your sentence from 20 years to 15, do you really have a choice? For example, in Georgia, prisoners often work outside of the prison for well below minimum wage in order to earn "good time". This means they might get more visits to their family. It also increases their chances of parole. However, the labor is coerced as well. Showing up late or not coming in results in in-prison punishments. So, many prisoners work in cotton fields or McDonald's on the promise of an easier life, while most of their wages are siphoned away and businesses get to pay very little.

eudamoniac 10mo ago
This is a mockery of the term "slavery". It is no more slavery to be coerced to work for a shorter sentence than it is slavery to be coerced to follow the law to avoid prison. "Behave a certain way and you will be imprisoned for less/no amount of time" is not slavery unless the law is slavery. The full term imprisonment is just, and being able to shorten it is a privilege.
- phanimahesh 10mo ago
  > The full term imprisonment is just This is a contested assumption. Prisons and penal systems in US as I understand it are for profit.
- array_key_first 10mo ago
  > The full term imprisonment is just, and being able to shorten it is a privilege. Even if you believe this, which I would describe as naive at best and willfully ignorant at worst, you have to understand that the parole is a carrot. It's not real. Georgia has some of the lowest, if not the lowest, parole stats in the country. They almost never hand it out, even if you are a good little prisoner and work on the field picking cotton for a buck or so an hour. They don't actually want to help society, or prisoners. They just want to siphon money and labor from a population that they know has no options. It's opportunistic. These people are a plague on humanity, a virus of such low lows they must only prey on the most vulnerable. They are the pneumonia of American society.
  - eudamoniac 9mo ago
    Okay, we can instead have the prisoners in their cells during that time instead of working. I'm sure they would prefer that, right? Except they have to apply for these jobs, so no, they wouldn't. Being in the cell is the default state of incarceration. They want to be out of it, even for free. Words mean things. Slavery is something that is not occurring here. Argue amongst yourselves about the ethics of underpaying for the work, but don't invoke the word slavery.

eudamoniac 10mo ago

This is a mockery of the term "slavery". It is no more slavery to be coerced to work for a shorter sentence than it is slavery to be coerced to follow the law to avoid prison. "Behave a certain way and you will be imprisoned for less/no amount of time" is not slavery unless the law is slavery. The full term imprisonment is just, and being able to shorten it is a privilege.

phanimahesh 10mo ago
> The full term imprisonment is just This is a contested assumption. Prisons and penal systems in US as I understand it are for profit.
array_key_first 10mo ago
> The full term imprisonment is just, and being able to shorten it is a privilege. Even if you believe this, which I would describe as naive at best and willfully ignorant at worst, you have to understand that the parole is a carrot. It's not real. Georgia has some of the lowest, if not the lowest, parole stats in the country. They almost never hand it out, even if you are a good little prisoner and work on the field picking cotton for a buck or so an hour. They don't actually want to help society, or prisoners. They just want to siphon money and labor from a population that they know has no options. It's opportunistic. These people are a plague on humanity, a virus of such low lows they must only prey on the most vulnerable. They are the pneumonia of American society.
- eudamoniac 9mo ago
  Okay, we can instead have the prisoners in their cells during that time instead of working. I'm sure they would prefer that, right? Except they have to apply for these jobs, so no, they wouldn't. Being in the cell is the default state of incarceration. They want to be out of it, even for free. Words mean things. Slavery is something that is not occurring here. Argue amongst yourselves about the ethics of underpaying for the work, but don't invoke the word slavery.