4 ms·

And does Brazil have their own 13th amendment that allows them to use prison labor as their modern slave workforce?

by tw04 29d ago

0xDEAFBEAD 29d ago
"Around the world, at least eleven million people are imprisoned, either pre-trial or following conviction. Most sentenced prisoners will work while in custody... ... Most countries’ legal systems, however, carve out an exception for prisoner-workers, permitting the state to require them to work—sometimes for no pay, but typically for very low rates of pay. There are, even so, multiple potential benefits to prison work. For example, ICPR’s recent research indicated that prisoners who could not work (when prison regimes around the world were restricted during the COVID-19 pandemic) reported many negative consequences, including to their mental and physical wellbeing. At the minimum, work may mitigate some harmful impacts of imprisonment. At best, it may increase prisoners’ prospects of successful reintegration into society, potentially also benefitting society by reducing recidivism." https://www.prisonstudies.org/sites/default/files/publications/labouring_behind_bars.pdf https://www.prisonstudies.org/sites/default/files/publicatio... (emphasis mine) Here's a photo from a Brazilian prison from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labour#/media/File:Inmateswork.JPG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labour#/media/File:Inmat...
- tw04 29d ago
  The question isn’t whether prisoners work in other countries which I’m confident you know and dodged. The question is whether the prisons in Brazil are private, and are allowed to sell prison labor FOR A PROFIT, incentivizing both greater incarceration rates, and disincentivizing release. The answer is no, I’m not aware of ANY other country that allows a private organization to profit off the labor if people imprisoned by the state. At least not any country we would consider 1st world. It’s absolutely absurd to suggest the current situation is beneficial to anyone but the ruling class and anyone claiming otherwise has never been to prison, never had a relative or friend who has been to prison, or is literally a psychopath who lacks basic human empathy.
  - 0xDEAFBEAD 29d ago
    You're moving the goalposts. Your comment stated: "And does Brazil have their own 13th amendment that allows them to use prison labor as their modern slave workforce?" The article I linked states: "Most countries’ legal systems, however, carve out an exception for prisoner-workers, permitting the state to require them to work..." So my quote directly answers your original concern. Your new concern is about private prisons. Here's a new quote from the article which addresses your new concern: "Involvement by non-public entities in prison work can take many forms. In most countries including all three of Brazil, the United Kingdom, and the United States, for-profit companies operate entire prisons (or provide services within prisons) under government contract. Similarly, the operators of both public and private prisons in all three countries contract with buyers, equipping prison workshops and using prisoner labour to produce goods and services which go on to be sold beyond the prison." (p. 15, emphasis mine) So no, the US system doesn't seem to be especially unusual, according to this article. You're welcome to decry this practice as inhumane, btw. I just don't think it is some sort of skeleton key which will help us understand every aspect of US politics.
    - Hikikomori 29d ago
      >You're moving the goalposts Rich from someone that brought up slavery from nowhere.
      - 0xDEAFBEAD 29d ago
        Oh please, are we pretending that the confederacy wasn't working to preserve slavery? Is this some sort of lost cause advocacy on your part? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZVVIACrX38 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZVVIACrX38
        Hikikomori 29d ago
        I didn't even make any argument nor do I disagree with you, just found it weird that you brought it up from nowhere.
Der_Einzige 29d ago
De facto there’s hardly rule of law there so if you piss off the wrong people yes.
wahern 29d ago
It's called penal labor, and it was and remains widespread around the world. (And, yes, Brazilian law requires mandatory labor for all prisoners.) It wasn't until the middle to late 20th century that countries began to reform penal labor. But it's complicated. Without penal labor you can't force prisoners to, e.g., do laundry or mop floors. Even mandatory community service is a form of penal labor, and you can still find that in some Western European countries. The norm now is to require a wage for mandatory labor, but of course often it's just a pittance. (Only 6 US states have uncompensated labor.) But even when you require minimum wage, many criminals owe restitution, so it could be and is taken away again. Many US states have penal labor systems just like in Europe, that is nominally opt out, mandatory wages, etc, but at the end of the day it's always open to accusations of coercion and claims of "slavery". The rhetoric around the 13th Amendment is exactly why we're in the situation we are now politically. Everything is equivocated to maximize rhetorical impact. Every unethical thing a politician does is "corruption", so when you get open and egregious corruption as with Trump, people can't discriminate and assume it's all the same. Was penal labor abused to roll back the clock on abolition? Yes. Is penal labor abused today? Yes. But calling it slavery, drawing parallels to chattel slavery, is just irresponsible.
- mulmen 28d ago
  > 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. > Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. The 13th amendment specifically mentions penal labor as an exempt form of slavery. Take your criticism to the authors of the 13th amendment, not the people who bothered to read it.
  - wahern 28d ago
    Setting aside textual analysis and how commas are used in the constitution, the point is that people claim not just that slavery is allowed, but that mandatory penal labor is slavery, and implicitly the same slavery that was ostensibly abolished. So do you agree or not agree that mandatory penal slavery is an extension of 19th century and earlier American slavery. Because that's what the movement and rhetoric are saying. And removing the Exception Clause won't change the rhetoric, because the entire point is to argue "things haven't changed". It's the same rhetoric that equivocates "wage slavery". All those things can, of course, fall under a literal definition of slavery. Just like all forms of misbehavior by politicians can be called corruption. We can say, well, Trump isn't doing anything every other politician hasn't done. Which can be literally true. But I choose not to play semantic games like that, because those semantic games are at least as likely to be used to excuse abuses as they are to prevent them. If you want reform, pursue reform. Note that many states have removed their state constitutional Exceptions Clauses which by itself resulted in zero changes to the status quo, because when you play semantic games there's always room to redefine things on-the-fly, or to find another semantic loophole. Every court knew what the Exceptions Clause actual, contextual meaning was, and can just as well redefine slavery or non-slavery to exclude or include penal labor. Semantic games don't change the real world, except insofar as they promote cynicism, confusion, and disengagement from substantive issues.

And does Brazil have their own 13th amendment that allows them to use prison labor as their modern slave workforce?

by tw04 29d ago

And does Brazil have their own 13th amendment that allows them to use prison labor as their modern slave workforce?

"Around the world, at least eleven million people are imprisoned, either pre-trial or following conviction. Most sentenced prisoners will work while in custody... ... Most countries’ legal systems, however, carve out an exception for prisoner-workers, permitting the state to require them to work—sometimes for no pay, but typically for very low rates of pay. There are, even so, multiple potential benefits to prison work. For example, ICPR’s recent research indicated that prisoners who could not work (when prison regimes around the world were restricted during the COVID-19 pandemic) reported many negative consequences, including to their mental and physical wellbeing. At the minimum, work may mitigate some harmful impacts of imprisonment. At best, it may increase prisoners’ prospects of successful reintegration into society, potentially also benefitting society by reducing recidivism." https://www.prisonstudies.org/sites/default/files/publications/labouring_behind_bars.pdf https://www.prisonstudies.org/sites/default/files/publicatio... (emphasis mine) Here's a photo from a Brazilian prison from Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labour#/media/File:Inmateswork.JPG https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labour#/media/File:Inmat...

tw04 29d ago
The question isn’t whether prisoners work in other countries which I’m confident you know and dodged. The question is whether the prisons in Brazil are private, and are allowed to sell prison labor FOR A PROFIT, incentivizing both greater incarceration rates, and disincentivizing release. The answer is no, I’m not aware of ANY other country that allows a private organization to profit off the labor if people imprisoned by the state. At least not any country we would consider 1st world. It’s absolutely absurd to suggest the current situation is beneficial to anyone but the ruling class and anyone claiming otherwise has never been to prison, never had a relative or friend who has been to prison, or is literally a psychopath who lacks basic human empathy.
- 0xDEAFBEAD 29d ago
  You're moving the goalposts. Your comment stated: "And does Brazil have their own 13th amendment that allows them to use prison labor as their modern slave workforce?" The article I linked states: "Most countries’ legal systems, however, carve out an exception for prisoner-workers, permitting the state to require them to work..." So my quote directly answers your original concern. Your new concern is about private prisons. Here's a new quote from the article which addresses your new concern: "Involvement by non-public entities in prison work can take many forms. In most countries including all three of Brazil, the United Kingdom, and the United States, for-profit companies operate entire prisons (or provide services within prisons) under government contract. Similarly, the operators of both public and private prisons in all three countries contract with buyers, equipping prison workshops and using prisoner labour to produce goods and services which go on to be sold beyond the prison." (p. 15, emphasis mine) So no, the US system doesn't seem to be especially unusual, according to this article. You're welcome to decry this practice as inhumane, btw. I just don't think it is some sort of skeleton key which will help us understand every aspect of US politics.
  - Hikikomori 29d ago
    >You're moving the goalposts Rich from someone that brought up slavery from nowhere.
    - 0xDEAFBEAD 29d ago
      Oh please, are we pretending that the confederacy wasn't working to preserve slavery? Is this some sort of lost cause advocacy on your part? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZVVIACrX38 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KZVVIACrX38
      - Hikikomori 29d ago
        I didn't even make any argument nor do I disagree with you, just found it weird that you brought it up from nowhere.

Der_Einzige 29d ago

De facto there’s hardly rule of law there so if you piss off the wrong people yes.

wahern 29d ago

It's called penal labor, and it was and remains widespread around the world. (And, yes, Brazilian law requires mandatory labor for all prisoners.) It wasn't until the middle to late 20th century that countries began to reform penal labor. But it's complicated. Without penal labor you can't force prisoners to, e.g., do laundry or mop floors. Even mandatory community service is a form of penal labor, and you can still find that in some Western European countries. The norm now is to require a wage for mandatory labor, but of course often it's just a pittance. (Only 6 US states have uncompensated labor.) But even when you require minimum wage, many criminals owe restitution, so it could be and is taken away again. Many US states have penal labor systems just like in Europe, that is nominally opt out, mandatory wages, etc, but at the end of the day it's always open to accusations of coercion and claims of "slavery". The rhetoric around the 13th Amendment is exactly why we're in the situation we are now politically. Everything is equivocated to maximize rhetorical impact. Every unethical thing a politician does is "corruption", so when you get open and egregious corruption as with Trump, people can't discriminate and assume it's all the same. Was penal labor abused to roll back the clock on abolition? Yes. Is penal labor abused today? Yes. But calling it slavery, drawing parallels to chattel slavery, is just irresponsible.

mulmen 28d ago
> 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. > Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. The 13th amendment specifically mentions penal labor as an exempt form of slavery. Take your criticism to the authors of the 13th amendment, not the people who bothered to read it.
- wahern 28d ago
  Setting aside textual analysis and how commas are used in the constitution, the point is that people claim not just that slavery is allowed, but that mandatory penal labor is slavery, and implicitly the same slavery that was ostensibly abolished. So do you agree or not agree that mandatory penal slavery is an extension of 19th century and earlier American slavery. Because that's what the movement and rhetoric are saying. And removing the Exception Clause won't change the rhetoric, because the entire point is to argue "things haven't changed". It's the same rhetoric that equivocates "wage slavery". All those things can, of course, fall under a literal definition of slavery. Just like all forms of misbehavior by politicians can be called corruption. We can say, well, Trump isn't doing anything every other politician hasn't done. Which can be literally true. But I choose not to play semantic games like that, because those semantic games are at least as likely to be used to excuse abuses as they are to prevent them. If you want reform, pursue reform. Note that many states have removed their state constitutional Exceptions Clauses which by itself resulted in zero changes to the status quo, because when you play semantic games there's always room to redefine things on-the-fly, or to find another semantic loophole. Every court knew what the Exceptions Clause actual, contextual meaning was, and can just as well redefine slavery or non-slavery to exclude or include penal labor. Semantic games don't change the real world, except insofar as they promote cynicism, confusion, and disengagement from substantive issues.