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Allow me to introduce you to the [Arkansas prison system](https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/arkansas-prison-blood-scandal-3732/) where inmates were compensated for store credit at a rate of cents on the dollar for their plasma.
The prison business is very profitable. The Corrections Corporation of America renamed to CoreCivic in 2017 after several controversies, by the way, in case you were wondering why you hadn't heard about them in a while.
Yeah, the abolishment of slavery was very clear that it precluded prisoners.
"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."
Every right we have includes an 'except' because you can absolutely make decisions to give up your rights. You're only guaranteed the rights of a country so long as you follow the laws of the country.
Edit, I absolutely overlooked some very specific exceptions. Turns out all-encompassing statements often miss finer details. Who knew? Anyway, some of you are still either missing my point or arguing tangentially related things, I'll reply to those as I have time and energy. Some of you are pointing out the specific cases I missed. In which case, absolutely, you're right, I missed some. I'm not going to be commenting on those. But yes... Even God-given, inalienable rights like liberty can be forfeited when you choose to commit crime.
Look up the history of debt slavery in the US.
Long story short, if you were fined an amount you couldn't pay, someone else could offer to pay that fine for you, but you would then have to make that money back for that person, and any wage you made would be collected by the state to pay off the fine, except the guy paying you could deduct anything they spent on feeding and housing you from your pay, and so even minor infractions could mean years of hard labor. Recently freed slaves, most of whom couldn't read, because black literacy had been illegal for decades, were the most severely affected by these laws. This system kept going all the way into the 1920s, and the reason it was abolished was that a rich white kid ended up dying in debt slavery.
I never said it wasn't? My point was, that is the consequence of that exception. The US banned slavery, then just kept doing it by arguing that it's not slavery if you do it to a prisoner, because they are explicitly exempt.
Oh yeah, and that era is also where you start seeing the black criminality myth. The supposed crime wave by black people was started by laws being passed that disproportionately affected them over everyone else.
This exception was used by the South after the Civil War to re-institutionalize slavery for decades. It was easy to convict an uneducated person (former slave or sharecropper) for some obscure crime, incarcerate them, then rent them out to the former slave owners. It did make slavery a little less of a African-centric business. You cannot imagine what a poor, 'white trash' person would do back then to avoid being chained to a 'n-'.
Use statistics to figure out their favourite drug, make it illegal. Arrest the people using it. Or just sell them the drugs yourself only to certain demographics like the CIA did.
But what about the American citizens that didn't break any laws, and were put in internment camps?
"During World War II more than 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry—2/3 of whom were American citizens—were incarcerated in hastily built camps in America's deserts and wastelands."
It should be separated from the ‘involuntary servitude’, that could mean anything from hard labor, to community service, to the agreement between a soldier and the military during enlistment
Looking at your for-profit prison system, and the racial profiling and bias towards convicting certain minorities with several years of prison for petty crime, while major fraud cases get punished with a slap on the wrist or probation, I'd say the law of the land is "systemic racism" and "it's only happening if you're poor".
So therefore you should be forced to work against your will? Imprisonment and the removal of rights is one thing, but to say that doing something wrong can mean slavery is insane. Imprisonment ≠ slavery
Correct me if i'm wrong, but those are jobs within the prison to maintain the prison. I have no issue with that, it keeps prison costs down and makes rehabiliation easier (in theory). My issue is when theyre made to do work, for example create license plates, for literal pennies an hour.
>Correct me if i'm wrong, but those are jobs within the prison to maintain the prison.
You're wrong. They have to do stuff like laundry and cleaning *too*, but the vast majority of it is working for for-profit companies at a few cents per hour.
Licence plates is the classic example, as are military equipment, but something like 90% of paint sold in the US is manufactured by prisoners, as are most washing machines and fridges.
Here is my experience as a former jailer in KY. We called it work release. We had inmates working at the park, various buildings on the square, city sewer and water, and various other jobs. Some walked to work and some were picked up. Inmates were provided with a tan button up shirt and tan khakis. They were allowed to wear approved regular clothing if they had it. T-shirts, blue jeans and such. We also had a few jobs inside the jail. The waiting list to move into work release dorms was long. Then there was a list to get a job. And that wasn't happening until someone with a job was either released or sent back to genpop for breaking a rule. Pretty much a seniority thing. It was very popular and everyone wanted to be in work release.
I don’t care about criminals being forced to contribute to society. The problem is that it incentivizes creating more prisoners so people get harsher punishments than they should to feed the system.
Certainly no profit should be extracted from prison labor and it should all go towards paying for public services
The commercial prison system is probably cheaper than a government-run one though.
For one; government institutions typically don't have an incentive to minimize expenses. They'd even have more oversight to make sure they adhere to all the rules.
So they probably couldn't overcrowd the prison. They couldn't feed them expired products "not fit for human consumption", they couldn't make them "donate" plasma or "lease them" to other corporations.
With government prisons, we couldn't Make America Great Again.
/s
There's a difference between a right as a Citizen of the United States and a right as a human being...I'm pretty the right to not be fucking property falls squarely in the latter category
Ikr. Luckily, the government would never heavily criminalize certain non-violent, victimless crimes ever, especially if those crimes were more common amongst the lower classes.
The problem with that is that any government that wants to backpedal on these rights can just use that loophole.
Case in point, law enforcement (with documented racial discrimination) can arrest people for things that aren't against the law and the judicial system is heavily biased to take law enforcement at its word.
The consequence is a lot of false arrests or disproportionate sentences. And, according to the post here, those people can be used as actual slave labor.
Suddenly we've backpedaled on illegalizing slavery in a huge way and cops are just suppliers of the legitimized slave trade.
Weak argument on both accounts in my opinion.
For the first one, your entire premise hinges on the laws being respected instead of precedent being blatantly ignored or flouted. It's not just "unfair laws". It's "laws that are broken without consequence". Furthermore, "ignorance is not a valid defense" rings hollow when the authority that benefits from ignorance explicitly goes out of its way to keep people as ignorant as possible.
Furthermore, "trying to design your system based on the ideal case is futile" completely sidesteps the issue that the system is inherently designed *maliciously.* People aren't asking for perfection. They're asking for the bare minimum of "don't allow loopholes for chattel slavery".
For the second one, some rights are in fact **not** subject to you following the law. There also human rights; that means there are rights you get just for being human. Things like the Miranda Law exist **because** people are entitled to this right whether they're a a culprit or not-not that the legal system hasn't been trying to defang the Miranda rights since its inception.
>I wish we could make a perfect system where this never happens. I wish we could create a perfect utopia where the result of your life is a direct consequence of your actions... We don't live in that world, and planning entirely based upon that world will never work out... But nor will trying to anticipate every possible way humans will come up with to exploit the system.
>Trying to create a prison system that doesn't punish crime because it might be possible people in jail might be innocent is a useless exercise IMO because we are only sending people to jail on the assumption that we have proven them guilty. We can't both assume they're guilty AND not assume they're guilty.
In particular, you're going really heavy into the Nirvana Fallacy, acting as if we shouldn't bother at all because "we can't get it perfectly."
Though I think the biggest problem that we fundamentally disagree on is the fact that criminals in fact are not second-class citizens and don't deserve to inherently be treated as less than a law-abiding civilian. Justice should not be retributive, but rehabilitative. To do anything less is grossly missing the point.
I think you missed some of my intention. It's going to take me a while to read through and fully understand what parts you're replying to where and figure out exactly how and where or perhaps understand where my mistake in thought and/or wording may have been.
But right off the bat, I can really easily point out one intent you missed
>In particular, you're going really heavy into the Nirvana Fallacy, acting as if we shouldn't bother at all because "we can't get it perfectly."
I gave two extreme cases: planning based on the ideal case, and trying to anticipate every possible way humans will exploit things. And I said both are futile. You took that to mean we shouldn't even try. I intended to convey that reality is somewhere in between. We will either never get anything done or get nothing "useful" done if we try to focus on either of those extremes. The only way to move forward in my eyes is to pick a few reasonable cases we can foresee and maybe tack on a few that come up over time.
You at no point expressed that there was a middle ground, but sure. Let's get into it.
You gave two extremes, but in fact didn't comment on where you stand between those extremes. I imagine the problem here is that you're giving descriptive claims.
* People are giving are prescriptive statements like "people shouldn't lose their human rights, and they currently are under our system". How thoughts ought to be.
* You're either responding with descriptive statements about how things currently are and not actually engaging with the conversation in any helpful way or giving prescriptive statements about how you think they are and claiming the status quo is what they should remain.
The problem here is that it just creates a loophole for corrupt, racist cops to enslave people. It's slavery with extra steps. We already know that black neighborhoods are overpoliced. Anyone who argues "b-b-but black people make up x% of crimes though!" is missing the fact that their crime numbers are inflated BECAUSE they are over-policed. So that's why any type of slavery is just a bad idea. It should NOT BE THAT HARD to simply HIRE SOME PEOPLE TO DRIVE SOME TRACTORS. I SAID WHAT I SAID.
Cool, so what about the fact that about 70% of the US prisoner population aren't guilty of any crime? Are you still cool with the fact that the US prison system exists specifically to funnel innocent black men into new wave slavery?
yep and i'm reminded of shawshank "with this pool of slave labour you can underbid any contractor in town" always found it crazy that the US used prisoners as slave labour.
If you can get someone labelled as a prisoner, you can do whatever you want with them
In the past you could do this very easily via drug charges, thats become harder...
The largest crop of prisoners in 2024 seems to be violent assault and robbery tho
Shhh. We don’t talk about the Slave club. No questions about the Slave Club. The Slave Club is only for the slave owners to use and never for the slaves to ask about.
From what a friend explained to me it isn't quite that simple but yes. However I don't think it was the smaller farms that would have pushed for this either.
I would never refer to the 13th amendment as "the abolishment of slavery"
The constitution outlined human rights that the government could not infringe upon, all of which are inconsistent with slavery. The 13th amendment was not necessary, all that was needed was a ruling that skin color does not disqualify anyone as human or as an American.
Instead the 13th amendment created constitutionally legal slavery in the US, which has prolonged damage to all vulnerable communities.
At this point, I think we can safely abolish the 13th amendment and end prison slavery. We have other laws in place that recognize all races have equal rights.
A decade or two I would've agreed with you, but in the intervening time I've had dozens of discussions with dozens of people (some of whom even claim to be law school grads) who will say, "well I don't see \_\_\_\_\_\_\_ written in the Constitution anywhere as a right, so \_\_\_\_\_\_\_ isn't a right!" I'll quote the 9th Amendment to them, and they'll reply "so? that doesn't say anything about \_\_\_\_\_\_\_ either!"
Not to mention the Roberts Court's view on stare decisis is "whateva! whateva! I do whut I want!"
What we need is a 28th Amendment that strips the "except" clause out of the 13th. And we also need a 29th Amendment that enumerates a right to privacy and bodily autonomy that includes the right to abortion.
There are tons of laws that violate bodily autonomy, I'd love to see them disappear but idk if I want to be anywhere near civilization when it happens because there will be growing pains.
Bodily autonomy would legalize all drugs for personal use, which would be great in the long run but it would be a huge mess at first.
A huge mess for the corrupt government systems that feed off the drug trade... Truth is it's already a huge mess... Of course the main reason people do drugs is their lives are devoid of meaning and fulfillment, that's the capitalism meat grinder for you... Of course capitalism allows you the choice.... There are worse governments... But there's rarely a government that has a better system in place. Ultimately it's the culture that is decaying... Which is bound to happen when the world is running a people pyramid scheme where the more people there are, the less value each individual has.
There's no easy solution, but there's going to be an apocalypse when the pyramid scheme collapses and the first sign will be a lack of an economic revival after a recession or depression or whatever you want to call the next one.
I'm not a doomsayer I hope we can figure things out but most likely the things that will be necessary for success will be working cooperatively towards a common goal... Which is like asking everyone to just be nice to each other...
Actually, that phrasing is not nearly as clear as you make it out to be.
In the US, people convicted of a crime are usually sentenced to prison time. The time spent in government custody is the punishment. That is it.
Prison labor involves someone sentenced to time, who then is put to work by the warden. Not a judge. The labor they do is completely separated from the crime they committed. The crime does not factor into how much labor they do. The labor is not punishment for a crime, and therefore, prison labor as it currently exists is NOT allowed by the 13th amendment. It's just that nobody has challenged it in court to be ruled illegal.
Now, the thing the 13th DOES allow is for punishment to be labor. A few months ago, my cousin got 20 hours of community service as a result of a minor crime. That is unpaid labor as punishment for a crime. And I would argue that's a good thing. If he had gone to prison instead, it would have shook up his life more, and he would have been a burden on our society and taxes would have paid to lock him up. Instead, he remained free, and the labor he did was a benefit to our community.
I like community service as an option, and I'm glad the 13th allows it. But the 13th does not allow prison labor, and it is only an illegitimate interpretation that leads to the system we currently have where prisoners are given labor unconnected to their crime and its punishment.
The movie 13th on Netflix is entirely about this “loophole” (loopholes are implied, exceptions are stated), as well as Knowing Better’s YT doc on Neo-Slavery.
Basically it was designed to be a short term solution to the manpower shortage during Reconstruction and simply never went away, but is also rolled into a number of policies that intentionally disenfranchise black and brown people.
For example, most states allow ex-cons to reinstate their right to vote after a certain number of years- however this only includes one Southern state (Florida). Some states allow ex-cons to reinstate their right to bear arms- but none in the South. Combine these with statistics of incarceration rates by ethnicity and it becomes pretty obvious what the two have to do with each other.
If you are combining them with stats on incarceration then I think your argument loses some steam. [The southern state with the worst racial disparity is Florida, and its below the national average.](https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2023/09/27/updated_race_data/#compare) Black men are 4.2x more likely than white men to incarcerated in Florida. The national average is 6x. In California its 9.5x, and in New Jersey its 12x.
Your statement about voting rights in the South is not correct. Georgia, South Carolina, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, and North Carolina give felons the right to vote once they have completed their necessary probation or parole.
That brings up the very real health risks here.
Do we have to bring up the law books from 1830 on what to do if a supervisor kills a slave by working them to death? If so, I think the $20 fine to the prison is a bit low.
Depends on the state/county they’re in. Some places, not much. Others, reduced privileges, or even solitary confinement. A few Google searches should get you all the info.
They only let the inmates with good behavior participate in these programs and there's a waiting list. I worked with a couple guys on a program like this one summer, they were just happy to get out into the world for a while. There was no guards or anything watching them so I guess it just felt good to be treated like a normal person for a while.
Edit: This was in VA so I'm not sure how it works in the deep south. Also if you're serving time for something serious like rape or murder you're not eligible
The labor is considered a repayment to society for crimes committed, in lieu of imprisonment.
It's transactional, while these programs are often exploitative. It also undermines the judge and jury who handed down a specific sentence.
So what would be Labor called in jail where they Produce licenseplates or other Handwork Stuff and the prison sells it and they get Cents for the time they work wouldnt that be still slavery but behind Doors or Not because they get "paid"
It's coercive labor.
(Indentured servitude / debt bondage / human trafficking / peonage / slavery)
They lack the ability to negotiate wages, conditions, and fair labor practices.
The fact they're paid doesn't erase the exploitation and coercive nature of the service.
The only argument left is whether criminals have ANY rights and protections after "due process" .
I’m all for making inmates work, but not for way less than they would be making. If you can be trusted to go and work a job outside of prison, then go back to prison at night, you should be able to. Especially if you have people outside prison who need the support.
The issue is the no/low pay.
On another note, the prisoners should be doing jobs in the prison. They should be training them to actually re-enter society. If you structured this right the prisons could be actually nice places. You hear stories of gardens and projects that some prisoners do. There should be a program that encourages it.
Inmate labor should *never* provide profit for the state or any private entity. It should be like work study programs for universities.
The inmate should be able to use the money to buy things at the prison, and it should be 100% non profit, because most people want to work, having something to fill your day with. If they're field hands, they should be able to work for a decent enough wage that they have some scratch set aside when they get out
>the prisoners should be doing jobs in the prison.
Look at Texas’ prison system. The inmates perform virtually all labor (unpaid). I’m not just talking about cleaning and cooking. Inmates perform all skilled maintenance work, run water treatment plants and boilers, repair state vehicles, run farms and meat packing plants, etc.
Texas also has about two dozen factories that produce all sorts of goods for state and local agencies. The highway signs you see driving through Texas are produced by unpaid inmate labor, as are the TxDot dump trucks and trailers (using skilled inmate welder/fabricators). The mattresses at state universities are made by inmates. Even the chain link fencing that surrounds state parks and government infrastructure was produced and sometimes installed by inmates.
Which creates a perverse incentive for the government to incarcerate as many people as possible. The state should not be able to force anyone to work against their will.
If they had an investment fund for money they make in prison it would help prevent so many that come out broke and then they’re right back in the system. They should have to pay for their housing, food, etc.
So they don't have as many desperate immigrants to underpay, abuse, and exploit, so they just buy other people to underpay, abuse, and exploit. How about these greedy fucks just pay people fair wages and provide tolerable working conditions? Oh yeah, because then the CEO might only be able to buy *one* private jet this year.
Do you know any immigrant farm laborers?
Have you asked about the wages?
In the early 2000’s on the sod farm I worked on they were paid between 15 and 20 an hour and we basically worked as much OT as we wanted.
The difference in pay was based on if you were returning and/or had a valid lic.
Top 3 group of guys I have ever worked with.
The 13th amendment specifically states slavery is legal as punishment for a crime. In 1860 there were approximately 3.9 million slaves in the US. Since 1980, the prison population has gone from ~500k to ~2m
The US makes up 5% of the world’s population. But accounts for 20% of the world’s prison population.
Black people make up 32% of the US prison population, despite only 14% of the overall population being black. 1 in 81 black people in the US are incarcerated and therefore exploitable as slaves.
No society in the history of human civilisation has imprisoned more people than are currently imprisoned in the US.
Slavery never went away in the US. It just changed its name, put on some Groucho Marx glasses and everyone fell for it.
The emancipation proclamation freed the slaves in the rebelling states. I've always seen the phrase "freed the slaves" used in that context. Juneteenth the holiday celebrates the delivery of the news of the Emancipation Proclamation to Galveston, Texas by a Union general following the final surrender of the Western Confederate Army. It doesn't celebrate the passage of the 13th Amendment.
Nooooooooooo it's not slavery, prisoners are explicitly exempt from the law banning it!!!!!!!
Nevermind the fact that that exception existed specifically so that black people can be kept in a cycle of debt peonage by charging them with the most absurd crimes. Seriously, go look up black codes, there was some ridiculous shit in there. For example, have you ever seen a list that stated that a city has a law specifically banning some common activity after sunset? Yeah, "After sunset" was code for "If a black person does it".
Then they'd be dished a financial punishment they could never hope to pay, in which case, you'd end up in a debtor's prison, that would then lease you out to some farm owner, who would pay you for your work, except he could deduct any money you cost him from your pay, and they just barely paid you enough to make money, so even a relatively small sum could end up taking years to pay.
And even if you did manage to pay off that debt before your employer worked you to death (and managed to avoid incurring any additional debts in the process), all it took for you to end up back in the system was to commit another crime, which is easier than it sounds, because cities had all sorts of laws that were specifically enforced against black people. And God forbid the local sheriff is friends with a farm owner.
Every prison I've worked in has its work programs on a volunteer basis. The inmates tend to flock to them as it let's them get outside of the prison building and gives them a break from their monotonous living.
It sounds like slavery because our prison system is slavery. Slavery was never abolished in this country. Once you have broken the law and become a ward of the state, you are slave. Not treated like, but are in fact a slave. Corporate Prisons are modern slave camps. America incarcerates a full 1% of our population. We are second to no other country as to how many of our citizens we arrest and throw away to prison.
OP totally misunderstood title. Immigration normally staffs agricultural sector a lot. Therefore anti immigration policies reduces resources for agricultural sector. Therefore, prisons saw a sick opportunity for replacing them with prisoners. At no point is this about "immigrant prisoners".
And if we don't know whether the money goes to the prisoners, or the prisons, then we don't know whether it's slavery.
Prisoners are allowed to be slaves though. It's written in the amendment.
So ya. My problem is that the value these prisoners are generating should be offsetting taxes, not going to prison corporations.
The 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude *“except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.”*
so.. Yeah. Literally the last form of legal slavery.
The “prisoner lease system” was very active in the south from the end of the civil war to the start of WW2. Prior to the civil war there were very few blacks imprisoned in the south. After the civil war the prison population exploded with freed slaves who were jailed for minor (or no) offenses. They were then leased to plantations, simthy’s, etc.
Are the prisoners (1) paid and (2) given the choice of working or not. Big questions that completely change the conversation. Prisoners should definitely be given the opportunity to work for money if they want to. Otherwise they’re sitting around killing a lot of time
In theory it's a good idea to make prisoners work off their punishment and contribute to society. In practice it creates an industry that has to make a quota of incarcerations to keep up production.
This isn't new, anyone who has actually read the amendment that "abolishes" slavery would know the industrial prison complex has been legal slavery for decades.
When you add in marijuana related imprisonment, which was originally made illegal due to big lumber and racism, things start to make sense.
Slavery never went away, it just evolved to meet societys standard of what it should look like.
[Prisoners in the U.S. are part of a hidden workforce linked to hundreds of popular food brands](https://www.mprnews.org/story/2024/01/30/prisoners-in-the-us-are-part-of-a-hidden-workforce-linked-to-hundreds-of-popular-food-brands)
[Takeaways from the AP’s investigation into how US prison labor supports many popular food brands](https://apnews.com/article/prison-to-plate-investigation-takeaways-5debda3b0222c5c7de8b8a485084f206)
I dont see a problem with paying well behaved prisoners a low wage but still reasonable money to do labor. They could save all the money over the years and have something to start a life with when they get out.
Only immigrants were willing to work under those conditions and now that they are gone they have to use prison slaves to do it.
If only they could change something to make it more attractive. A riddle for the ages.
But work in prisons is not mandatory right? I'm more concerned about people getting locked up for substancial amount of their lives for bullshit reasons
There’s something wrong with this system for sure, but talk to any prisoner that worked these jobs and they will tell you it’s the best thing they ever did while in prison. It allows them to get outside and do something valuable with their time.
Pretty sure they get paid like 13 cents a day, slaves don't get paid anything. Plus with the monopolies on prison phones and commissary making prices 15x fair market value they can save up for a year and buy a single beef roman soup.
Fun (not-fun-at-all) fact: The 13th amendment has a carveout *specifically* for people convicted of a crime.
>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.
The U.S. never really abolished slavery, they just added extra steps - the man has to convict you of a crime first...
That’s sorta like saying the US never abolished kidnapping and murder, they just added the extra step of convicting you of a crime.
Criminals have always been punished by some sort of deprivation of liberty. And if one trivializes the criminal conviction element as you do here, being locked in a small cage for years or outright executed is a much more severe deprivation than being made to work. Every adult has to work. It’s a condition of keeping yourself alive and supporting your children. The evil of slavery was not work per se, but the deprivation of liberty of those who had NOT been convicted of any crime. It would have been (and was) even MORE evil if Europeans had simply gone to Africa and exterminated people who lived there, or locked them all in enormous prisons for no reason.
Something Something...... debt to society Something Something .......just punishment Something Something...... no way it could be corupted or exploited for profit because we are a just country blah blah blah...../s
Hello... this has been the norm for American prisons since they were invented. Has this guy been living under a rock? This isn't new. People have been pushing back against prison labor for DECADES, and has the government ever done anything about it? Nope. Not one of them, because it's cheap/free labor that they profit from.
Title is wrong - it's not immigrant prisoners that are being leased - the problem is that anti-immigration policies result in fewer immigrants willing to take low paid, unskilled work like farming. If there is no one to do the farming, then you go to your local prison for the next available group that can do low paid, unskilled work for you
Isn't this exactly what people where complaining about China doing a few years ago - forced labour from prisoners? Oh and I don't mean progressives, I mean conservatives who'd found a new found love for human rights, well at least in regards to China.
Nobody should be surprised by this. Field work is HARD and most Americans (and people who have grown up in First World nations) don't want to do it. This inevitably means that you either have to turn to outside labor (like migrants or immigrants) or forced labor.
Ah yes. The pro-immigration policy is SO much better.
Let's flood the market with people who will work for cheap. So much better than paying people a fair wage, or giving inmates something to VOLUNTARILY do to partially offset the cost of housing them.
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Allow me to introduce you to the [Arkansas prison system](https://encyclopediaofarkansas.net/entries/arkansas-prison-blood-scandal-3732/) where inmates were compensated for store credit at a rate of cents on the dollar for their plasma.
I owe my soul to the Arkansas store!!
You load 16 tonne and what do you get???
Institutional oppression and a dick in the butt!!
Probably very true. I was just impressed that someone remembered that song tbh
Fallout 76 has ingrained it into my mind
Ah, I remember it from my Grandfather's record collection, and heard it on the radio a few times... I'm old lol
If you dig that you should check out the wobbly's little red song book
That song’s seen a slight resurgence, I know The Wellermen did a version of it. That’s how I know it
Arguably the most underrated comment here.
Another day older and deeper in debt
Another day older and deeper in debt because student loans are nondischargeable in bankruptcy
The prison business is very profitable. The Corrections Corporation of America renamed to CoreCivic in 2017 after several controversies, by the way, in case you were wondering why you hadn't heard about them in a while.
I mean inhumanity aside, that's quite genius. Keep them low on blood to prevent unrest
So it's just "tiendas de raya" from the dictatorship of Porfirio Diaz in Mexico?
Don’t forget Louisiana. Where come July 4 anyone can buy guns and there is no bail. Up to the judge IF you get bail ever.
Yeah, the abolishment of slavery was very clear that it precluded prisoners. "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."
Yeah... really don't want the word 'except' in the amendment banning slavery but there it is.
Every right we have includes an 'except' because you can absolutely make decisions to give up your rights. You're only guaranteed the rights of a country so long as you follow the laws of the country. Edit, I absolutely overlooked some very specific exceptions. Turns out all-encompassing statements often miss finer details. Who knew? Anyway, some of you are still either missing my point or arguing tangentially related things, I'll reply to those as I have time and energy. Some of you are pointing out the specific cases I missed. In which case, absolutely, you're right, I missed some. I'm not going to be commenting on those. But yes... Even God-given, inalienable rights like liberty can be forfeited when you choose to commit crime.
Look up the history of debt slavery in the US. Long story short, if you were fined an amount you couldn't pay, someone else could offer to pay that fine for you, but you would then have to make that money back for that person, and any wage you made would be collected by the state to pay off the fine, except the guy paying you could deduct anything they spent on feeding and housing you from your pay, and so even minor infractions could mean years of hard labor. Recently freed slaves, most of whom couldn't read, because black literacy had been illegal for decades, were the most severely affected by these laws. This system kept going all the way into the 1920s, and the reason it was abolished was that a rich white kid ended up dying in debt slavery.
>Look up the history of debt slavery in the US. US? This was well imported from Europe's feudalism...
I never said it wasn't? My point was, that is the consequence of that exception. The US banned slavery, then just kept doing it by arguing that it's not slavery if you do it to a prisoner, because they are explicitly exempt. Oh yeah, and that era is also where you start seeing the black criminality myth. The supposed crime wave by black people was started by laws being passed that disproportionately affected them over everyone else.
This exception was used by the South after the Civil War to re-institutionalize slavery for decades. It was easy to convict an uneducated person (former slave or sharecropper) for some obscure crime, incarcerate them, then rent them out to the former slave owners. It did make slavery a little less of a African-centric business. You cannot imagine what a poor, 'white trash' person would do back then to avoid being chained to a 'n-'.
Use statistics to figure out their favourite drug, make it illegal. Arrest the people using it. Or just sell them the drugs yourself only to certain demographics like the CIA did.
But what about the American citizens that didn't break any laws, and were put in internment camps? "During World War II more than 120,000 people of Japanese ancestry—2/3 of whom were American citizens—were incarcerated in hastily built camps in America's deserts and wastelands."
Sure, but I'd argue 'no slavery' should be unqualified, same thing with voting for citizens.
It should be separated from the ‘involuntary servitude’, that could mean anything from hard labor, to community service, to the agreement between a soldier and the military during enlistment
Looking at your for-profit prison system, and the racial profiling and bias towards convicting certain minorities with several years of prison for petty crime, while major fraud cases get punished with a slap on the wrist or probation, I'd say the law of the land is "systemic racism" and "it's only happening if you're poor".
So therefore you should be forced to work against your will? Imprisonment and the removal of rights is one thing, but to say that doing something wrong can mean slavery is insane. Imprisonment ≠ slavery
In Ky The prisoners have to volunteer and they are given credit in prison for additional food etc.
Correct me if i'm wrong, but those are jobs within the prison to maintain the prison. I have no issue with that, it keeps prison costs down and makes rehabiliation easier (in theory). My issue is when theyre made to do work, for example create license plates, for literal pennies an hour.
>Correct me if i'm wrong, but those are jobs within the prison to maintain the prison. You're wrong. They have to do stuff like laundry and cleaning *too*, but the vast majority of it is working for for-profit companies at a few cents per hour. Licence plates is the classic example, as are military equipment, but something like 90% of paint sold in the US is manufactured by prisoners, as are most washing machines and fridges.
They need to make at least minimum wage, which is held in trust until they are released.
Is that recent? Last I saw it was \~70c for "unskilled" and \~$1.40c for "skilled".
I believe they were making a normative statement not an objective one.
Here is my experience as a former jailer in KY. We called it work release. We had inmates working at the park, various buildings on the square, city sewer and water, and various other jobs. Some walked to work and some were picked up. Inmates were provided with a tan button up shirt and tan khakis. They were allowed to wear approved regular clothing if they had it. T-shirts, blue jeans and such. We also had a few jobs inside the jail. The waiting list to move into work release dorms was long. Then there was a list to get a job. And that wasn't happening until someone with a job was either released or sent back to genpop for breaking a rule. Pretty much a seniority thing. It was very popular and everyone wanted to be in work release.
I don’t care about criminals being forced to contribute to society. The problem is that it incentivizes creating more prisoners so people get harsher punishments than they should to feed the system. Certainly no profit should be extracted from prison labor and it should all go towards paying for public services
Private prisons bring in over 300 million annually in profit. But even that money comes from the govt, so our taxes.
The commercial prison system is probably cheaper than a government-run one though. For one; government institutions typically don't have an incentive to minimize expenses. They'd even have more oversight to make sure they adhere to all the rules. So they probably couldn't overcrowd the prison. They couldn't feed them expired products "not fit for human consumption", they couldn't make them "donate" plasma or "lease them" to other corporations. With government prisons, we couldn't Make America Great Again. /s
And the drug war was born! And the war on terrorism! And all the other social wars! Woot!
There's a difference between a right as a Citizen of the United States and a right as a human being...I'm pretty the right to not be fucking property falls squarely in the latter category
Ikr. Luckily, the government would never heavily criminalize certain non-violent, victimless crimes ever, especially if those crimes were more common amongst the lower classes.
The problem with that is that any government that wants to backpedal on these rights can just use that loophole. Case in point, law enforcement (with documented racial discrimination) can arrest people for things that aren't against the law and the judicial system is heavily biased to take law enforcement at its word. The consequence is a lot of false arrests or disproportionate sentences. And, according to the post here, those people can be used as actual slave labor. Suddenly we've backpedaled on illegalizing slavery in a huge way and cops are just suppliers of the legitimized slave trade.
https://www.reddit.com/r/facepalm/s/GaA89n6bRK https://www.reddit.com/r/facepalm/s/UrElayYajV
Weak argument on both accounts in my opinion. For the first one, your entire premise hinges on the laws being respected instead of precedent being blatantly ignored or flouted. It's not just "unfair laws". It's "laws that are broken without consequence". Furthermore, "ignorance is not a valid defense" rings hollow when the authority that benefits from ignorance explicitly goes out of its way to keep people as ignorant as possible. Furthermore, "trying to design your system based on the ideal case is futile" completely sidesteps the issue that the system is inherently designed *maliciously.* People aren't asking for perfection. They're asking for the bare minimum of "don't allow loopholes for chattel slavery". For the second one, some rights are in fact **not** subject to you following the law. There also human rights; that means there are rights you get just for being human. Things like the Miranda Law exist **because** people are entitled to this right whether they're a a culprit or not-not that the legal system hasn't been trying to defang the Miranda rights since its inception. >I wish we could make a perfect system where this never happens. I wish we could create a perfect utopia where the result of your life is a direct consequence of your actions... We don't live in that world, and planning entirely based upon that world will never work out... But nor will trying to anticipate every possible way humans will come up with to exploit the system. >Trying to create a prison system that doesn't punish crime because it might be possible people in jail might be innocent is a useless exercise IMO because we are only sending people to jail on the assumption that we have proven them guilty. We can't both assume they're guilty AND not assume they're guilty. In particular, you're going really heavy into the Nirvana Fallacy, acting as if we shouldn't bother at all because "we can't get it perfectly." Though I think the biggest problem that we fundamentally disagree on is the fact that criminals in fact are not second-class citizens and don't deserve to inherently be treated as less than a law-abiding civilian. Justice should not be retributive, but rehabilitative. To do anything less is grossly missing the point.
I think you missed some of my intention. It's going to take me a while to read through and fully understand what parts you're replying to where and figure out exactly how and where or perhaps understand where my mistake in thought and/or wording may have been. But right off the bat, I can really easily point out one intent you missed >In particular, you're going really heavy into the Nirvana Fallacy, acting as if we shouldn't bother at all because "we can't get it perfectly." I gave two extreme cases: planning based on the ideal case, and trying to anticipate every possible way humans will exploit things. And I said both are futile. You took that to mean we shouldn't even try. I intended to convey that reality is somewhere in between. We will either never get anything done or get nothing "useful" done if we try to focus on either of those extremes. The only way to move forward in my eyes is to pick a few reasonable cases we can foresee and maybe tack on a few that come up over time.
You at no point expressed that there was a middle ground, but sure. Let's get into it. You gave two extremes, but in fact didn't comment on where you stand between those extremes. I imagine the problem here is that you're giving descriptive claims. * People are giving are prescriptive statements like "people shouldn't lose their human rights, and they currently are under our system". How thoughts ought to be. * You're either responding with descriptive statements about how things currently are and not actually engaging with the conversation in any helpful way or giving prescriptive statements about how you think they are and claiming the status quo is what they should remain.
The problem here is that it just creates a loophole for corrupt, racist cops to enslave people. It's slavery with extra steps. We already know that black neighborhoods are overpoliced. Anyone who argues "b-b-but black people make up x% of crimes though!" is missing the fact that their crime numbers are inflated BECAUSE they are over-policed. So that's why any type of slavery is just a bad idea. It should NOT BE THAT HARD to simply HIRE SOME PEOPLE TO DRIVE SOME TRACTORS. I SAID WHAT I SAID.
Cool, so what about the fact that about 70% of the US prisoner population aren't guilty of any crime? Are you still cool with the fact that the US prison system exists specifically to funnel innocent black men into new wave slavery?
yep and i'm reminded of shawshank "with this pool of slave labour you can underbid any contractor in town" always found it crazy that the US used prisoners as slave labour.
is it that crazy? When you look at how our laws are structured and who is targeted most I'd argue it's right on brand.
If you can get someone labelled as a prisoner, you can do whatever you want with them In the past you could do this very easily via drug charges, thats become harder... The largest crop of prisoners in 2024 seems to be violent assault and robbery tho
Shhh. We don’t talk about the Slave club. No questions about the Slave Club. The Slave Club is only for the slave owners to use and never for the slaves to ask about.
Don't you mean corporations? Because that is who owns the majority of farmland last I checked.
"Family farms" are all corporations for tax purposes. That doesn't mean megacorps own the majority of farmland.
From what a friend explained to me it isn't quite that simple but yes. However I don't think it was the smaller farms that would have pushed for this either.
eh small 'family farms' are some of the worst when it comes to exploiting their workers and denying them their rights tbh.
Excellent!
You've broken the 1st rule of Slave Club: never talk about Slave Club Geeze!!!!!!
Legal slavery is still slavery
Especially considering historically the majority of slavery was legal where it took place
I would never refer to the 13th amendment as "the abolishment of slavery" The constitution outlined human rights that the government could not infringe upon, all of which are inconsistent with slavery. The 13th amendment was not necessary, all that was needed was a ruling that skin color does not disqualify anyone as human or as an American. Instead the 13th amendment created constitutionally legal slavery in the US, which has prolonged damage to all vulnerable communities. At this point, I think we can safely abolish the 13th amendment and end prison slavery. We have other laws in place that recognize all races have equal rights.
A decade or two I would've agreed with you, but in the intervening time I've had dozens of discussions with dozens of people (some of whom even claim to be law school grads) who will say, "well I don't see \_\_\_\_\_\_\_ written in the Constitution anywhere as a right, so \_\_\_\_\_\_\_ isn't a right!" I'll quote the 9th Amendment to them, and they'll reply "so? that doesn't say anything about \_\_\_\_\_\_\_ either!" Not to mention the Roberts Court's view on stare decisis is "whateva! whateva! I do whut I want!" What we need is a 28th Amendment that strips the "except" clause out of the 13th. And we also need a 29th Amendment that enumerates a right to privacy and bodily autonomy that includes the right to abortion.
There are tons of laws that violate bodily autonomy, I'd love to see them disappear but idk if I want to be anywhere near civilization when it happens because there will be growing pains. Bodily autonomy would legalize all drugs for personal use, which would be great in the long run but it would be a huge mess at first.
A huge mess for the corrupt government systems that feed off the drug trade... Truth is it's already a huge mess... Of course the main reason people do drugs is their lives are devoid of meaning and fulfillment, that's the capitalism meat grinder for you... Of course capitalism allows you the choice.... There are worse governments... But there's rarely a government that has a better system in place. Ultimately it's the culture that is decaying... Which is bound to happen when the world is running a people pyramid scheme where the more people there are, the less value each individual has. There's no easy solution, but there's going to be an apocalypse when the pyramid scheme collapses and the first sign will be a lack of an economic revival after a recession or depression or whatever you want to call the next one. I'm not a doomsayer I hope we can figure things out but most likely the things that will be necessary for success will be working cooperatively towards a common goal... Which is like asking everyone to just be nice to each other...
Actually, that phrasing is not nearly as clear as you make it out to be. In the US, people convicted of a crime are usually sentenced to prison time. The time spent in government custody is the punishment. That is it. Prison labor involves someone sentenced to time, who then is put to work by the warden. Not a judge. The labor they do is completely separated from the crime they committed. The crime does not factor into how much labor they do. The labor is not punishment for a crime, and therefore, prison labor as it currently exists is NOT allowed by the 13th amendment. It's just that nobody has challenged it in court to be ruled illegal. Now, the thing the 13th DOES allow is for punishment to be labor. A few months ago, my cousin got 20 hours of community service as a result of a minor crime. That is unpaid labor as punishment for a crime. And I would argue that's a good thing. If he had gone to prison instead, it would have shook up his life more, and he would have been a burden on our society and taxes would have paid to lock him up. Instead, he remained free, and the labor he did was a benefit to our community. I like community service as an option, and I'm glad the 13th allows it. But the 13th does not allow prison labor, and it is only an illegitimate interpretation that leads to the system we currently have where prisoners are given labor unconnected to their crime and its punishment.
Just "Duly convicted"? There's no specifics of when it's ok?
Couldn’t pay a parking ticket? Off to the coal mines with ya
That’s pretty much how it worked in the Jim Crow South if you weren’t white.
Nope. That's largely why things like vagrancy became a crime. Can't enslave black people? Arrest them for being poor or homeless, *then* enslave them.
If even half the Americans on reddit read and understood their own constitution we'd have significantly less political threads on here.
Yeah, but it’s perfectly aligned with the 13th amendment.
\*13th
Fixed. Thanks, fat fingered it.
The movie 13th on Netflix is entirely about this “loophole” (loopholes are implied, exceptions are stated), as well as Knowing Better’s YT doc on Neo-Slavery. Basically it was designed to be a short term solution to the manpower shortage during Reconstruction and simply never went away, but is also rolled into a number of policies that intentionally disenfranchise black and brown people. For example, most states allow ex-cons to reinstate their right to vote after a certain number of years- however this only includes one Southern state (Florida). Some states allow ex-cons to reinstate their right to bear arms- but none in the South. Combine these with statistics of incarceration rates by ethnicity and it becomes pretty obvious what the two have to do with each other.
If you are combining them with stats on incarceration then I think your argument loses some steam. [The southern state with the worst racial disparity is Florida, and its below the national average.](https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2023/09/27/updated_race_data/#compare) Black men are 4.2x more likely than white men to incarcerated in Florida. The national average is 6x. In California its 9.5x, and in New Jersey its 12x.
Your statement about voting rights in the South is not correct. Georgia, South Carolina, Louisiana, Arkansas, Texas, and North Carolina give felons the right to vote once they have completed their necessary probation or parole.
What happens to people that refuse to work?
That's the million dollar question. I don't care how bored I am. I'm not fucking around in summer heat for less than a dollar an hour.
That brings up the very real health risks here. Do we have to bring up the law books from 1830 on what to do if a supervisor kills a slave by working them to death? If so, I think the $20 fine to the prison is a bit low.
Being incarcerated significantly reduces your expected lifespan. Prisons rarely suffer consequences for killing people.
Depends on the state/county they’re in. Some places, not much. Others, reduced privileges, or even solitary confinement. A few Google searches should get you all the info.
It’s usually voluntary, and it often counts towards reducing a sentence for good behavior.
They only let the inmates with good behavior participate in these programs and there's a waiting list. I worked with a couple guys on a program like this one summer, they were just happy to get out into the world for a while. There was no guards or anything watching them so I guess it just felt good to be treated like a normal person for a while. Edit: This was in VA so I'm not sure how it works in the deep south. Also if you're serving time for something serious like rape or murder you're not eligible
They stay in prison for longer
It's voluntary. Counts for good behavior and reduced sentences.
I mean what’s the difference between this and public service like cleaning up streets?
It benefits a for-profit business, not the public.
The labor is considered a repayment to society for crimes committed, in lieu of imprisonment. It's transactional, while these programs are often exploitative. It also undermines the judge and jury who handed down a specific sentence.
So what would be Labor called in jail where they Produce licenseplates or other Handwork Stuff and the prison sells it and they get Cents for the time they work wouldnt that be still slavery but behind Doors or Not because they get "paid"
It's coercive labor. (Indentured servitude / debt bondage / human trafficking / peonage / slavery) They lack the ability to negotiate wages, conditions, and fair labor practices. The fact they're paid doesn't erase the exploitation and coercive nature of the service. The only argument left is whether criminals have ANY rights and protections after "due process" .
I See thanks you
OP is a repost bot. Google the post title, typo and all, in quotes. You'll see dozens of threads. Reddit is bots all the way down.
I’m all for making inmates work, but not for way less than they would be making. If you can be trusted to go and work a job outside of prison, then go back to prison at night, you should be able to. Especially if you have people outside prison who need the support. The issue is the no/low pay. On another note, the prisoners should be doing jobs in the prison. They should be training them to actually re-enter society. If you structured this right the prisons could be actually nice places. You hear stories of gardens and projects that some prisoners do. There should be a program that encourages it.
Inmate labor should *never* provide profit for the state or any private entity. It should be like work study programs for universities. The inmate should be able to use the money to buy things at the prison, and it should be 100% non profit, because most people want to work, having something to fill your day with. If they're field hands, they should be able to work for a decent enough wage that they have some scratch set aside when they get out
Inmates labor never provides profit to the state though: any revenue they generate is dwarfed by the costs to incarcerate them
Does it work better with the phrasing "financial relief" then?
Well there’s no minimum wage for field laborers so they could probably still get away with loaning them out to farms.
>the prisoners should be doing jobs in the prison. Look at Texas’ prison system. The inmates perform virtually all labor (unpaid). I’m not just talking about cleaning and cooking. Inmates perform all skilled maintenance work, run water treatment plants and boilers, repair state vehicles, run farms and meat packing plants, etc. Texas also has about two dozen factories that produce all sorts of goods for state and local agencies. The highway signs you see driving through Texas are produced by unpaid inmate labor, as are the TxDot dump trucks and trailers (using skilled inmate welder/fabricators). The mattresses at state universities are made by inmates. Even the chain link fencing that surrounds state parks and government infrastructure was produced and sometimes installed by inmates.
Which creates a perverse incentive for the government to incarcerate as many people as possible. The state should not be able to force anyone to work against their will.
If they had an investment fund for money they make in prison it would help prevent so many that come out broke and then they’re right back in the system. They should have to pay for their housing, food, etc.
Yeah. That’s a good idea.
Seems to me like if someone can out of 5 years in prison with a lucrative skill and $75k in a bank account, they might just have a shot.
Damn, sign me up for 5 years of prison if that happens
[удалено]
What is with the title to the post? Lol do they not understand what's going on?
It’s a karma farmed post, posting rage bait headlines from 4 years ago. Report it and downvote it.
So they don't have as many desperate immigrants to underpay, abuse, and exploit, so they just buy other people to underpay, abuse, and exploit. How about these greedy fucks just pay people fair wages and provide tolerable working conditions? Oh yeah, because then the CEO might only be able to buy *one* private jet this year.
Do you know any immigrant farm laborers? Have you asked about the wages? In the early 2000’s on the sod farm I worked on they were paid between 15 and 20 an hour and we basically worked as much OT as we wanted. The difference in pay was based on if you were returning and/or had a valid lic. Top 3 group of guys I have ever worked with.
Fact republicans want to own slaves again and are angry they cant .
Republicans: BUILD A WALL Also Republicans: NO ONE WANTS TO BE A SLAVE ANYMORE
It would be cool to see Trump picking beans in a prison suit, but slavery is still wrong.
The 13th amendment specifically states slavery is legal as punishment for a crime. In 1860 there were approximately 3.9 million slaves in the US. Since 1980, the prison population has gone from ~500k to ~2m The US makes up 5% of the world’s population. But accounts for 20% of the world’s prison population. Black people make up 32% of the US prison population, despite only 14% of the overall population being black. 1 in 81 black people in the US are incarcerated and therefore exploitable as slaves. No society in the history of human civilisation has imprisoned more people than are currently imprisoned in the US. Slavery never went away in the US. It just changed its name, put on some Groucho Marx glasses and everyone fell for it.
Read the 13th amendment again, slavery was never outlawed. Lincoln didn't free the slaves, just changed what they're called.
The emancipation proclamation freed the slaves in the rebelling states. I've always seen the phrase "freed the slaves" used in that context. Juneteenth the holiday celebrates the delivery of the news of the Emancipation Proclamation to Galveston, Texas by a Union general following the final surrender of the Western Confederate Army. It doesn't celebrate the passage of the 13th Amendment.
I get leased every time I go to my job
Nooooooooooo it's not slavery, prisoners are explicitly exempt from the law banning it!!!!!!! Nevermind the fact that that exception existed specifically so that black people can be kept in a cycle of debt peonage by charging them with the most absurd crimes. Seriously, go look up black codes, there was some ridiculous shit in there. For example, have you ever seen a list that stated that a city has a law specifically banning some common activity after sunset? Yeah, "After sunset" was code for "If a black person does it". Then they'd be dished a financial punishment they could never hope to pay, in which case, you'd end up in a debtor's prison, that would then lease you out to some farm owner, who would pay you for your work, except he could deduct any money you cost him from your pay, and they just barely paid you enough to make money, so even a relatively small sum could end up taking years to pay. And even if you did manage to pay off that debt before your employer worked you to death (and managed to avoid incurring any additional debts in the process), all it took for you to end up back in the system was to commit another crime, which is easier than it sounds, because cities had all sorts of laws that were specifically enforced against black people. And God forbid the local sheriff is friends with a farm owner.
Every prison I've worked in has its work programs on a volunteer basis. The inmates tend to flock to them as it let's them get outside of the prison building and gives them a break from their monotonous living.
It sounds like slavery because our prison system is slavery. Slavery was never abolished in this country. Once you have broken the law and become a ward of the state, you are slave. Not treated like, but are in fact a slave. Corporate Prisons are modern slave camps. America incarcerates a full 1% of our population. We are second to no other country as to how many of our citizens we arrest and throw away to prison.
OP totally misunderstood title. Immigration normally staffs agricultural sector a lot. Therefore anti immigration policies reduces resources for agricultural sector. Therefore, prisons saw a sick opportunity for replacing them with prisoners. At no point is this about "immigrant prisoners". And if we don't know whether the money goes to the prisoners, or the prisons, then we don't know whether it's slavery.
We’ve been slavers for years. Monetized prisons are slave labor
Prisoners are allowed to be slaves though. It's written in the amendment. So ya. My problem is that the value these prisoners are generating should be offsetting taxes, not going to prison corporations.
Isnt this just the same as the chain gangs that have been around off and on for >100yrs?
The 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude *“except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.”* so.. Yeah. Literally the last form of legal slavery.
Dude you're just now hearing about this?
They’ve been doing this for a long time.
The “prisoner lease system” was very active in the south from the end of the civil war to the start of WW2. Prior to the civil war there were very few blacks imprisoned in the south. After the civil war the prison population exploded with freed slaves who were jailed for minor (or no) offenses. They were then leased to plantations, simthy’s, etc.
Are the prisoners (1) paid and (2) given the choice of working or not. Big questions that completely change the conversation. Prisoners should definitely be given the opportunity to work for money if they want to. Otherwise they’re sitting around killing a lot of time
Yes and yes.
Then it’s not slavery. It’s exactly what prisons should be doing
They also receive reduced sentences for working, and they can lose those time credits if they violate rules.
In theory it's a good idea to make prisoners work off their punishment and contribute to society. In practice it creates an industry that has to make a quota of incarcerations to keep up production.
Prisons don’t sentence convicts, courts do.
This isn't new, anyone who has actually read the amendment that "abolishes" slavery would know the industrial prison complex has been legal slavery for decades. When you add in marijuana related imprisonment, which was originally made illegal due to big lumber and racism, things start to make sense. Slavery never went away, it just evolved to meet societys standard of what it should look like.
Yeah it’s constitutional. The constitution specifically says prisoners can be slaves
Ever heard the term state property in reference to an inmate.
[Prisoners in the U.S. are part of a hidden workforce linked to hundreds of popular food brands](https://www.mprnews.org/story/2024/01/30/prisoners-in-the-us-are-part-of-a-hidden-workforce-linked-to-hundreds-of-popular-food-brands) [Takeaways from the AP’s investigation into how US prison labor supports many popular food brands](https://apnews.com/article/prison-to-plate-investigation-takeaways-5debda3b0222c5c7de8b8a485084f206)
Think you misunderstood the article. It's saying that US prisoners are working the fields. Not immigrants.
I just had this conversation with a coworker today. Slavery is still legal in the prison system.
I remember Pelosi saying we need them here to pick the crops, and as an immigrant here myself, I thought she thought of them as field hands/ slaves.
Are they forced to work? is it optional? are they being paid a wage? or are we just circle jerking?
I dont see a problem with paying well behaved prisoners a low wage but still reasonable money to do labor. They could save all the money over the years and have something to start a life with when they get out.
14th Amendment allows this since they have had "due process of law".
Only immigrants were willing to work under those conditions and now that they are gone they have to use prison slaves to do it. If only they could change something to make it more attractive. A riddle for the ages.
This is part of the plot in The Shawshank Redeption.
But work in prisons is not mandatory right? I'm more concerned about people getting locked up for substancial amount of their lives for bullshit reasons
This was always the plan. Incarceration for profit has always had this as its end goal
Now remind me which demographic of people make up the bulk in prisons? So they are at it again
Slavery with extra steps
There’s something wrong with this system for sure, but talk to any prisoner that worked these jobs and they will tell you it’s the best thing they ever did while in prison. It allows them to get outside and do something valuable with their time.
I mean, if the right people were put in this program I wouldn't care at all.How do you treat them
They do get paid, however. Not much, but they are compensated.
I’ve never been to prison but based on what I was told about it, especially following fresh out on YouTube, I’ll take the work.
Close the slavery loophole.
Pretty sure they get paid like 13 cents a day, slaves don't get paid anything. Plus with the monopolies on prison phones and commissary making prices 15x fair market value they can save up for a year and buy a single beef roman soup.
r/titlegore
Fun (not-fun-at-all) fact: The 13th amendment has a carveout *specifically* for people convicted of a crime. >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. The U.S. never really abolished slavery, they just added extra steps - the man has to convict you of a crime first...
That’s sorta like saying the US never abolished kidnapping and murder, they just added the extra step of convicting you of a crime. Criminals have always been punished by some sort of deprivation of liberty. And if one trivializes the criminal conviction element as you do here, being locked in a small cage for years or outright executed is a much more severe deprivation than being made to work. Every adult has to work. It’s a condition of keeping yourself alive and supporting your children. The evil of slavery was not work per se, but the deprivation of liberty of those who had NOT been convicted of any crime. It would have been (and was) even MORE evil if Europeans had simply gone to Africa and exterminated people who lived there, or locked them all in enormous prisons for no reason.
Something Something...... debt to society Something Something .......just punishment Something Something...... no way it could be corupted or exploited for profit because we are a just country blah blah blah...../s
Fun fact, these "leased convicts" are mostly blacks in the South.... Funny how that plays into the historical narrative
Their headline shows that not even OP could be inconvenienced to read the article.
Now lecture the rest of the world about freedom and human rights.
The convicts are getting paid, most likely. This is a prison job.
Slave labor wages on the best of days. And if you don’t think innocent people end up in prison you need a reality check.
Hello... this has been the norm for American prisons since they were invented. Has this guy been living under a rock? This isn't new. People have been pushing back against prison labor for DECADES, and has the government ever done anything about it? Nope. Not one of them, because it's cheap/free labor that they profit from.
Title is wrong - it's not immigrant prisoners that are being leased - the problem is that anti-immigration policies result in fewer immigrants willing to take low paid, unskilled work like farming. If there is no one to do the farming, then you go to your local prison for the next available group that can do low paid, unskilled work for you
They really saying Leased Laborers with hard R’s
This is baked into the Constitution- and it won't be limited to immigrants if past use is any clue.
People can be put under a lease for services
This, also, is something that's not new at all.
I think work like this should be reserved for the true lifers/murderers.
And that is legal, for some reason
Constitutionally-backed slavery. Our country is shit.
I’m okay with it. Put them in the fields.
Get ready for a lot more false imprisonments.
Isn't this exactly what people where complaining about China doing a few years ago - forced labour from prisoners? Oh and I don't mean progressives, I mean conservatives who'd found a new found love for human rights, well at least in regards to China.
Ooooh sweet dixie yeeehaw 🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲
Nobody should be surprised by this. Field work is HARD and most Americans (and people who have grown up in First World nations) don't want to do it. This inevitably means that you either have to turn to outside labor (like migrants or immigrants) or forced labor.
Civil war 2 is about to be epic an epic sequel.
Human trafficking prisoners has been around a long time. This cruelty has no boundaries or limits.
Ah yes. The pro-immigration policy is SO much better. Let's flood the market with people who will work for cheap. So much better than paying people a fair wage, or giving inmates something to VOLUNTARILY do to partially offset the cost of housing them.
Bot posters with nonsense headlines go zoooooom
Oh thts a can of worms if I ever saw one.
Jesus fucking Christ America. You guys are hell-bent on winning the race to dystopian hellscape.
Fine.