(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . One form of slavery is still constitutional, and widespread, in the United States [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.'] Date: 2024-06-22 Seven states pay nothing for prison labor. And if a prisoner refuses to work for free, they can be denied family calls and visits, put in solitary confinement, and refused parole. How can forced unpaid labor be legal in a country that abolished slavery? The Constitution permits it. After the US defeated the insurrectionists in the Civil War, the 13th Amendment allowed one exception to emancipation - criminals. “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.” This exception is probably best illustrated in old prison movies featuring rock-breaking chain gangs - Cool Hand Luke and its progenitors - and the classic trope of prisoners making license plates. However, in American state and federal prisons, 800,000 prisoners work in facility maintenance, food prep, agriculture, and for local governments - generating $11 billion in economic activity - while receiving no pay or cents on the dollar. In some instances, prison authorities even contract prison labor out to the private sector. In one notorious case, convicts in Colorado supplied Whole Foods with goat cheese and farm-raised tilapia. Defenders of the system might point out that African slaves had no choice in the matter. And that prisoners today chose their fate by committing a crime. That call-out might be valid, if criminal justice in the US was dealt out equally without regard to race and net worth. However, it is no secret that poor minorities disproportionately supply this forced labor. As stated at the top, Florida, Louisiana, and five other states pay nothing for prison labor. In the rest, prisoner pay averages less than a dollar an hour. Prison authorities, and others with an incentive to lie, claim that mandatory prison labor gives inmates good work habits, an easier transition back to civilian life, and importantly, at least for the jailors, a distraction to keep them on the straight and narrow. However, despite the marketing effort to extol the advantages of prison labor, there is scant evidence they improve an ex-convict’s prospects. Studies show that there are some benefits to prisoners in higher-quality prison industry programs. The few lucky enough to enroll in these initiatives have a lower recidivism rate. However, those plum prison jobs tend to go to trustees - inmates whose behavior has been exemplary. In other words, people whose character makes them more likely to be productive citizens on the outside anyway. This unrepresentative sample makes an analysis of the benefit of prison work programs a chicken and egg problem. Another, more honest justification for enforced prison labor is that locking people up - and nobody likes to lock people up more than US conservatives - costs a lot. And offenders should bear the cost of their incarceration. If money were a concern, a better solution would be to imprison fewer people. The US could emulate European countries, which have alternatives to expensive prisons for many offenders. Do not hold your breath. In the hierarchy of conservative “values,” punishment takes precedence over fiscal sanity. Even if we accept that prisoners should defray the cost of their penalty, it does not excuse the working conditions of many inmates. Prisoners are denied the safe work environment unincarcerated Americans legally enjoy. OSHA has no jurisdiction in state or federal prisons. The welfare of inmates is left up to wardens and staff - whose primary responsibility is not workplace safety. Prison labor illustrates another one of conservatism’s innumerable hypocrisies. Republicans warn that undocumented aliens steal American jobs and drive down wages. If that were an honest concern, these bleeding-heart reactionaries would be against the cheap labor available in prisons. They are not. Quite the opposite. They are addicted to low-paid workers. Many states are trying to expand child labor. In addition, the GOP will not permit an increase in the federal minimum wage. Last raised in 2009, it now buys 32% less than it did then. And red states have rushed to pass “right to work laws” which reduce the wage growth across the board. Economics 101 shows that holding some peoples wages down, depresses other people’s wages. A falling tide lowers all boats. No doubt the people who benefit from these programs have discovered some biblical justification for this 21st-century slavery in the same way their antecedents found biblical justification for 19th-century slavery. However, in doing so, they ignore the parts of the Bible that do not support their cruelty “Continue to remember those in prison as if you were together with them in prison, and those who are mistreated as if you yourselves were suffering” — Hebrews 13:3 If that’s not enough, Jesus also asked for the good treatment of prisoners. “I was in prison and you came to me.’ - Matthew 25:36. I suspect this concern for prisoners was because many had been punished, not in proportion to their supposed crimes. But based on a caprice of the powerful. Sound familiar? Capitalism believes it prospers when labor is cheap. Capitalists bribe conservative politicians to keep labor cheaper. That works well for those guys. Not so much for the people providing the labor. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/6/22/2247917/-One-form-of-slavery-is-still-constitutional-and-widespread-in-the-United-States?pm_campaign=front_page&pm_source=latest_community&pm_medium=web Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/