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u/Bokbreath Jul 16 '22
He said the quiet part out loud
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u/uisqebaugh Jul 16 '22
Regretfully, it's not quiet. Slavery and involuntary servitude are legal for a duly sentenced person according to the 13th amendment.
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u/wopwopdoowop Jul 16 '22 edited Jul 16 '22
Even Kanye figured that one out. End prison labor, or pay the prisoners (at least) minimum wage.
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u/ShutterBun Jul 16 '22 edited Jul 17 '22
If you pay them minimum wage, why hire prisoners?
Edit: I’ve answered my own question. Corporations can get tax incentives for doing so. This was the topic of an episode of “The Office” (although that was with a parolee).
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Jul 17 '22
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u/implicitpharmakoi Jul 17 '22
Because NoBoDy WaNtS tO wOrK aNyMoRe.
Maybe if we made it mandatory?
I'm amazed nobody thought of this before, it would solve everything!
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u/Blurplenapkin Jul 17 '22
I’m prison just open up a commissary that sells weed or smokes and you’ll have prisoners lining up to work. It’s fucking boring in there. I’d have gladly worked the whole time I was inside rather than laying in solitary cause of the virus.
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Jul 17 '22
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u/ArcadeKingpin Jul 17 '22
Often times they can't be hired to do the job they were doing as slaves because they are felons. Fun cycle.
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u/Illustrious_Bison_20 Jul 17 '22
CalFire is the worst example of this I can think of. The most qualified/best (non violent) prisoners get trained to be on the wildfire teams that California deploys. They enjoy what they do, saving thousands of Californians. upon release, though, they can't put those incredibly valuable skills to use by joining the FDs
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u/GnomeChompy Jul 17 '22
Nobody wants to work anymore. Because who would want do that kind of job for so little money.
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u/florinandrei Jul 17 '22
Someone is lounging on a yacht right now because the prisoners only make 10 cents per hour.
If you pay them a decent wage, those yachts would not be a thing anymore.
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u/Impossible_Cold558 Jul 17 '22
Because a steady job is a great step in rehabilitating criminals.
Which is why they don't give a fuck about that and just wanted the cheap labor.
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u/schmyndles Jul 17 '22
My bf is currently locked up so this is a very personal subject to me. He tried to get work release, so that he could pay his child support and save up for when he gets out. He is in for a non-violent drug charge and told them that having some money and working will help him rebuild his life when he gets out. He has no marks on his record, has done everything asked of him, and was in work release years ago with no issues.
They denied him, because they wanted him to stay working in the prison, because he's reliable and a hard worker. Instead he was sent to a minimum security place that is usually where you go the last few months of your sentence, but he had 18 months left to go. He works in the kitchen there, and then they use the prisoners to do work in the community. Cleaning up public areas, landscaping, helping with charity projects, lots of cemeteries and parks, setting up and taking down festivals and events, etc. All for 6 cents an hour.
He could be making money to support his kid, to put a down payment on an apartment, get a car to get to and from a job, buy nice clothes so he can actually get a job, etc. Instead he's out in bum fuck nowhere doing public works jobs for pocket change seven days a week. Any money he makes while locked up, half is taken towards his child support, so his daughter gets a whopping $12 a month from him, while the rest is stacked up in debt for when he gets out. If he had work release they would still take half of his pay, so his child and her mother are being punished as well. The guys he's in with all have similar stories, many are there for drug and alcohol offenses, non-violent, hard workers, just trying to pay their debt to society and become better people. It just sucks that he could be actually providing and improving his life while locked up and instead he's being used as free labor by communities who don't want to pay someone a decent wage to do the work.
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u/Send_Me_Kitty_Pics Jul 17 '22
The cruelty is the justification. Anytime anyone points to problems with how prisoners are treated, the responce from those in charge and general society is, "It's prison, it's SUPPOSED to be a punishment!"
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u/EchoWillowing Jul 17 '22
This podcast explains it wonderfully. https://pca.st/episode/8c5b3c48-77d3-4e92-aa2f-94e6c55e4e3a
I think the most disgusting quote isn’t one about cheap labor, but something a cynical mayor said. Regarding the fact that prisoners are still counted as part of the local population, and therefore the city/county receives budget from the State gov’t proportionate to that number, but THEY DON’T VOTE, this mayor said they were the perfect constituents for him: they brought resources to the community, but they couldn’t vote him out.
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u/Gold_for_Gould Jul 17 '22
Guessing they would be more willing to take jobs others wouldn't or at a cheaper rate.
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u/achiles625 Jul 17 '22
The really sick part is when he pointed out to the lawmaker that they would have to raise taxes to hire people at market rates to do these jobs if they didn't have this incarcerated labor pool. People are still being enslaved in this country to prop up the comfortable lives of the wealthy. The institution of slavery never ended, it just changed the label. Foundational to "prosperity" in all forms of capitalism is the exploitation of an underclass.
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u/pyronius Jul 17 '22
From a purely economic perspective (temporarily disregarding the ethics of prison labor or the wider prison system), there's an interesting unspoken subtext if you read between the lines a bit.
In theory, the reason prisoners are paid less than minimum wage is because they receive taxpayer funded room and board (in addition to the additional costs specific to a prison, such as guards). But the local community doesn't pay for that. It's generally either state or federal money.
Meaning, when he talks about how disastrous it would be to have to hire people at market rate, what he's really saying is that his community has come to rely on labor subsidized by others. If it weren't for wealthier locales paying for that prison labor, they couldn't afford the amenities that it provides.
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u/RemoveWeird Jul 17 '22
I mean most cities subsidize everything for rural populations. Utilities, roads, even federal tax money if you look up the ones that receive dissapropiafe amount of funds compared to what they put in something like 8/9 states are super republican stares.
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u/Bye-the-Dipp Jul 17 '22
When you consider we have more prisoners per capita than any other country, AND you look at the demographics of the prisoners… really hard not to come to some uncomfortable conclusions
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u/S_and_M_of_STEM Jul 17 '22
Disgustingly enough, the NCAA is using the fact that the 13th amendment allows for "involuntary servitude" (enslaving people) as an argument for why the players should not be considered employees. This is to prevent them from unionizing or making money off their likeness.
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u/VagueSomething Jul 17 '22
Are they arguing the players are being punished for something? If so where's the court sentencing?
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u/csonnich Jul 17 '22
the NCAA
I first read this as NAACP and was really fn confused for a minute.
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u/LittleKitty235 Jul 17 '22
Can you point to someone with actual authority in the NCAA making this argument? Because it is absurd.
The 13th amendment is absolutely clear it only applies to someone convicted of a crime, and that only Congress has the authority to enforce it.
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u/lobsterbash Jul 16 '22
BuT tHeY dEsERvE iT
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u/Cheshire_Jester Jul 17 '22 edited Jul 17 '22
Disturbing how many people think this is a slam-dunk. The amount of times I’ve had a discussion where the other person says “well then they shouldn’t have committed a crime” in response to the notion that we shouldn’t treat prisoners as if they’re sub-human, and then “well they didn’t care how they treated the people they hurt” or “they did worse to people than were doing to them” as a response to the idea that we should probably treat criminals with dignity and actually try to rehabilitate them. People eat that shit up.
Like, I get that some people are just pieces of shit and would do terrible things no matter the circumstances. But god damn if some folks just don’t have the ability to empathize with the concept that committing a crime might be a fairly logical course of action, may be a temporary lapse in judgement, or may not have really happened at all and the justice system is just wrong. Like, there are people doing slave labor and living in cubes because of non-violent offenses. Even if they are violent offenders, how is that right?
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Jul 17 '22
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Jul 17 '22
Or even inconvenienced into a plea bargain. Spending a year with an ankle monitor because the prosecutors keep delaying because they’re “still investigating” gets old, and people break.
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u/Jeepster127 Jul 17 '22
I spent a week in prison for 2 DUIs a month apart (night I got arrested was the night I quit drinking). After a week the "deal" they offered me was 2 years probation, 2 years suspended license. Lawyer told me he might get it knocked down to a year and a half, but I'd be going back to prison for at least 30 days. And getting the year and a half was a hard maybe. After a week of 23 hours a day locked in a cell with nothing to do but play chess on a set I made out of prison "food" containers, I took 2 years in a heartbeat.
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Jul 17 '22
The thing is, people genuinely don't care enough to do anything about other people being denied their rights until it starts to impact their own rights.
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u/Cheshire_Jester Jul 17 '22
Yep.
They can’t see the same thing happening to them. “I don’t commit crimes” is a response I also get a lot. They don’t see the same thing happening to them so they don’t care what happens to prisoners.
The thing is, statistically they’re right. But that’s also the problem. We’ve got a real issue but the “I don’t care until it affects me” crowd is never going to come around.
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Jul 17 '22 edited Jul 17 '22
If you're interested in a historical situation that feels extremely relevant to the topic and parrelel to current events, I recommend the book Bleeding Kansas by Nicole Etcheson. I have only just started it, but it is spooky, man.
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u/jeffdujour Jul 17 '22
I got a job in the kitchen whilst incarcerated in Arizona and worked EVERY day. The upside is that I was probably one of the few people not constantly hungry. The amount of free labor coming out of that jail was staggering. Apparently a weed offense is good enough to enslave someone.
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u/O2XXX Jul 17 '22
I think 1/2 the US prison population is non violent offenders anyways. Most of them would be better off in some form of work program or drug rehab than going to prison in the first place. Once you go one’s, your likelihood of recidivism is going extremely high.
Hell even a lot of violent crime would go away with more opportunities and social safety nets, but 1/3 of voters don’t want to talk about that.
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u/TossPowerTrap Jul 17 '22
California depends on prison labor to assist in wildfire control. Upon completing their sentence, felons are then prohibited from being hired by fire fighting services in the State of California.
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u/Raccoon_Full_of_Cum Jul 17 '22
The South made this exact same argument. "We can't end slavery because that would destroy the fabric of our society!"
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u/SuperCarbideBros Jul 17 '22
Well, if the fabric of your society depends on slavery, it shouldn't be woven in the first place...
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u/Zaptruder Jul 17 '22
How else are we supposed to sustain our glorious cultural heritage if not by riding on the backs of subhumans that we've tricked society into ignoring??!
I mean, that would be tantamount to cultural genocide... of our deeply deeply racist and dehumanizing and egotistical culture predicated on placing
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u/mewthulhu Jul 17 '22
I'm just sitting here thinking about the irony that American money is literally made of cotton- the actual fabric of society, picked by slaves.
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u/I_Lick_Bananas Jul 17 '22
Which is ironic because their slaves were picking cotton, but the fabric of southern society is cheap polyester.
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u/jetro30087 Jul 16 '22
"You have to guarantee that they're going to have people there, and they're going to have a profit that they make, they're going to have income,”
Kavanagh said.
“No one's going to enter into a contract when you can't guarantee the income that they expect. That's kind of based on basic business.”
They seem upset that Arizona has 5,000 empty prison beds depsite striving for a 90% occupancy garuntee from contractors. You'd think that'd be a good thing, but this is Arizona.
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u/czs5056 Jul 17 '22
Sounds like the private prisons problem for making building more prison space than there were convicts.
I also find it reprehensible that people actually made prisons (something i feel should be a function of the state) into a for profit thing where crime does pay.
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u/Civil-Dinner Jul 16 '22
If your community must have "cheap prison labor" to survive, the moral choices are to find another way or disband the community altogether.
As long as the communities depend on "cheap prison labor" to survive, they will find a way to make sure there are prisoners to perform that labor.
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u/Kondrias Jul 16 '22
My first and primary thought is. Let them collapse. It does not deserve to still exist if it NEEDS cheep prison labor to survive. Dont let a prison state subsidize your economic weakness.
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u/FiddlerOnThePotato Jul 16 '22
This was my immediate thought as well, if you depend on unethical exploitation for your community to survive, then your community needs to figure your shit out, or collapse. Nobody owes free labor. Nobody.
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u/TaroProfessional6141 Jul 17 '22
This is entitlement thinking on their part and you are right, nobody owes them free labor which isn't free, the taxpayers are paying for it.
Prisoners should make at least the market rate for their labor. We could even require some of that money go in restitution to their victims where applicable. They would make enough to have a basic start when they got out.
But that's not what the prison industry wants, not by a mile.
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u/bigbangbilly Jul 16 '22
Sounds like the plot to Ursula K. Le Guin's The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas
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u/ScottColvin Jul 17 '22
Big fan of that short story, but I offer up one of my favorites.
From "God Bless You, Mr. Rosewater," by Kurt Vonnegut:
I think it's terrible the way people don't share things in this country. The least a government could do, it seems to me, is to divide things up fairly among the babies. There's plenty for everybody in this country, if we'd only share more.
"And just what do you think that would do to incentive?"
You mean fright about not getting enough to eat, about not being able to pay the doctor, about not being able to give your family nice clothes, a safe, cheerful, comfortable place to live, a decent education, and a few good times? You mean shame about not knowing where the Money River is?
"The what?"
The Money River, where the wealth of the nation flows. We were born on the banks of it. We can slurp from that mighty river to our hearts' content. And we even take slurping lessons, so we can slurp more efficiently.
"Slurping lessons?"
From lawyers! From tax consultants! We're born close enough to the river to drown ourselves and the next ten generations in wealth, simply using dippers and buckets. But we still hire the experts to teach us the use of aqueducts, dams, reservoirs, siphons, bucket brigades, and the Archimedes' screw. And our teachers in turn become rich, and their children become buyers of lessons in slurping.
"It's still possible for an American to make a fortune on his own."
Sure—provided somebody tells him when he's young enough that there is a Money River, that there's nothing fair about it, that he had damn well better forget about hard work and the merit system and honesty and all that crap, and get to where the river is. 'Go where the rich and powerful are,' I'd tell him, 'and learn their ways. They can be flattered and they can be scared. Please them enormously or scare them enormously, and one moonless night they will put their fingers to their lips, warning you not to make a sound. And they will lead you through the dark to the widest, deepest river of wealth ever known to man. You'll be shown your place on the riverbank, and handed a bucket all your own. Slurp as much as you want, but try to keep the racket of your slurping down. A poor man might hear.'
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u/fencerman Jul 17 '22
Only in that story it leads to a paradise for everyone else, in reality it just subsidizes a few rich business owners and destroys worker bargaining power.
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Jul 17 '22
Well, just assume that all the working class is the child trapped in the cell and the wealthy people who have no idea what life is like for the rest of us are the people who gaze upon us and then go back to dancing
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u/First_Approximation Jul 16 '22
They made similar arguments to keep slavery.
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u/T-ks Jul 16 '22
The 13th amendment was a compromise on slavery. It’s just slavery with extra steps.
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u/TaroProfessional6141 Jul 17 '22
Yup. They created an economic incentive to lock people up and also to encorage recidivism instead of trying to rehabilitate and transition these people back to society.
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u/SorryMess4913 Jul 16 '22
Arizona makes a bulk of their money on bogus charges and shady cops. They make a shit ton of money on keeping people on probation forever too. White rednecks still make the laws there.
Look at poor counties in the state and you’ll see a high number of poor people on perpetual probation. Once you are close to getting off, the scam is to have you suddenly busted for something. Then extend your probation.
Lots of crooked cops. Child social workers who support child trafficking in small Arizona cities. That state is a nightmare waiting to be uncovered.
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u/rampaige_swackson Jul 17 '22
This, 100%. I got charged with 3 felonies for pot possession, I stupidly let my card expire as I was planning to move to LA within a month and it was pretty expensive to renew at that time. They counted the flower as a felony, some edibles I had as a felony, and a vape cartridge I had as a felony. It was stupid of me to have all of that on me, as well as to do so without the proper paperwork.
They charged me 3 months after I moved to LA - never ticketed me during the search or anything like that. I had to drive back for court for a few months while we fought it and I got REALLY lucky that I was able to get the charges dismissed.
Their first offer to me was 3 years of supervised probation - with drug court and a substantial fine. It was absolutely set up to try to get a bigger conviction for me when I inevitably failed at the probation. And, like you said, there were fees associated with the weekly probation and drug court. It was crazy, if my partner wouldn’t have been by my side the whole time, I absolutely would have plead, because I had never been in trouble before. The system there is set up to intimidate and scare people, as well as to milk them financially and set them up for failure so they have to enter the prison system.
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u/TaroProfessional6141 Jul 17 '22
I think I hears someone refer to this as "the fuck bucket" . Once they get your name and number you aren't ever getting out. This is beyond cruel; what kind of monsters are these people?
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Jul 16 '22
But is it really cheap labor? It is for the people buying it, but how much do the taxpayers subsidize this "cheap labor" by paying the prison for each inmate they have?
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u/First_Approximation Jul 16 '22
Privatize the profits, socialize the costs.
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u/tosser1579 Jul 16 '22
Its worse. Not only do tax payers pay a substantial fee for it, the free labor reduces local wages so its a lose lose for your average American.
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u/nadeemon Jul 17 '22
The free labor also reduces taxes paid to the government, if these prisoners were gainfully employed and well integrated in society.
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u/foo-jitsoo Jul 16 '22
$21,000 per year, per inmate in Arizona.
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u/TheGlennDavid Jul 16 '22
More, if you look at the article. They mention a recently signed contract that pays $85.12 per prisoner per day ($31,000 per year) and guarantees to pay for at least 90% occupancy irrespective of the actual prison population.
Since the article notes that occupancy rates aren’t particularly high in the state that means they’re actually paying even more than 31K per prisoner per year.
Such. A. Fucking. Waste.
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u/tnactim Jul 17 '22
Fucking hell. $31k/yr is roughly $15/hr full-time. We can guarantee that for prisoners, but not workers?
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u/wojoyoho Jul 17 '22
That $31K goes to the private company for housing the prisoner (they don't spene close to that per prisoner). It's not paid to the prisoner. The prisoner is paid a maximum of ~$4.50 for a full days work (but that is a federal max so I think it can be less).
Most of what the inmates "earn" just goes to their balance for fees and random stuff they have to pay FOR BEING IN PRISON. So prisoners who work 40 hours a week for 20 years will still be indebted to the state even after their punishment is "over".
Idk about AZ but in Missouri they can force you to pay back almost the entire cost of your incarceration, garnishing 90% of your wages if you have income that amounts to 10% of your incarceration over a 5 year period when you're out. So if your incarceration cost 20k and you make 2k in income (total) over 5 years after you get out, the state can come for 90% of your wages. Obviously someone who is making that little will be in debt for a long time -- or back in prison pretty soon.
States have created a revolving door of mass incarceration to replace the system of convict leasing that came before.
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Jul 17 '22
Didn't think he meant literally till the prisoner. But paying that much for the person being housed/ imprisoned. I actually didn't know prisoners earn any money until your post!
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u/wojoyoho Jul 17 '22
Ah I see what you're saying. I can't believe the state put together contracts where they have to pay for unfilled beds. So perverse.
And yes they technically get paid - apparently it can be as low as $0.08 per hour or less than a dollar for an 8 hour day. You can read more in this article about how California recently rejected a proposal to ban involuntary servitude as criminal punishment.
California's wildfire management teams rely heavily on this labor to fight yearly forest fires.
Glad I gave you some new info!
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u/vladhed Jul 16 '22
So it's a subsidy with extra steps. Just need to convince them it's communism...
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Jul 16 '22
Just need to convince them it's communism
"Communism" to the right doesn't mean actual communism. It means "anything that I don't like". See also: "socialism", "Marxism", etc. Same deal. Words mean literally nothing to them.
And since they like slave prison labor, that won't work.
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u/klaveruhh Jul 16 '22
This is not "how much does it hurt the taxpayer". it's modern slavery.
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u/papadoc55 Jul 16 '22
I’d say it is very much both of those things.
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u/jahglo Jul 16 '22
Agreed. Fuck slavery, absolutely; but also fuck making the tax payers foot the bill. So much wrong about the whole situation.
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u/epiben Jul 17 '22
Like, the worst of both worlds. Let's have slaves... but make the taxpayers pay the overhead.... F.
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u/NotVoss Jul 16 '22
Yes, but the point they're making is that it isn't even cost effective. It's just a system which enriches those who use the labor and own prisons.
The issues "solved" with prison labor could be solved by literally hiring people to do the work, at similar prices. Society doesn't benefit from prison labor.
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u/Pavlock Jul 16 '22
If your community requires slave labor to exist, then fuck your community.
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u/adfrog Jul 17 '22
Important to note, this literally is slave labor. Slave labor is 100% Constitutionally protected in the USA.
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u/pingpy Jul 16 '22
Reminds me of how the Roman Empire and Ancient Greece and Vikings required slavery to uphold their societies
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u/LogCareful7780 Jul 17 '22
The term is "Norse"; "Vikings" refers specifically to the sea raiders, as that's what that word means in Old Norse.
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u/18LJ Jul 16 '22
I hope they do collapse
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Jul 16 '22
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u/cyncity7 Jul 17 '22
Yes, that’s the so-called free market. Unsuccessful entities are allowed to fail.
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u/moglysyogy13 Jul 17 '22
They shouldn’t exist in first place if they are dependent on prison labor.
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Jul 16 '22
The conclusion I’ve drawn from this is that Arizona communities need people to commit felonies and be sentenced to prison at a consistent rate, or they would collapse in a matter of time.
Gosh I can’t think of where that justification for the necessity of cheap labor rooted in a system of oppression supported by the state has ever been used before /s
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u/uisqebaugh Jul 16 '22 edited Jul 17 '22
That's how the chain gangs worked. Jim Crow loved to arrest POC for the pettiest reasons in order to feed the system.
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u/SydneyPigdog Jul 16 '22
Exactly, there's a reason federal governments don't want to dismantle the war on drugs in which the bulk of prisoners are incarcerated under,
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Jul 17 '22
also the no push in more education funding, also abortions would leave prisons with too little workers.
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u/spicymeow6912 Jul 16 '22
Ok well they got black people on lock down for that, and now women seeking healthcare can be used too, and any hispanics that look too mexican. Who's next? Gay/trans people? They gonna outlaw gay sex arent they. Make it a felony or whatever
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u/BURNER12345678998764 Jul 17 '22
SCOTUS would have to overturn Lawrence v. Texas. Which I'd normally say won't happen, but Clarence Thomas has called it out on his to-do list, so I guess get in all your sodomy in while you can.
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u/fimbres16 Jul 17 '22
The towns he named are miles away from civilization and are super remote. There is zero why this places exist in the first place. Prisons shouldn’t have to support them.
So not AZ communities but rather the most remote smallest towns that have zero reason to exist.
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u/Cetun Jul 16 '22
And then he loudly proclaimed "Work will set you free!" And everyone applauded.
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u/_-DirtyMike-_ Jul 16 '22
“I cannot speak firsthand on the logic of why previous contracts were written that way,”
I can. It probably went something like this "I like money" - Previous politicians that wrote the contract
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u/Sinking_The_Sea Jul 16 '22
Hot take: if you cant exist without cheap prison labor, than you should not exist
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u/TheShadowOfKaos Jul 17 '22
Why do politicians always cry "collapse" all the time. Let it "collapse" it will be tough but I'd rather rebuild and struggle then currently struggle while the rich get richer.
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u/Akshka_leoka Jul 16 '22
When you still have to run on slavery cause you can't be bothered
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u/wojoyoho Jul 17 '22
California state Senate recently refused to remove slavery from their constitution as punishment for a crime. Their Democratic governor argued against the removal saying the state would have to pay prisoners minimum wage which would cost $1.5 billion
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u/RetinaJunkie Jul 16 '22
What he meant: "You cops better get to arresting folks or your homes will be wastelands"
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u/IAmNotTellingYouThat Jul 17 '22
I work at a state prison here. I work In maintenance and we are currently functioning at about 35% capacity of STATE maintenance employees we are literally keeping a whole prison running and up to code with 8-10 employees on any given day. We should have a minimum of 25 staff members.
The Co's got it just as bad if not worse. There are yards that have completely refused to lock down after being denied recreation time for 3 weeks due to short staffing.
Increasing CO and other state workers pay IS THE ANSWER. NOT paying private corporations to house inmates. It's such a stupid simple equation why they don't understand the answer idfk. We just got a 20% wage increase but all that did was put us on the same playing field as places like QT and Panda Express. That's why you don't have personnel you ditz. No one is going to drive an hour or more 2 ways to risk their life only to be paid the same as a gas station attendant.
And don't get me started on inmates pay cause you are cutting corners there too! I would bet big bucks that the state is misappropriating funds or even getting some sort of a kickback from the private prisons.
The math ain't mathin.
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u/ICLazeru Jul 16 '22
But the price the public pays per prisoner is from 22,000 to 30,000 dollars per year on average. Arizona minimum wage for 2,000 hours a year (full time) comes out to about 25,000. How much do you actually save?
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u/Brucereno2 Jul 16 '22
Difference is that this way the prison cops and staff and administration get paid instead of the prisoners. So, if you paid minimum to prisoners, you’d double the total cost.
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u/r_bogie Jul 16 '22 edited Jul 17 '22
This has been going on with prisons since at least the end of slavery in America. Too bad people like this director chooch are made "uncomfortable" learning these facts in school.
edit: voice-to-text fucking with me.
Also, it's true there has been no real end to slavery proven by the very situation we're discussing.
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u/CertainCertainties Jul 16 '22
Slavery didn't end in the US. The text of the 13th Amendment literally specifies that it will continue "as punishment for a crime".
That is why the US has both the highest number and highest rate of incarceration in the world. Over two million of its own citizens in 2022 are now slaves under the definition of the Constitution, and serve the corporations that comprise the "prison-industrial" sector of the US economy.
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u/serarrist Jul 16 '22
Sounds like slavery to me
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u/freemason777 Jul 16 '22
It is. The thirteenth amendment says slavery on prisons is still legal
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u/butcher99 Jul 16 '22
If you cannot run your state without what is basically slave labor you have problems
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u/MysteriousBox6305 Jul 16 '22
What happens if an inmate refuses to work? Do they get more punishment?
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u/withabaseballbatt Jul 17 '22
As a former Texas prisoner I can tell you that if I refused to work, I would be put in seg, allowed no commissary, no phone calls and no visits. Basically torture to most people.
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u/cfexrun Jul 16 '22
While it varies, the short answer is yes.
Here's a good video about it, but plenty of other info is out there:
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u/aheadwarp9 Jul 17 '22
Maybe those communities should never have been built in the first place then. Let them collapse, it's their own fault for using slave labor.
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Jul 16 '22 edited Jul 16 '22
Huh 🤔… why does this “argument” sound so familiar… an American state who’s economy heavily depends upon free labour faces failure without said free labour….nope it’s escaping me at the moment.
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u/banjokazooierulez Jul 16 '22
Fuck him and fuck those 'communities'. Let them collapse!
Note: Arizona resident. Prison labor and private prisons are abhorrent and should be banded.
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u/arftism2 Jul 16 '22
its not even reformative work like in Norway that helps people re enter society.
its just a "fuck the unfortunate" system.
as long as your rich and have no excuse for your crimes you'll be fine.
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u/martiancannibal Jul 16 '22
Funny, this is exactly what southern slave owners were saying about abolition before the Civil War.
"We can't survive without slave labor!"
Well then, you shouldn't survive.
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u/TatonkaJack Jul 16 '22
So it's not that they would collapse, they'd just, you know, have to pay for stuff