Incarcerated people work for cents on the dollar or for free to make goods you use.
Brittany White, 37, was arrested for marijuana trafficking in Alabama in 2009. She went to trial to contest the charges — after all, just a year prior the United States president had admitted, cheekily, that inhaling was “the point.”
She was sentenced to 20 years. But her sentence was meted out in portions, based on good behavior, and she, posing no discernable public safety risk for selling a plant increasingly legal in states all across the U.S., was allowed to work on the outside.
She got a job at a Burger King.
But the state of Alabama took a significant portion of her paltry minimum wage. “They charged me $25 a week for transportation,” she tells Truthdig. “And they take away 40% of your check. It’s egregious to be making minimum wage, and then to have so much taken away by the state.”
Minimum wage in Alabama is $7.25.
Still, White considers herself lucky. Even her paltry earnings were better than nothing. She was able to purchase soap from the commissary. The prison-provided soap is full of lye, she says, which you definitely do not want near your private parts.
Many stuck behind bars are forced to work for cents per hour, or for nothing. While corporate culprits are commonly blamed for exploiting the labor of incarcerated people, it’s actually primarily states and the federal government who take advantage, and make the public unwittingly complicit.
Got a car? Your license plate was likely made by inmates. In New York, inmates make the trash cans. High school desks are often made on the inside; so are glasses for Medicare patients.
Many stuck behind bars are forced to work for cents per hour, or for nothing, for corporations, states and the federal government.
Companies like CorCraft in New York manage labor in the state’s prisons. They’re funded by the state’s budget, and boast they’re New York state’s preferred choice for “office chairs, desks, panel systems, classroom furniture, cleaning, vehicle, and personal care supplies, and more.”
“Summer Sizzles with Classroom Furniture from Corcraft,” their website declares.
They also claim to help in “the department’s overall mission to prepare incarcerated individuals for release through skill development, work ethic, respect and responsibility.”
The people behind the “sizzling” furniture beg to differ.
In the 12 years he was incarcerated in New York state, Dyjuan Tatro was forced to work a variety of jobs, from making desks to license plates. “At the end, I didn’t have a resume,” he tells Truthdig. “I didn’t get one thing to help me be successful on the outside from the prison. No resume, no job experience… Just $40 and a bus ticket — from 12 years of prison labor, I couldn’t use any of it to get a meaningfully paying job.”
Bianca Tylek, the executive director of Worth Rises, an organization devoted to eradicating unjust prison practices, goes further. “It’s slavery,” she tells Truthdig.
The 13th Amendment, which ended slavery, left an important exception: it’s still legal to garnish wages, or more commonly, refuse to pay incarcerated people for forced labor. “As a result, incarcerated people live in slavery-like conditions,” Tylek adds.
Of course, there are nuances. For example, trading community service, like, say, picking up trash, in exchange for not serving time, is one example of a noncarceral approach. But incarceration changes the equation. Tylek notes that it’s not just about the miniscule (or nonexistent) wages. It’s compelling people to work, with the alternative being a stint in solitary and other punishments, like refusing to let them see relatives, consequences that are meted out by guards. She also notes that they have to work in dangerous trades they may not be trained for, including industrial-sized laundries or ovens.
Despite what someone did or did not do, to end up behind bars, coercing them into performing free labor is wrong, Tylek notes. “I like to ask people the question, ‘Under what circumstances is slavery OK?” she tells Truthdig.
“If you can’t answer that question, the answer is, slavery is never OK.”
If we’re gonna have prisons at all …
It makes a great deal of sense to offer prisoners pay for doing things to maintain the prison: cleaning the floors, washing the uniforms, leading the singing circle or whatever. That sets them up as members of a self-supporting unit, where you can actually be rewarded for doing things that benefit the other people around you. Then when they get out, they’re accustomed to being a person who makes things better for those around them.
But it doesn’t make sense to put the prisoners out into the non-prison world as competition for free workers, and then claw back their wages. That sets prisoners up as underclass members of general society which is exactly the condition that leads to a lot of people becoming criminals in the first place. And then when they get out, they’ve already been “out” as slaves of McDonald’s, so that’s how they and the world are accustomed to relating to each other.
That sets prisoners up as underclass members of general society which is exactly the condition that leads to a lot of people becoming criminals in the first place
That’s the unspoken point. The system is already so drunk on the exploitation of slave labor to the point that all involved actively seek to encourage recidivism. They want all of us for any reason they can shit out.
Don’t forget that the same prison companies that do this are publicly traded. Recidivism isn’t just profitable, it’s in the interest of shareholders.
And often present in state workers pension funds, further exacerbating the conflict of interest.
Recidivism is a feature of the current system, not a bug. The prison system is not interested in reforming anyone into respectable members of society; they’re only interested in making as much of a buck off of as many inmates as possible, preferably those of the right color. Society is rigged against anyone with a criminal record by design, on all kinds of different levels, to keep anyone previously convicted as an underclass member of society.
Asheville Junction, Swannanoa Tunnel, that’s my home…
But it doesn’t make sense to put the prisoners out into the non-prison world as competition for free workers
Makes a lot of sense if you’re a piece of shit boss who wants to pay less than minimum wage.
Not that it doesn’t have problems, but should be like H1B visas. There should at least be a requirement that non-prison labor be looked for first, even if it’s more expensive. Only if prison labor is the only feasible option should they get the job.
Having prisoners do work for the prison gives incentive to pay them less, which gives government incentive to put more people in prison, which gives government incentive to make things illegal that shouldn’t be illegal. None of that should be allowed. They should be allowed to do work at whatever rate they are able to get work for(likely remote work), and should receive 100% of their compensation like any other employee, with a certain amount taken out for the cost of housing and food.
Just FYI, don’t post the full article in the post body when sharing on Lemmy. That’s how you get C&D letters sent to your instance admins for copyright infringement. Just post a snippet of the relevant text to stay within fair use.
If an admin tells me to do so I will, but you don’t need to backseat my posting, I will not make people open the article to read it if they don’t want to, I’m gonna assume you’re not a lawyer or an admin for that matter, just a fan of cooooooooopyright, like oh no, I totally believe in intellectual property, such a cool concept and I’m sure the people at TruthDig are big mad their work is reaching a wider audience
It’s one thing to freeboot an article in a world where journalism is already dying due to lack of funding.
It’s another thing to have a shit attitude on top of it.
I’m sure the people at TruthDig are big mad their work is reaching a wider audience
Literally the opposite effect is happening when you do this. Fewer people will click the link, resulting in less traffic to the site.
I will not make people open the article to read it if they don’t want to
What’s wrong with making people open the article? It’s just one click away. It’s not like it’s paywalled or something…
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Simple.
We weren’t bombed out from WW2 and back then, we had factories. More than anyone else in fact. America’s ‘golden age’ had nothing to do with American exceptionalism (lols) and everything to do with no competition (but we still ran Keynesian capitalism, the New Deal, back then, so about a 10x bigger piece of the pie went to workers, affording them the American Dream, aka the middle class).
Add to that, the Marshall plan, which paid for Europe’s reconstruction but attached to that money came the demand to end colonialism (at least overtly). So America was pretty liberal at the helm for a minute there.
But then came Nixon and the conservatives in the late 60s, Henry Kissinger going on about there being an “excess of democracy” (seriously when I first found out about this in 9th grade it made me sick to my stomach) was saying the quiet part out loud. The rich wanted to scale back the New Deal and return to laissez-faire. Enter Milton Freidman. Cue up Pinochet, Reagan and Thatcher - all peas in a pod. Citizens United. Regulatory Capture. Which brings us to today. Profit over people, wealth caused sociopathy (seriously, the paranoia, greed, and inability to form relationships with any real depth unmoors the psyche from society, thus, empathy atrophies and moral/emotional growth cease. “Money is the root of all evil”. Hoarding money, withholding help, in the face of suffering will slowly chip away at you, until yr just as evil as well) and legislatures that are disgustingly cheap to buy. We’re seeing the world remade into a giant money extraction farm. And we are the tax chattle. All so the rich never have to work a day of their lives.
Side note; Reagan slogan campaigning was “Make America Great Again”. Yep, Trump stole it (prob w/o paying royalties). Trump would go on to mimic Ronnie in another way, by ignoring, thereby exacerbating, a pandemic. Trump with Covid. Reagan with AIDS. Imo Trump’s leadership thru Covid resulted in the unnecessary deaths of more Americans than any other thing, ever, of which I hold him responsible. Donald Trump is/was/has been the deadliest thing to Americans, ever. Putin got his money’s worth, ffs.
Just FYI, we actually still have the factories. We manufacture about 3 times more stuff here in the US today than we did in the 60s and 70s and about 6 to 7 times more than we were during WWII. We just do so with roughly 1/100th to 1/1000th the workforce, because we automated everything.
Some of those manufacturing jobs moved overseas, but many many more were simply automated out of existence.
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Eisenhower, after leading the allies to Berlin in WW2 and then serving as president (used his general clout to get the national freeway system going) gave us the warning about the military-industrial complex. It was in entirely selfless, and he told no one about the content of the speech before delivering it live to the nation. Like that’s up there with Washington and Cincinnatus stepping down. He was in a unique position to know intimately what he was talking about and it appears we didn’t listen, which is super sad.
centuries of propaganda
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Firepower, too
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This is actually probably a big reason why. The USA has tons of high quality natural resources, and the prisons (formerly slavery) provide the free labor. Syphoning 20-30% of everyone else’s paycheck for the military presents an image of strength as well.
More like a reality of strength
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Well at least half of America is only liberal with their markets, some states moreso than others.
Some states are downright repressive/regressive when it comes to social policy.
The liberal, even the libertarian mindset is simple. Do whatever the fuck you want as long as it doesn’t hurt people now or leave a mess for future people. Pick your path and then mind your own business.
Trying to legislate society into someone’s personal ideology (re: fascism), religious code (re: theocracy) or anachronistic local traditions is oppression. No ones forcing anyone to get an abortion, no one HAS to buy a gun. Factors might compel one too, but that’s a different discussion. At the federal, and probably state level as well, trying to homogenize a plural society is a recipe for failure. We are too big and too varied - and that’s a GOOD thing. Pass whatever city ordinance you want; as long as it isn’t legislating hatred, fear or violence.
Simply put; people need to mind their own fucking business again. If someone wants to make their business fucking, then fucking let them and move on, holy shit. Who do these people think they are? They won’t believe a single thing said if it comes from a city, why would they think we’re gonna stop our menagie of drugged up costumed orgies? Like ladies for real, if you haven’t mixed a plan B into your morning cocaine anti hangover line, you just aren’t living. Don’t worry, there’s enough for everyone. Socialism ftw.
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All things considered, since prisoners almost always get some form of compensation (albeit very little) it’s technically indentured servitude which is tantamount to slavery. My only quibble is that, however, and I find it just as reprehensible.
I’m not opposed to prison labour, but I think prisoners still ought to be paid minimum wage less tax, and this amount can be put in a sort of savings account for them to responsibly use “on the outside”, such as for rent, restitution, &c. Interest on the money can then be put towards a crime victims’ fund. That way, I think, everyone gets a fair shake and it’s not just a forced labour camp.
Hard disagreement there. Prison labor is used to suppress wages, so, any labor allowed should be mandatorily equal to the highest prevailing union wage, including benefits, to remove profit motive and harm to society.
More than this, since I believe the entire prison system should be reformed from a system of punishment into a system of rehabilitation, much of being in prison should focus on education, job training, and paid works programs.
Obviously, they’re criminals and not everyone would be able to participate, but the vast majority would and would massively benefit from such programs.
You’re probably right, but we also want prisoners to actually still get jobs and earn money, so it can’t cost more than hiring a regular working because then why would anyone bother.
I would support the State adding a few dollars to minimum wage and taking that as a commission or something to offset costs.
Still hard disagreement there allowing prisons to be used for exploitation does not help prisoners or society and instead incentivizes use of the most exploitable segments of society and disincentivizes rehabilitation as it is less profitable.
Giving prisoners the opportunity to participate in society in a manner where both sides are protected is a good thing, I agree. It allows for better reintegration into society. However, minimum wage or anywhere near it cannot be on the table as it always results in greater exploitation and wage suppression. Reward businesses for doing their part with tax breaks or similar, not by outright helping them to exploit people.
It doesn’t matter. Slavery - not “something tantamount to slavery”, not “technically slavery”, not “conditions similar to slavery”, but full on 100% legally recognized slavery - is legal under the 13th amendment for convicts.
The 13th amendment literally says that slavery is illegal, except for as punishment for a crime.
This is why the Constitution also allows for itself to be amended. So bullshit like this can be changed. It’s just pretty fucking hard.
13th amendment
Well yeah. It’s right there in the 13th. Add a 28th.
Although you should be aware that the 27th says “No law, varying the compensation for the services of the Senators and Representatives, shall take effect, until an election of Representatives shall have intervened.” Just in case you were in any doubt as to what kind of day-to-day “running a country” things they actually care about.
I think the 27th was supposed to prevent them from just giving themselves pay raises constantly. Basically saying, sure you can raise your pay, but it won’t go into effect for X number of years.
Might be why it took them 200 years to pass it…
Of course, there are nuances. For example, trading community service, like, say, picking up trash, in exchange for not serving time, is one example of a noncarceral approach.
This is the way, and the reason the amendment shouldnt be changed.
The vast majority of prisoners should be out of prison, because prison is a barbaric relic of the Middle ages, and should do compulsory work for the state for minimum wage while living at home.
Personally I know several people who have been to prison, and many of them absolutely needed some institutionalized treatment.
Well, really they needed a strong community with support, mentors, and motivations to succeed, but in our broken society where community is all but dead, they needed prison.
Prison is a broken hellhole system, but with total reform, it could be a positive tool for society.
Maybe in a utopian society we could do away with prison, but there are a ton of changes we need to make before then.
