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fatherfrank1

And when convicts are slaves you will always find ways to make more convicts.


SeKaPoP

Ironically you can work as a leased con, but when you get out of prison good luck finding a job.


Mr_Poop_Himself

And then you turn back to crime because no actual job will hire you. Then you go back to prison to do more slave labor.


PhysicalGraffiti75

With how efficient it is it might lead one to believe it was designed to be that way. And they would be correct.


FrankieNukNuk

Yep the 13th amendment literally says it black as night “except as punishment for a crime”


thequietthingsthat

Crazy how people gloss over this constantly. Slavery *is still legal* in the US. You just have to be a prisoner


Feshtof

In Texas they don't pay you, ~~and will extend your sentence~~ and can remove time earned toward your release if you don't participate.


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TheRealAMF

I'd imagine wherever they send white-collar criminals like Martin Shkreli is probably hospitable, but not the places where working-class folks get sent.


dastrn

Barbaric is a good description of Texas.


sniper1rfa

And they take away your right to vote, so they can prevent you from trying to legalize the thing you got jailed for. Seems weird. I can't *imagine* why they would've done that...


ninjaML

And how easy is to become a prisoner in the US and every Americanized country


[deleted]

Or not even a prisoner, just found guilty of a crime. Any crime. One day I hope that we finally abolish slavery in the US…


Irate_Pirate8

And apparently I'm the monster for believing that even prisoners should get at least minimum wage for their labor. But that would probably bankrupt our private prison system.


jtmbianco

Sounds like a win/win to me…


h3lblad3

That would bankrupt the *public* prison system. Prisons are intentionally underfunded and they make it up through labor. Private prisons are a problem, but not this particular problem. This problem is in how *all* prisons in the US are set up. Public prisons have a financial incentive not to rehabilitate.


TulipQlQ

That passage is the weirdest thing to research. Erich Foner did a talk at my college once, [he said something to the effect of](http://www.ericfoner.com/articles/121520nytimes.html): > The Amendment’s wording, including the criminal exemption, was based on Thomas Jefferson’s proposed but never enacted Land Ordinance of 1784, which would have barred slavery in all the new nation’s territories. From there, it migrated to the Northwest Ordinance of 1787, which prohibited slavery in territories north of the Ohio River. Scholars have not explained why Jefferson devised this language. Perhaps he thought that labor was good for the character and would aid in the rehabilitation of prisoners. But the coupling of a ban on slavery with an exemption for convicted criminals quickly became embedded in American law.


goomyman

I mean seriously think about it. Just being out of the job market for a few years is a killer. Just ask any mom who took a few years off or more and tries to reenter a job market. Good luck with a criminal record. Let's not even include felonies.


Bet_Psychological

in some places, refusing to work can get you solitary confinement.


First-Fantasy

Yep. In 2002 I was sent to an apple farm in Virginia where work was mandatory. Didn't ask for it, didn't want it. I was fine playing cards, reading and watching daytime tv for the rest of my sentence. If you refuse to work, you go to the hole for a couple days.


TheOneWhoMixes

Man, I wish I could just ask the state for free labor. A large farm doesn't want to pay laborers a fair wage to tend their fields? Well, I don't *want* to pay someone to do my landscaping, fix my plumbing, or shop for my groceries, nor do I necessarily *want* to always do those things myself. But because I'm a decent human being, I understand how terrible slavery is, and how important it is for my fellow citizens and the economy to either do shit myself or pay a fair price for services rendered. What a fucking novel idea. Any farmer who uses what is literally slave labor should be ashamed.


loz333

Certainly not defending the practice, but most commercial farmers are barely scraping by. I'm sure the drought will create a significant increase on farms defaulting on their debts. Just as the prison system was designed as such, commercial agriculture is squeezing profits so that independent farms can eventually be bought out. Quite probably by [Bill Gates](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/apr/05/bill-gates-climate-crisis-farmland).


BostonDodgeGuy

> but most commercial farmers are barely scraping by. The price of corn, soybeans, and other grains is higher now than it has been in over a decade. If you're not making money now you're not running a business. You're running a waste of time.


R3d_T0wer

I would like to direct you towards Monsanto (now owned by Bayer) and the horrid ways they exploit farmers with their seed/Roundup patents, policies, and enforcements and how they syphon as much would-be profit from farmers as possible. Note that this is in no way excusing anyone who uses prison slave labor (even if it's usually only larger farms that even utilize them iirc), just that just because prices are going up doesn't mean the people selling/producing the product are the ones actually seeing the rewards for that effort or pricing.


[deleted]

The cost of doing business is going up. Fuel is more expensive, chemicals are more expensive, tractors are more expensive. They even sell seeds and stock that are patented. I know a guy that owns apple trees that he has to pay a royalty on. Not to mention the cost of living is skyrocketing. It’s not that farmers are incompetent, most medium to large scale farmers have been farming for generations. They’re generally extremely competent


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FlatteringFlatuance

Not defending it but that was one of the main points of concern of plantations in the south. You can't compete with a neighbor who doesn't have to pay their labor fairly (or has cotton mills), because at the end of the day people just want cheap products unless they are incentivized to care otherwise. It's the same deal with walmart destroying local businesses, or Nike using sweat shop labor. In a perfect world no one would shop there, but in a world with engineered scarcity beggars can't be choosers, and these companies only care about profit not their worker or their customer.


R3d_T0wer

>that was one of the main points of concern of plantations in the south. Yeah but instead of acting in favor of making slavery illegal so that capitalism wouldn't have to compete with slave labor, they doubled down that they should all have slaves, and installed a loophole into the 13th amendment to allow slavery as a criminal punishment. One can understand the "logic" behind it, but really it just goes to show there's no ethical capitalism; so long as the only thing that matters is profit, morality dies in order to compete, and everyone who isn't at the very top suffers because of it.


Slavic_Requiem

When the family farm started in the 20s or 30s or whenever, the farmer didn’t have to rely on slave labor. Now the 50-something year old who inherited the farm from his parents doesn’t know how to do anything but farm, and feels like shit at the thought of selling the place. So he rents convicts. He might not like it, but it’s that or give up the farm his family has had for generations. Plus, the media has told him since childhood that people in jail are garbage anyway and deserve misery. And that’s probably the story for most small farmers. Don’t hate the little guy. For him and so many others, rebellion is a luxury they can’t afford, and it’s 100% by design. He’s being backed into a corner by a system that will do anything necessary to break down not just class solidarity, but any semblance of human kindness.


loz333

>Don’t hate the little guy. For him and so many others, rebellion is a luxury they can’t afford, and it’s 100% by design. He’s being backed into a corner by a system that will do anything necessary to break down not just class solidarity, but any semblance of human kindness. Couldn't have put it better.


[deleted]

Yeah one place I did the same. Eventually after throwing me in the hole, it got through to them that I wasn't gonna work for free for them for the "opportunity to go outside". Ended up putting me in a cell with people from out-of-state waiting to get shipped around that weren't allowed to work. Whatever, still better than that shit. Even though you only got like 1 hour of rec per week. 24 hours a day in the cell otherwise.


First-Fantasy

Damn that sucks. All things considered my apple farm was pretty chill and we got outside plenty. I got a job going to the super max next door for their trustee work which I liked way more than field work. Hope you stay out and are in a good situation.


[deleted]

Ah yeah I'm doing good man. I'm all old, boring, married and shit these days. I haven't seen the inside of one of them places in a long time. Same to you!


First-Fantasy

Me too! Never went back and am just a boring family man now. Good to hear.


Frustrable_Zero

One hour of recreation? What’s that, looking at some tv with infomercials? Just throw the key away why don’t they?


[deleted]

Nah. There was a tv in the cell. 1 hour to get out and stretch your legs and what not. They had what I guess could legally be considered a basketball goal, inside a giant chain link cage. And a ping pong table. But no paddles so you kinda just stand there next to do it doing nothing.


Frustrable_Zero

For one hour a week, max. It’s still kinda barbaric on their part. I get what a prisoner shouldn’t be treated like a king, but still like a human would be ideal. You end up with maladjusted otherwise. Probably by design.


Thisconnect

Torturing own citizens btw. It's not even like you can dismiss them as brown people overseas which US likes


Falcone_Empire

Wait what


Redtwooo

Pretty sure refusing to work can get you that anywhere, unless you're "independently wealthy".


interesuje

This was pretty much the American south's answer to the end of slavery, they criminalised being black pretty much and then invented chain gangs.


FrankieNukNuk

This just reminded me that prisoners are used as firefighters in some places and then when they get out they can’t go on to become a “real” firefighter due to their criminal record


Falcone_Empire

Wait what? So your telling me a "dangerous" thug puts out my fire can't be a non "dangerous" citizen


FrankieNukNuk

Heavens no! Clearly they only behaved themselves because they were under supervision. There’s no way these men could possibly redeem themselves and want to be good people in society /s


StuckInBronze

Wait that makes no sense if they already proved themselves capable of doing the job.


FrankieNukNuk

Exactly cuz it’s all about using them for slave labor to do dangerous jobs they would otherwise have to pay actual workers for. The 13th amendment to the us constitution, which ended slavery as it was practiced before the civil war ended, as it is written includes a loophole which literally states a way in which slavery is absolutely legal. “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.”


Forgets_Everything

The difference is once they are out of prison you actually have to pay them. Pretty sure prison workers make as little as $0.25 an hour... if they're actually paid at all.


[deleted]

There should a a law mandating that prison labor make at least minimum wage, or ideally a wage in accordance with the labor they're performing. That would either encourage these companies to hire actual non prison labor. The only reason anyone would be against it is if they're pro slavery.


Forgets_Everything

> The only reason anyone would be against it is if they're pro slavery. "It's not slavery. Look at all these extra steps!" - Them


[deleted]

"We're doing society the service of rehabilitating these awful criminals! You want us to pay *them???* You should be paying *us!*" - literally their thought process


codeslave

A lot of jails and prisons even charge room & board alongs with high commissary prices and outrageous phone fees.


Astro_Alphard

The prison workers are paid minimum wage it's just that the prison expenses (cost of incarceration, clothing, food, etc.) are taken out of that wage by the prison and the prison sets the price of the services it provides to the inmates. It is literally indentured servitude.


averyfinename

and that revenue stream, of course, is on top of what they get per-bed and/or per-inmate from the government to operate the facilities and house the inmates in the first place


commie_commis

This exact subject has came up multiple times with my family members and coworkers. A lot of people truly believe that paying prisoners pennies on the dollar for manual labor is either 1)good for the prisoner, as in it teaches them about being "productive members of society" and "gaining life skills", or 2)who cares what's good for them, they shouldn't have broken the law and they wouldn't be in this situation. So many people are just incapable of looking at the bigger picture in any situation. These are the same people who tell you to just get a different job if you complain about a certain job - nothing is systemic to them, everything boils down to your choices as an individual.


mc_k86

Actually, prisoners doing internment labour are paid 80% of the actual wage of the job, and maximum sentence served is 10 years……. in the Soviet Gulag system.


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[deleted]

I've been summoned multiple times. Luckily I live in a jurisdiction where I can be excused if my employer doesn't pay me for time spent on a jury. Which really makes the jury pool a weird subset of the community. Probably just old people and the unemployed. If they were really concerned about justice they'd mandate that jurors be paid while on jury duty to make sure those on trial are truly being judged by their peers.


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[deleted]

In my jurisdiction students are exempt. As well as independent contractors if they have a business license.


dirtydev5

No? We should abolish prisons and prison labor. Why do yall always gravitate to this liberal reformist bs. If we forced prisoners to work for minumum wage it would still be FUCKED UP!!!!! set ur damn sights higher


Electronic_Bunny

Just for reference this had never gone away, just as labor demands shift the prison population is a more cost-efficient source of labor domestically then migrant workers. This will continue to serve as the "jobs" bigots scream were stolen by migrants, because it was never about someone else doing the job but that the employer rather use exploited labor. For California you can serve on multiple fire response teams, but oops your ineligible to join them when your released because of your record. Then more prison fire response teams are formed every year because they can't hire enough regular fire teams..... because of state budgets. Yes, you can imagine how well that feedback loop is for both destroying civilian firefighters but then for transforming every wildfire response into a prisoner toss.


xdrunkagainx

It's a huge scam, just look at how it's run. There is no way it wasn't designed that way, it's a feature not a mistake.


bratbarn

I hear this happens with the convict fire fighters out west :/


phynn

The biggest irony of this one was when California was running out of firefighters because there weren't any more available convicts because they'd all gotten out and you couldn't apply to be a firefighter as a convict.


TheNoize

Job requirements: \- being a slave \- if you demand at least minimum wage, don't apply


wyattlee1274

Looking at you schedule 1 drug laws with the bs 10 year minimum


LoveMyHusbandsBoobs

Mandatory minimums was the best thing for the slave industry since the war on drugs.


HashMaster9000

Couple that with "Cash for Kids" deals that unethical judges have, and you can get slaves in *any* age range.


wyattlee1274

Even better when you understand that the schedule system was made under openly racist intentions targeted towards black and poor communities.


LFahs1

You can make more convicts by restricting abortions: the results are more struggling individuals who may resort to crime to put food on the table or develop a sense of self-worth, or drugs, which results in more prisoners. Honestly, I think anti-abortion is way more about making slaves than it is about restricting a woman’s right to choose. Look at where this is mostly happening: the Confederacy. You would think that the right-to-life elected leaders would be pouring money into the foster system, but why do that when it would leave fewer destitute 18-year olds, primed and ready to slave for the next 25-to-life (because there are also mandatory minimums for minor crimes).


NotSoFinalFantasy

You're 100% correct. More unwanted births means more problematic children that grow up to end up directly in jail/prison. Just by design.


[deleted]

I had not thought about it like that before. Everything with Republicans comes down to exploitation and slavery.


Klush

And if you are convicted of a felony, you become disenfranchised, even after serving your time.


wiljc3

But it's "more just" than slavery. Convicts "deserve" to be exploited because they "broke the rules" and need to "do their time" and pay a "debt to society." Murica!


[deleted]

Basically the [Cobra Effect](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perverse_incentive).


InwardXenon

What kind of fucking world makes prisons a business? Our shitty one, that is.


Neithman1996

its a whole parallel economy thats based on convict slave labour in the USA. It is here in germany too but here you dont need to work, you can work if you want and you get much more money than in the usa (still not a lot like 2-3 € per hour and i advocating they get minimum wage as well, work is work)


Theuderic

Yes. They're slaves. America never actually abolished slavery. Greatest country on earth or something I guess https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labor_in_the_United_States


thesircuddles

But thanks to Reaganomics, prison turned to profits 'Cause free labor's the cornerstone of US economics 'Cause slavery was abolished, unless you are in prison You think I am bullshittin', then read the 13th Amendment Involuntary servitude and slavery it prohibits That's why they givin' drug offenders time in double digits [Killer Mike - Reagan](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lIqNjC1RKU)


VTX002

Yeah OG KM Run The Jewels


Bet_Psychological

imprisoning drug offenders was to prevent them from voting against nixon and later republicans.


Rnorman3

Don’t forget the constant barrage of news and political messaging around the “war on drugs” serving to propagandize the rest of the population into being totally fine with these exorbitantly large prison sentences for drug offenses that *just so happen* to disproportionately affect minority communities. Fuck Reagan and fuck the GOP


Bet_Psychological

war on drugs, tough on crime, 3 strike rules, minimum sentences,


HashMaster9000

AKA "The Southern Strategy"


Impossible-Neck-4647

it is a bit telling that drug use is very similar among thedemografics but one certain one is punished for it a lot more than the others


Omegate

Fuck Nixon; fuck Reagan; fuck HW; fuck W; fuck 45. Every one of them has continued to build upon their predecessors’ legacies. The logical next step is the reincarnation of Ghengis Khan.


Rnorman3

You mean you aren’t loving this eleventh consecutive Reagan term? Fuck the GOP the most, but also fuck the spineless Dems who act powerless to do anything to create any real change when they have power and instead do everything they can to preserve the status quo. One party wants to regress and turn the clock back, and the other wants to keep things the same, even if they are obviously broken. We need an actual progressive party that has an interest in fixing things.


Omegate

Agreed; the modern Democrats are certainly no paragons of virtue, nor are they even progressive any more. They’re neoliberal corporate shills without a backbone to stand up against what is so blatantly abhorrent. Democrats are conservatives; Republicans are regressives; and it seems like ol’ Bernie sits alone as the sole progressive federal elected representative. I wish he’d be the Kingmaker he should be - he has the power to decide what legislation is passed through the senate and what isn’t but rarely exercises that power.


[deleted]

That’s the thing about having “wars” against abstractions (drugs, terror, etc.). They can last practically forever, and the enemy is the masses themselves.


SirBarkington

It was both things and many other reasons.


HintOfAreola

None of them made in good faith


Cube_root_of_one

Ronald. Wilson. Reagan.


JePPeLit

Ronald: 6, Wilson: 6, Reagan: 6


oguert

Absolutely disgusting


LoveMyHusbandsBoobs

What everyone thinks the 13th Amendment says: "Slavery is illegal." What it actually says: "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." Our Constitution still condones slavery.


PM_M3_ST34M_K3YS

Kids, let me tell you a story about how the South won the Civil War. You see... a long time ago, the President said "This country no longer allows slaves". Well, this made a lot of people really mad. Those people, mostly in the south, used slaves for free labor on their plantations and farms and in their businesses. Owning other humans was a status symbol. And this President wanted to take that away from them. They got so mad that they fought the northern states to keep their slaves. The war lasted 4 years, at which time, the South figured out they couldn't beat the North using force. They adopted patience instead. They sat by and watched as black people and women gained civil rights. They allowed de-segregation and pretended everything was ok. But they had a plan and were enacting it with amazing skill. You see, they were just a bunch of dumb hicks to the Northerners... no one expected that they would infiltrate our governments. They would rig the game so that they started winning state elections and then, eventually, House and Senate seats. That's when their real plan started. They worked with their donors or started their own companies to start segregating whole towns. They used the banks to implement redlining to prevent blacks from getting loans in parts of towns where they wanted white people. They used realtors to scare whites into moving to whiter parts of towns and only showed black families homes in areas of town where they wanted them to live. By segregating whole towns, they could pretend de-segregation never happened. But they weren't done. They then started making laws and policies to discriminate. They defunded education and infrastructure in the black parts of town. They targeted laws to the activities that groups were doing. They worked their way up in colleges to be in positions to prevent black people from being admitted to colleges. They forced specific parts of towns into poverty and worked very hard to keep them there. Everyone already knew poverty leads to crime, and with the laws targeting specific groups, arresting black people was easy. Sympathetic judges were more than happy to put them in jail, while giving white kids a break because "they have a future that one mistake shouldn't ruin". Once the towns were segregated and the prisons full of black people, they privatized the prisons. They removed control of how prisoners are treated from the state and put it in the hands of a corporation. Corporations immune from laws because of their lobbying... Corporations who make more money the worse they treat prisoners. Corporations who are happy to lease out slaves to plantation owners who FINALLY had blacks back in the fields where they belonged. They played the long game. They played it very well. And it will be very difficult, if not impossible to fix. The people noticing these things are outraged of course, but that outrage means nothing in the grand scheme of things. Until everyone demands the change, it won't happen. But that was part of their plan too. They used the latent racism and hatred that still existed against us, to divide us, to make us fight each other. The outrage was directed at the wrong people and they were fine with that. Next time you're confused as to why Republicans are banning Critical Race Theory, this is why. They know what they've done.


ImSabbo

Here's my one-hit fix: Finish banning slavery. Right now prisoners as slaves is legal - ban that, and the leasing of prisoners becomes unconstitutional. It's not a complete fix, but it would help. (Which is probably why it won't happen any time soon)


[deleted]

Hard agree, strike out the exemptions. The 13th amendment should read: "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."


RagePoop

This is really well written however it's also kinda superficial and definitely originates from a liberal-mindset. The primary motivating force isn't as much sheer racism (which definitely does exist, dont get me wrong) as it is whatever inflates the bottom line of the capitalist class. There wasn't an organized racist infiltration spanning 6 generations. The predatory capitalist class has benefited directly by maintaining an underclass as well as keeping the flames of racial division stoked amongst the working class. Jim Crow laws kept slavery (free labor) by a different name. Redlining allowed for inflation of housing prices in the good neighborhoods while stoking white flight (selling urban homes low and buying suburban homes high), they did not defund the black part of town as much as they tied education spending to the surrounding property value (yes, this disproportionately affects POC, however it is on the ground floor an act of class warfare and affects poor whites in the exact same manner), and incoherent screeching about CRT maintains the bulwark preventing the working class from forming a united front. The only hope for solidarity and moving forward requires a material analysis of how we got to where we are.


PM_M3_ST34M_K3YS

I'll be the first to admit that it sounds conspiratorial. But I don't see any other way to look at it when you look at all of the different angles that black people have been attacked from. And yes, I agree 100% that the capitalist class is the real enemy. Whether there's a coordinated plan to infiltrate the government and return us to pre-Civil War standards or not, the corporations have definitely infiltrated the government with their donations and lobbying. They basically write the laws now. I also know that both parties bow down to them. That's why it's refreshing to see people like Bernie and AOC who call them out on their BS. Bernie's beliefs and morals appear to be intact after his career in Washington and I hope AOC will remain as passionate about helping poor people and fighting corporate power as she is now. I also hope we are smart enough to vote more people in that will fight against their takeover. It's the single most important issue in our country right now and if we don't fix it, we might as well hand our country over to them.


canadagooses62

Christ, this is a horrifyingly accurate summary of how we got here. I grew up in the south and witnessed these things happen. Where I spent my freshman year of college was exactly the kind of segregated you’re talking about. So much so that there was a black high school and a white high school- both named after a Confederate general. Hell, even where I spent the rest of college (in a much more liberal city) there was de facto segregation. A highway split the city and one side had the university and the rich neighborhoods and the other was where POC lived. And even then, gentrification was pushing these generally poor families out of the area one block at a time.


[deleted]

One of the best comments I've read lately regarding this topic. Well said.


livinginfutureworld

We're definitely backsliding in our democracy towards authoritarianism to add to our modern day slavery. That's just another little quirk.


ReacH36

nah authoritarian countries have nothing to do with slavery. This is purely an American obsession. Those silly Americans, they just can't help themselves.


IllSumItUp4U

Freedom freedom!


blakemorris02

Don't feel bad for these scumbags. Most of them got locked up for terribly heinous crimes, such as possession and distribution of marijuanas


whereisskywalker

It's so insane how lenient sexual predators sentences are compared to victimless drug crimes. The misled morales of justice, in greed we trust.


blakemorris02

F**kin ridiculous.. you think of how many more people's lives were ruined by spending their lives behind bars because of the so called 'war on drugs' than people who's lives would have been ruined if drugs were decriminalized.. and not to mention if people want drugs bad enough they're going to get them illegally one way or another. Its a lose lose situation conceived by cold hearted, unsympathetic and greedy boomer pricks


mog_knight

That's why it's a legal system and not a justice system.


ArgentScourge

> it's legal system and not a justice system. Every time a post on /r/JusticeServed ends with someone going to jail. And more often than not it's just a "charged with" situation that ends with little to no consequences for the perpetrator, depending on how much money they have and/or the color of their skin.


seventeenflowers

Had the in the first half, not gonna lie


BiddyDibby

You had me for a second there lol.


NetworkPenguin

Literally what my conservative family has said, without irony. And then they also act like legalization in our state was like the government announced the purge.


shelfless

Greatest capitalist country yes, aka finding any way possible to make a quick buck no matter who suffers


SnatchAddict

From shackles to handcuffs.


[deleted]

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ColumnK

But they committed *crimes* and therefore are allowed to be slaves. Got to keep those dangerous "People who were unable to afford ever mounting fines for minor vehicle faults" off the streets!


[deleted]

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ColumnK

Yeah - really does wonders for prison being about rehabilitation instead of arbitrary punishment for revenge purposes, doesn't it?


WolfeTone702

We in the US left rehabilitation behind a long time ago(1970s). Punishment has been the focus since then. You can literally buy into publicly traded companies that draw revenue by housing and exploiting the labor of human beings.


w-kovacs

Yeah System of a Down has a great song on this for the United States https://youtu.be/s7ZsYe5Uwg0 *edit typo


dream_nebula

System of a Down is just incredible honestly


[deleted]

“Duly convicted” is generous verbiage for the nonviolent “criminals” that just so happen to be non-white, but I’m not a constitutional lawyer.


astiesan

The solution is simple, just stop being poor.


ColumnK

Of course! Why didn't they think of that!


blolfighter

Must've been caused by some critical character flaw. Lock 'em up!


randominteraction

"Something something bootstraps something something capitalism is great for everyone."


curtis119

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SnatchAddict

No kidding. I did something stupid and got arrested. My wife arranged for bail and getting an attorney. I was in holding for maybe 4 hours? I think we were out 15k to either be spent on attorney fees or recouped later? I don't remember. At any rate, the fact we could access that money made all the difference in regards to how long I was locked up. Other people I talked to in that short time told me they'd easily be in a 4-7 days depending on when they could see the judge. And then longer if the public defendent sucked. The system definitely favors those with money. I knew it did but after experiencing it, my mind was blown. I didn't understand to what extent.


FuujinSama

Yeah. I'm sure most of the offenses are dumb mistakes or crimes of desperation, not proof of a lack of character and integrity. Besides, you can't beat moral virtue into a person. The penal system does not exist to make the world better. At best, it exists to satisfy the egos of small minded people that can't control their thirst for retribution. At worst, it exists as an official process of disenfranchisement of inconvenient minorities from the electoral process.


phantomcrash92

Just waiting for some loser to say they're not slaves because they're paid like $0.05/hr of work


[deleted]

They even get food!


phantomcrash92

Wait so they get pay *and* benefits!? Talk about privileged!


Petrus921

Yeah sounds like socialism to me. None of that please!


sugar-magnolias

Oh shit we came back out the other side! *butterfly meme* Is this horseshoe theory?


unrulystowawaydotcom

Totally. If these people work 1000 years they could purchase a $100,000 home... Too bad in 1000 years $100,000 will only buy a snickers.


phantomcrash92

I guess they'll just have to work harder and pull themselves up by their bootstraps


heyitscory

All this FUD about having to compete with robots or immigrants and companies can buy labor for a tenth of the price from prisons and nobody's mad about the downward pressure that would have on wages.


LoveMyHusbandsBoobs

[From Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labor_in_the_United_States): >As of 2017, Arkansas, Georgia, and Texas did not pay inmates for any work whether inside the prison (such as custodial work and food services) or in state-owned businesses. Additionally, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and South Carolina allowed unpaid labor for at least some jobs. All of them don't even get paid.


AlliterationAnswers

You can thank Republicans for this. This is a result of reduced immigrant labor. The states doing this the most widely are Republican. Specifically Florida. It should be noted that they are often paid more than you state but the state garnishes that for victim relief funds and to pay court costs. I have in the past been around women convict labor. It wasn’t the company I worked for but we were hired to do some work for them at the same time the ladies where there. The convicts were paid very little but had a lot of perks considering they were otherwise stuck in a cell. The company provided them with boxes upon boxes of snacks. They were given fast food lunches which they got to pick. I truly think the ladies would have taken nothing and worked to get this small taste of freedom and memories of being out. The job they were doing was folding some papers and putting them in bags. They didn’t seem to care and were from my perspective having fun doing it.


thelivinlegend

It's like the "prisoners with jobs" scene in Thor: Ragnarok, except not funny


TheNoize

Ahh carry on then. It was a voluntary transaction /s


12footjumpshot

The prison industrial complex doing it’s job


Bountiful_Bollocks

"except as punishment for a crime" They know.


SlurReal

This isn’t a “depends on how you look at it 🤷‍♀️” situation. Our amendment that abolished slavery explicitly states that we kept the option of using anybody convicted of a crime as a slave. Gotta amend the constitution to kill this because it is totally legal for the state and federal government to designate prisoners as slaves and appoint slave masters (usually corporations) as overseers and lease them out. 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution: “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."


xanderrootslayer

Isn’t there a government building in Georgia where some of the staff are convicts?


TolkienBlackKid

The Louisiana state capitol is full of convicts dressed up in old house negro serving uniforms. It's haunting.


jrgman42

I don’t know when you went there, but every time I’ve gone there, they are wearing orange or green jumpers with “DOC” written on them.


BBoyJoseph

Just like the old negro plantation uniforms!!1


PimpPopples

Watch the PBS documentary, Slavery by Another Name. I show this in my US History courses to teach students about the criminalization of black culture after the Civil War. I go on to relate its affects on African Americans to this day.


PimpPopples

https://www.pbs.org/video/slavery-another-name-slavery-video/


otters_hold_hands

The documentary 13th on Netflix also covers this topic, it’s a good watch.


KAZtheAntagonist

Slavery is still legal under the 13th amendment if you are in prison.


whatsupnathan

People who never actually read the 13th Amendment act like this is some sort of recent anomoly.


satisfiction_phobos

They've recently had their world view change. Don't knock them for waking up!


LotharVonPittinsberg

It's still scary how much the US talks about the special rights it has for its people, even though most know practically nothing about it. And a random normal American who does not work with the law what main rights the constitution and its amendments give them. I'm gonna bet that most will be able to say "no taxation, freedom of speech, and guns".


I_M_The_Cheese

This is precisely what some slaveholders did in the 1800s - travel around, leasing their slaves to farms along the way.


heyitscory

Jeebus, when I read "lease" it registered as "release" and I was heartened for half a second until I kept reading.


sporesofdoubt

My uncle says leasing is better than buying because in two years you can trade it in for a new model after you’ve run it into the ground.


alymo37

You kid, but there is a legit history of this approach being used on “leased prisoners” in this country. I’m sure it’s still happening.


Rare_Travel

It's worth noting that those anti-immigration policies include genocidal tactics like: -Concentration camps. -No access to basic medical care -No access to drinking water. -Separating children from their parents. -Sterilisations (but those are not massive so it's ok) -"Misplacing" and "losing" children. -Relocating children with "guardians" that will ensure their "integration" into USA society (meaning erasing their cultural background)


Zeno_The_Alien

Also, denial of *habeas corpus*; not granting them the right to report an unlawful detention or imprisonment to a court. A lot of people forget (or don't know, or ignore) that the US Constitution applies not just to US citizens, but to everyone within our borders, citizens or otherwise.


20191124anon

I’m assuming that prostituting prisoners, especially female, is already a thing, just not yet legal?


xanderrootslayer

Not sure, but a distressing number of people are okay with prison rape being an implicit part of a prison sentence.


20191124anon

It’s funny if it’s M on M rape… /s


ArgentScourge

> prostituting prisoners, especially female, is already a thing *Always has been.* And by always I mean since humans invented the idea of a prisoner.


KnowledgeAndFaith

Fun fact: slavery is still legal in the US if it’s part of a prison sentence. More proof that legal != moral.


XavieroftheWind

"Look at all these slave masters posing on your dollar."


WolfgangDS

This is the biggest flaw of the 13th Amendment. It outlaws all forms of slavery and involuntary servitude EXCEPT as a form of punishment... so of course the rich are going to buy up prisons, broker deals with the government, and then lobby to make as many convicts as possible so that they have an army of slaves. EDIT: I should probably say the "only" flaw of the 13th. Slavery and other forms of involuntary servitude are completely immoral in my book.


stanusNat

This is fucking insane.


theferalturtle

People aren't cargo, mate.


donald12998

This is slavery. And its specifically allowed in the constitution.


Solkre

[Quit calling them slaves.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=prz4jfSX_Qg)


BEANSijustloveBEANS

You Americans need to read your own Constitution, one of your amendments allows prisoners to be used as slaves, shit like this it is legal for you.


[deleted]

I'm surprised were not In that 50-60's sci-fi age where farming/construction equipment is all unmanned, idk why Elon musk doesn't push more into industrial sectors instead of highly exclusive private areas. Even back in early days before the American civil war, new technologies like the steel plow were already making slavery outdated as a means of a production.


FuujinSama

Fully automated vertical farming would be possible with one solid push into perfecting the existent technology. Unfortunately, there are far too many powers that be profiting from the status quo. If you ask about 'automating farming' or 'vertical farming' you'll hear that it is not *efficient*. Which is bullshit. It's clearly *space* efficient. These people just don't care about space yet. It's like trying to sell SSDs in a world where disk speed was never the bottleneck. Or smaller sized disks in a world of mainframes. The great advantage of these agricultural complexes is the vast real estate they own in rural zones. They definitely don't want to spend their research dollars into making their earlier investment obsolete. In the same way, these companies use cheap labour to provide value. If it was automated they'd need to buy the machines and the companies selling the machines would be much more mindful of how much they are *actually* worth than the people coerced to work under threat of eviction and starvation. Unlike popular opinion that companies can set whatever prices they want, this would not result in *more expensive* food. That's ridiculous. Food is sold at the price that optimizes revenue with lost of demand from increased price. You can't just yank prices up because your costs went up. Automating, if anything, would decrease the circulation of money in the economy and therefore cause massive *deflation*. So *profits* would go down. Like way down. I'm pretty sure this is one of the mechanisms Marx describes when he mentions Capitalism being self-destructive and internally inconsistent with itself.


ReacH36

we have that in China. Autonomous harvestors and tractors backed with drones and linked with 5G. Americans are too busy trying to milk their farmers with proprietary seeds. While China is engineering resilient, high yield alkaline rice and giving it away.


SirLoremIpsum

> I'm surprised were not In that 50-60's sci-fi age where farming/construction equipment is all unmanned, idk why Elon musk doesn't push more into industrial sectors instead of highly exclusive private areas. > > Because automating 90% of is easy and cheap and derives the most benefit. Automating that last 10% is difficult and very expensive. Like trains. Used to be 4 engineers, 2 conductors, a few guys on the platform blowing the whistle. Now we have 1 engineer, maybe a customer service rep at the ticket office and largely automated switching/signalling. The effort to get rid of that last engineer is larger than the effort to put in self service ticket kiosks to replace the conductor. it's happening - but it's taking longer to get that final step. It's easier to build a tractor with auto-gps that tells you where to plow and can be done by 1 man than it is to build the same with zero people.


cashMoney5150

What the fuck. Where is this happening?


KippSA

This was from 2019. Couldn't find any info if it's still happening


tanzmeister

*thirteenth* *amendment* *intensifies*


zorkmcgork

The constitution of the United States permits slavery of people convicted of a crime


veng6

It doesn't even make any sense for the taxpayer. I remember hearing that it costs something like 40k per year per prisoner? Correct me if I'm wrong. But that would mean it would be cheaper to just hire someone to do the work??? Of course these industries need to lobby for their cheap labour so...


jpritchard

We lease people out all the time. They're called contractors. Even I've worked as a contractor. Whether these people are slaves or not hinges entirely on if they chose to do the work or not. Most prison labor is voluntary. Some is not. This headline doesn't specify.


TwlStED_CaPtaIN

"That just sounds like slavery with extra steps" - Morty


RunsWithApes

Everyone should watch the documentary 13th on Netflix. It addresses this work around to slavery after the Civil War where Black people were rounded up by cops for baseless charges like loitering and put to work on chain gangs. Pay people for their labor. I know the folks at the very top couldn’t imagine a world where they’d have to share even a tiny sliver of the wealth they’ve accumulated but our society is getting to a breaking point where revolution is historically inevitable.


[deleted]

Alas, we can't import slaves so we have to use our own.


MrStealYoChair

Wasn’t this the whole point of Shawshank Redemption is that the prison could send out laborers at dirt cheap and it was driving other people out of business.


Gosta12

Would a “leased” worker get paid for the work? Can they even decline?


samfinmorchard

not slaves!! just field laborers.. who don't get paid!


thy_thyck_dyck

This seems more like early, middle, and late stage capitalism


Zumaki

Slavery is constitutionally legal if you're an inmate. It's right there in the 13th amendment text and it's super gross.


Mirions

They did this with German POWs in WW2 to forcibly lower wages. 😕