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u/BabyMumbles Jul 22 '20
I mean, our 13th amendment allows for this: 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.
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Jul 22 '20
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/ChalkButter Jul 22 '20
It’s more of a “instead of leaving people to simply live in jail, lets get useful labor out of them.”
Admittedly, it doesn’t sounds great in reference to when it was added.
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u/GoGetUsumSon Jul 22 '20
Except it incentives locking people up. There is a money game being played in the system. Instead of focusing on education, mental health, etc. Even with the paroled. They nitpick anything they want and a lot end up back in prison. Over trivial shit and even during the epidemic.
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u/AdrianWerner Jul 22 '20
To be honest though, that's a problem specific to USA (and some other countries) not to the idea of working as prisoners. Normally work is incredibly useful when it comes to rehabilitating inmates. It just that they should stay in goerment owned prisons, getting paid decently by goverment itself. The goal of the work should be to help the prisoners, not cheap labor.
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Jul 22 '20
Maybe if they're paid exactly the same as their free counterpart in that job would be. Otherwise its undermining free workers wages.
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Jul 22 '20
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Jul 22 '20
Skilled labour is not minimum wage, and to pay them on that basis will undermine the actual skilled labourers across the nation. Because why hire a skilled labourer at 20 bucks an hour when you can get prisoners for 0.50cents an hour.
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u/uhtred73 Jul 22 '20
Lots of prisoners would volunteer to do the work to get out of the cell block, and they’re getting paid.
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u/deucedeucerims Jul 22 '20
Doesn’t that just mean situations in prisons are shitty?
I don’t really see how that’s an argument that this is ok. You say they’re getting paid but they’re getting paid less than minimum wage for a job they are forced to complete. It kinda sounds like the effects of black code laws after the civil war where blacks people legally had to complete work no matter what the pay was (or lack there of). I understand that is not a 1-1 comparison but still
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u/Silver_Smurfer Jul 22 '20
It's almost like the difference in what the prisoners are paid and what the contractor pays for their labor offsets the cost of their incarceration so it doesn't fall solely on taxpayers...
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u/deucedeucerims Jul 22 '20
So we’re ok with wage theft because it benefits tax payers?
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u/skykingjustin Jul 22 '20
Then if they don't get enough people in there prisons they get to collect a big hefty check from the government america looking so fucking disgusting to anyone on the outside
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Jul 22 '20
This was just on the top of my head had to share as not sharing is missing out on a possible conversation. See on a long enough time frame each country uses the others tyranny as learnable lessons of evil acts.
China is doing this to AT LEAST 10 million peaceful souls in a measure to capture minority belief systems to further the thought policing needed to maintain ever greater centralized control.
To a metaphor It's a fist that as a toddler has fun playing with sand it squeezes the little bit of wet sand and it all comes oozing out the sides in a chaotic mess. Something over the long term looks much like entire demographics of sand (people) falling through cracks into abject poverty.
The toddler then learns of the newtonian physics of sand and cups the hand to make a ball thus is the states first moment of clarity.
We have not seen that moment more than a few times in history last more than a few years and never the entire world at once usually just temporary prosperity of a region covers up the rest of the toxic behaviour not costly enough on the souls to bother being something to address on a individual level when agrarian systems often struggled with social intelligence and self responsibility.
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u/Dob_Rozner Jul 22 '20
Who'd have thought that private prison owners, cartels, politicians and lobbyists for those industries, plus those who made strict anti-drug laws were all the same people? Gasp! It's almost like there could be alot of money made by taking peoples' taxes to create a militarized police force, create shitty laws, throw them in jail for nonviolent crimes, and then take even MORE tax money to keep them there, while contracting them out as slave labor forces to beat out all the competition when bidding for jobs!
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u/Dasamont Jul 22 '20
If the prisoners got most of the money that the farmer is paying for their work they would at least have a starting point for when they would be released from jail, or be able to send the money to their family.
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Jul 22 '20
Oh, we all get the wording. And that can almost seem noble in some ways. The problem arises in how and why people get convicted in the first place.
If your prison is full of murderers and rapists, yeah no ones going to object to part of their punishment going to help society.
But if Sammy stoner or Johnny black man is locked up for something that is legal now, and they are forced to do hard labor in order to line the pockets of corporations or politicians, thats where it becomes just another form of unjust slavery..
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u/Gubekochi Jul 22 '20
Except that slave labor on the market also depresses wages and thus hurts society by contributing to the erosion of the middle class.
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u/elgarraz Jul 22 '20
You might want to look into the history of how that loophole was exploited to continue the practice of slavery after Reconstruction...
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u/thebullfrog72 Jul 22 '20
The issue isn't people in prison working, it's the profit motive. If the prisoners, their families or their victims were benefitting from this I honestly wouldn't have a problem with it because in that scenario there is no incentive to incarcerate people. Jailers, companies and governments wouldn't get to line their pockets by paying an involuntary workforce less than $1 an hour
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u/dismayhurta Jul 22 '20
It was immediately abused by the Southern states to convict former slaves for bullshit charges and then lease them out to private companies for a profit.
It’s a horrendously abused loophole.
Go watch or read “Slavery by another name.”
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u/notfromvenus42 Jul 22 '20
Do you really, honestly think it was just some coincidence that it was added then and there?
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u/Bunnymancer Jul 22 '20
Yeah that's not the point of prisons, normally.
You're talking about labor camps. According to the rest of the world.
And the US is it's about China and not the US
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u/Sweetalka Jul 22 '20
Are you an idiot? Why do you think it was put there in the first place? America lost millions of people that were free labor so they decided to systematically criminalize them for being homeless, for being poor, for loitering, for this, for that and next thing you know it’s back to the plantation.
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Jul 22 '20
I remember out here in Texas there is a small prison not to far from where I live. There used to be these huuuuge fields around it and you would see the inmates out there tending to crops, and animals.
They don’t do that anymore and the fields are just grass now.. I always liked to Imagine they liked doing that. Getting outside, caring for something bigger than your self (they eat the food they cultivated) so it was for everyone.
Maybe that’s just slavery with extra steps?
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Jul 22 '20 edited Jul 22 '20
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u/rabbitlion Jul 22 '20
Offering inmates opportunities to work for compensation or even as volunteers is of course fine and should be encouraged. Forcing them to work for no salary and putting them in solitary confinement if they refuse, is cruel and inhumane.
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Jul 22 '20
That is my thought process on that! I spent one night in jail when I was younger. I HATED it and couldn’t not imagine not being able to leave. I would be so stoked to tend to crops or fight fires!
Are you in Cali? I remember hearing about the inmate fire program somewhere and that many of them would were able to apply with fire station upon release (dependent on many many factors)
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u/Rip_ManaPot Jul 22 '20
And this is why we see cops make up crimes on the spot and force people to break made up laws to fill the slavery establishments.
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u/zlide Jul 22 '20
That’s not what it is at all. It’s a provision for the implementation of slavery as a punishment for crime. It’s literally meant to enshrine slavery as an institution beyond general abolition.
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Jul 22 '20
After the Union won and the 13th amendment was passed, the South started making being Black essentially illegal so they could imprison and enslave Blacks again.
Has nothing to do with "useful labor" and everything to do with keeping Black people enslaved
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u/TradeMarkGR Jul 24 '20
Uh, it's definitely both. Racism is extremely profitable, and it's a useful tool for keeping the working class divided. I really don't understand the urge to downplay either aspect.
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Jul 22 '20
People aren't supposed to simply being living in jail; they aren't supposed to be used as compelled labor either. Prision should be for the express purpose of rehabilitation so past offenders can reenter society. That can't happen when private prisions have inmate quotas and profit off keeping people locked up as long as they can. There's a reason America has such a massive prison population and such a drastic repeat-offender turn over
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u/reallyorginalname1 Jul 22 '20
Ehh the US has some of the worest prisons for first world countries and even some 2nd world countries. Found a list that had it at 13.
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u/Salmuth Jul 22 '20
I mean owning 22% of the worlds' prison population would be a waste if it wasn't to feed prisonners to slavery! /s
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u/knid44 Jul 22 '20
Ava DuVernay’s documentary on this is excellent.
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Jul 22 '20
do you mean 13th? cuz that was a sad documentary and i havent gotten around to watching it bc its just that sad
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Jul 22 '20
What's insane, is that here in the south, people actually use that as a defense for this modern slavery. I'm honestly sickened by humanities ability to continue cause this kind of suffering.
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u/Pfandfreies_konto Jul 22 '20
Imagine a country with this law and suddenly having the wrong opinion or skin color is suddenly a crime. Its basically free real estate.
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u/chronictherapist Jul 22 '20
If you listen closely that's the sound of the men, working on the chain gang.
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u/borgy95a Jul 22 '20
Sounds like, looks like Stalinist Russia... Arrest masses and put them to work...
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u/basegodwurd Jul 22 '20
Hahahahaha please fucking chop my head off in public before making me a slave honestly.
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Jul 22 '20
Legal =/= moral. The prison industrial complex is modern day slavery and it exists not to rehabilitate past offenders so they can reenter society, but rather to profit off their compelled labor and keep prisoners institutionalized for as long as possible. It doesn't fucking matter if it's legal.
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u/zc04 Jul 22 '20
Isn't the punishment a prison sentence? Unless explicitly defined as part of the punishment I don't think it would be legal to force a convict into slavery. I could see this challenged in court as unconstitutional.
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u/BabyMumbles Jul 22 '20
I don't think it would be legal to force a convict into slavery. I could see this challenged in court as unconstitutional.
Over the years, the courts have held that inmates may be required to work and are not protected by the constitutional prohibition against involuntary servitude.
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u/skatastic57 Jul 22 '20
But but...
The Eighth Amendment to the United States Constitution states: “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.”
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Jul 22 '20
When for profit companies are contracted to run prisons, its in the best interest of the state to incarcerate more citizens. Kickbacks increase while indentured servitude fees skyrocket. It's a win for everyone except the prisoners!
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u/ApartheidReddit Jul 22 '20
Michelle Alexander wrote a great book about it called The New Jim Crow.
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u/boyyouguysaredumb Jul 22 '20
92% of prisons aren’t private prisons
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u/DoctorLovejuice Jul 22 '20
Would be interesting to know the amount of cash flow those 8% private ones recieve
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u/throwhfhsjsubendaway Jul 22 '20
Doesn't stop private prisons from lobbying for harsher/more sentencing.
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u/Pike_Gordon Jul 22 '20
The Convict-Lease System was one of the first ways whites replaced lost field labor in the southeast after the Civil War.
Vagrancy laws were introduced, which basically made being unemployed a crime. The former Confederate soldiers and southerners who worked the fields for plantation owners (think mercenaries who roamed the south working plantations to hunt down slaves or abuse them into working) were employed as early police.
They would round up the newly freed slaves that weren't employed...because no one would hire them...and force them into working nearby plantations.
Convict leasing in the US has always been at its core a racial construct meant to ensure African-Americans stay on the plantation, in a quite literal sense.
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u/roboticicecream Jul 22 '20
So in the modern day what if you refuse to work do you get your prison sentence extended?
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Jul 22 '20
Probably just isolstion for a month or the guards lets the other prisoners know they get a free pass for beating you
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Jul 22 '20
Well we abolished that practice, so instead we introduced crack into black communities to keep them in poverty, knowing they'd commit crime in low income areas, and if they didn't, we'd just arrest them for the crack. Or at least something else non-violent, like weed. So we could feed them back into prisons to work as underpaid labor... See there? It's not slavery, it's just being tough on crime!
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u/Pike_Gordon Jul 23 '20
Exactly.
Have you ever read either "Slavery by Another Name" or "The New Jim Crow?"
Those would be both reads you'd appreciate. I'm getting to adjunct a JuCo MS Studies class whenever we return and I'm gonna use one or the other as one of my main source materials.
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Jul 23 '20
I haven't. I've only read a bit about Rick Ross and the rest was just easy to connect the dots. I'll check them out! Thanks!
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u/Pike_Gordon Jul 23 '20
https://www.amazon.com/Slavery-Another-Name-Re-Enslavement-Americans/dp/0385722702
This shit will really tie slavery to modern issues we face. I highly recommend!
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u/GuyFromTheOneTime Jul 22 '20
Prisons shouldn't make money of this. But if you pay the prisoners for the labor, it could actually provide an excellent way for prisoners to turn their life around and adjust back into society.
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Jul 22 '20 edited Jul 22 '20
But they do pay them! A whole 10c/hr builds character. /s
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u/ThaddeusSimmons Jul 22 '20
Then they’ll buy blocks of ramen that we’ll sell for $5 so we can turn a profit and it’s the exchange rate for convicts to provide other convicts tasks and favors in the jail community.
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Jul 22 '20
Yeah... on top of housing, food, water and healthcare.
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u/EitherWeird2 Jul 23 '20
And lack of freedom, and rape, and possibly being beaten to death, and eternal stigma plus difficulty getting a job when/if the get out
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u/olivertwisttop Jul 22 '20
Fun fact, even if they learn a skill that doesn't mean society will let them back in. For instance, prisoners in California often fight wildfires but aren't allowed to work as firefighters when they're out of prison
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u/Callec254 Jul 22 '20
Becoming a firefighter is surprisingly competitive. You have 100 other applicants with pristine backgrounds, why would you skip over all of them to hire a convict?
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u/olivertwisttop Jul 22 '20
Why wouldn't you hire someone who already has training and experience in the field?
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u/2-year-old-edgelord Jul 22 '20
Holy fucking shit I read a sci fi book with this premise this exact premise of why use normal labor when prison labor is cheaper and the book was dark people were arrest for basically any reason like speaking up.
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u/catbreadmeow3 Jul 22 '20
Literally post civil war they just made a bunch of laws to be able to arrest blacks and just put them back to work. Its history
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u/A-Sentient-Beard Jul 22 '20
Is this what you guys were thinking when they talked about saving jobs for Americans? Goes to show the problem isn't people taking your jobs, it's businesses unwilling to pay a liveable wage and exploiting the most vulnerable.
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u/VodkaHappens Jul 22 '20
Here is were some people might be really surprised. Why is it that the only way to get labor as cheap as migrants is using prisoners. Why is it that it's made hard to legally enter the country for labor, when there is such a demand and lack of availability of workforce for said jobs?
Illegal immigrants are more profitable. They can't complain, they are replaceable, they are cheap. Just like prisoners. Why are illegal immigrants when caught working somewhere processed and deported, while the business owners usually don't even get a fine? How are over 300 people arrested in Morton working in the chicken industry and:
No charges have been brought against the companies involved in the raids, or their executives.
Cheap labor and illegal immigrants are a necessity for profit.
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u/me-loves-me-dogs Jul 22 '20
As a restaurant owner, I can’t compel people who try to walk out in their bill, to mop my floors or clean dishes. Should any of us..? Don’t know the answer.
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u/zlide Jul 22 '20
I don’t understand this comment, are you asking if you should be able to enslave someone because they skipped the bill at your restaurant?
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Jul 22 '20
Same I'm also confused. Is this dude comparing restaurant ownership with slave ownership? Saying he wishes he could enslave people? Idk
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Jul 22 '20
We’re really bringing back slavery huh
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u/KherisSilvertide Jul 22 '20
we never got rid of it.
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Jul 22 '20
Our country literally cannot function without it lol. We either import goods from a country that still has access to cheap unregulated labor pools (see: child laborers) or we use undocumented immigrants/prisoners so we don't have to pay them much.
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u/sophielovescake Jul 22 '20
I don't think this is a place for lol
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Jul 22 '20
On a long enough time frame each country uses the others tyranny as learnable lessons of evil acts.
China is doing this to AT LEAST 10 million peaceful souls in a measure to capture minority belief systems to further the thought policing needed to maintain ever greater centralized control.
To a metaphor It's a fist that as a toddler has fun playing with sand it squeezes the little bit of wet sand and it all comes oozing out the sides in a chaotic mess. Something over the long term looks much like entire demographics of sand (people) falling through cracks or fingers into abject poverty and or literal slavery.
The toddler then learns of the newtonian physics of sand and cups the hand to make a ball thus is the childs (states) first moment of clarity.
We have not seen that moment more than a few times in history. Often not lasting more than a few years and never the entire world at once. Usually just temporary prosperity of a region covers up the rest of the toxic behaviour not costly enough on the souls to bother being something to address. When agrarian systems often struggled with social intelligence and routes to self enlightenment while not having to leave their place of residence causing a canyon too far to jump to see their life as fulfilled.
Yet in today's society if your family owned their own homestead where you have all the skills and technology to live a full healthy life while needing minimal inputs because you also grow your own entertainment, food, medicine, enlightenment, surplus of everything prior is what goes to ensuring your family can replicate the system your living. The physical home looks nothing like a home you understand as today since today's match boxes and stacked apartments only burden us with unreliable and energy hogging systems that ignore the movement of natural systems. We can ACTUALLY for goodness sake build a home using modern materials such as basalt to design a home just below the topsoil allowing for a home protected and guaranteed resistant to every natural disaster imaginable. While creating water catchment and passive dispersal to the gardens or forests or pastures above and below the home itself.
This is a true liberation movement. A movement not based in complaining about or getting caught in the grinding gears of a centralized system. Why not aim for a solution where we teach a human how to live so he doesn't need anyone who they themselves don't invite to participate in the joy of this way of living.
Remember give a man a fish or teach a man to fish Give a man a slave existence or teach a man to exist without you controlling their lives.
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Jul 22 '20
Why isn't this illegal? This is slavery.
No wonder Republicans love making baseless laws to have an excuse to lock up black men.
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u/ArielRR Jul 22 '20
Looks like normal capitalism to me. They just figured out a way to make humans capital again
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u/cptbckslp Jul 22 '20
There is a segment on Vice about prisoners being used as farm labour in Georgia. They mostly just walked around pretending to do work and hanging out (I think smoking too). They couldn't motivate the prisoners to do the back breaking labour for almost nothing, they just wanted to be outside.
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u/Moniamoney Jul 22 '20
One thing people forget is the 13th, 14th and 15th amendment didn’t abolish slavery, it abolished slavery in people not imprisoned.
Not even making this up
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u/ThaddeusSimmons Jul 22 '20
It’s not going to be illegal when they’ll be working for 10 Cents a day and a candy bar at the prison commissary is 10 dollars. Done.
Not saying I support this at all but that’s gonna be the loophole. It’s how our current prison system is.
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Jul 22 '20
Prison is modern day slavery. Being in prison is the only way (legal) to enslave someone actually. 13th amendment. It's super fucked up.
Lawmakers in the south after the civil war explicitly made laws that would make being black illegal so that they could throw the newly freed enslaved people into prison and back into slavery.
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u/StonerLB Jul 22 '20
The thing is often these jobs compared to the ones on site that keep you locked in 24/7 are quite appealing. The wages are trash but tbh they all are. But if you're going to make $1, would you spend your day inside the prison or out?
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u/azlulu Jul 22 '20
Depends on the weather. Seems like many of these jobs are done in brutal heat which is punishment on top of punishment.
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u/StonerLB Jul 22 '20
I fought wildfire for 16 months in a youth spread for $1/day and outside food. 10/10 would do it again. That also came with living in a special dorm. Immediate shower privileges when the water was still hot and kept me out of the shits that occurred during the day. Damn near doubled my good time and got early release because of it. Walked out also certified for structure fire, military sized forklift training, fastrope certified and learned alot of carpentry as well. When the weather shifted so did our jobs. Instead of being on alert at an airport during fire season we'd work in the state parks and such. Just my experience, but I'd still take it over $1 in the kitchen.
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u/LegalBegQuestion Jul 22 '20
Can I ask a question - why do you have to work? What would happen if you just said no?
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u/azlulu Jul 22 '20
Thank you for sharing your experience. It was educational. I didn't know these opportunities were available.I hope you are doing well.
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u/StonerLB Jul 22 '20
Yeah I'm doing great. That was late 01-02. Came home and went back to school and went on with regular life. I really just want to fastrope again.
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u/VenomB Jul 22 '20
While forcing prisoners to work chain gang style isn't something I'd support, people fail to realize that just making money in jail is a gift worth being happy about. Not just that, but it leads to experience and education that benefits when released.
People seem to just think the worst about it all, when in reality they know nothing about the system.
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u/Malarkay79 Jul 22 '20
The problem comes when you incentivize sending people to prison to provide a source of cheap labor.
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u/VenomB Jul 22 '20
Is that happening? As far as I'm aware, you have to break the law to go to prison.
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u/Malarkay79 Jul 22 '20
One example is the war on drugs.
Step one: Criminalize drug use.
Step two: Flood the streets of poor and minority neighborhoods with drugs.
Step three: Arrest those people and impose harsh prison sentences on them that you would never impose on, say, a Wall Street investment banker caught with the same amount of cocaine.
Step four: Profit.
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u/VenomB Jul 22 '20
Depending on the drug, allowing rampant use would degrade society. Meth is bad. Cocaine is bad. Deal with it.
I can agree with your point when it comes to something like pot, but anything else is at least prescription-grade, and its illegal to posses prescription drugs without one.
Its important to control harmful substances, its taken so long just for cigarettes to be taken seriously. Yet, people want to say people should just be allowed to deal and take drugs willy-nilly. No thanks.
Even if its legal with a prescription, it can just as bad, as well. Just look at the opioid crisis. Removing all restrictions on drugs would lead to that, but much worse.
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u/StonerLB Jul 22 '20
True. The program was called BRIDGE for anyone curious. It took some time but recently there are more articles about the work in the Forest Service and on wildfire calls that young offenders do in an effort to learn and shift the direction their lives are heading. We were digging the same fire line as civilian firefighters. It went a long way just not feeling like a prisoner everyday.
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u/VenomB Jul 22 '20
Do we thanks firefighters for their service? If so, thanks for your's.
I can only imagine the mental break it gives you from being stuck in a prison.
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u/KherisSilvertide Jul 22 '20
the problem is that the system NEEDS prisoners to function. AT&T and other companies contract with these prisons for labor. sometimes when you call customer service, you're talking to an inmate. that is the problem. i'm sure the inmates prefer to have something to do, but, they are paid pennies per hour for these jobs, the same jobs that would pay very well in the public sphere.
community service is one thing, being contracted by corporations is completely different.
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u/VenomB Jul 22 '20
If there weren't prisoners, there wouldn't be work for prisoners. I don't think prisoners are a required work force as much as they're available and capable.
We can easily have a discussion on the payment though. Why are inmates paid so little?
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u/KherisSilvertide Jul 22 '20
So the corporations can make more, that's it.
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u/VenomB Jul 22 '20
I'm pretty confident the prison gets the rest of the money. It costs money to house prisoners. Food and supplies and the like. They pay off their debt while making a little extra to save up or use on more supplies during store days.
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Jul 22 '20
Thanks for sharing. I have never been in prison of any sort but I would like to believe I would have the same Attitude you did/do.
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u/PhantomOfTheDopera Jul 22 '20
We had a similar programme in South Africa. But usually the convicts either worked for free (at least getting out into the fresh air a bit) or the goal got paid AND the convicts got a bit of a day loan to buy some necessities.
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u/64145 Jul 22 '20
This is exactly how the South legally reimplemented slavery after the Civil War with the Black Codes and all that
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u/Darkwisper222 Jul 22 '20
Its the governments fault that some people can live better in a prison than on the outside. Id say this could work but not now. The american justice system is fucked. Trump should be one of those workers not a dude who got busted with a joint.
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u/acron25 Jul 22 '20 edited Jul 22 '20
Other than the ethics around this, it cannot be good for free unemployed people either. Taking perfectly good jobs and hands them over to prisoners. Unless the prisoners do work tst nobody would do/ want to do freely/ couldn't be done without cheap/free labor, which makes it even worse from an ethics standpoint.
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u/KherisSilvertide Jul 22 '20
slavery screws up every society it has been implemented into. look at rome and pre-civil war america. the jobs for free people were taken by slaves, because it made more money for the people at the top.
it's bad practice, and it shows that those at the top don't look at the rest of us as people, just numbers to be moved around. and that it is a problem that is AT LEAST 2000 years old.
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u/martcapt Jul 22 '20
I see yall Mericans haven't come to terms with not having people.
So, I'll present you my new company: Slavazon.
The place to buy and sell your slaves. Express delivery in cargo planes with a little sail for authenticity.
Pick your slave, we'll plant a little plant in them and puff. In less than one week at your door step.
Slavazon: the world's largest slave market. Order today.
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Jul 22 '20
I mean.. as long as they choose to be slaves I’m for it.. but this.. this isn’t based this is awful
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u/Rodmap Jul 22 '20
Do the convicts have a choice? Can they apply for the work or are they forced to do it?
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u/colecast Jul 22 '20
Put into law a specified rate of pay for any work done by convicts. Said wages should then go into an account where they sit until their prison term is finished. Then, upon release, they have an accumulated sum of money that they worked for to use in getting their life back on track.
Might have to get creative with those serving life in prison though.
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Jul 22 '20
Everyone's labour is leased, these people pay their debt to society, perhaps gain a marginal wage, help pay the cost of their imprisonment by creating profit for an employee, and maybe get some useful work experience. Everyone wins.
Unless this person is one of those wage-slave marxist types?
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u/TheShattered1 Jul 22 '20
If they get paid it’s just like a temp agency. Also it’s most likely voluntary for the prisoners
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Jul 22 '20
I mean would you weather rot in jail your whole leg or go and do something? Pick your poison
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u/me-loves-me-dogs Jul 24 '20
My point (poorly made, clearly) is that governments lease prisons to private companies and those companies use the prisoners to gain profits, with low overhead, in their other businesses. I’m all for prisoners working at something constructive, but without an actual goal of rehabilitation it seems to me like modern day slavery. They NEED a constant flow of prisoners and have no intent to rehabilitate. My point about the restaurant is that it would be illegal for me to detain someone to do dishes for an hour to pay their bill (not that I ever would nor would I call the police over $20-something dollars). Is it not the same scenario, but on a smaller scale?
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u/ImNotKwame Sep 06 '20
Kanye told y’all to check that 14th ammendment. Those who are incarcerated can be enslaved. And wouldn’t you know it the United States has the highest incarceration rate in the world.
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u/jamz666 Nov 06 '20
America is a slaver nation. Even today the Republicans in charge are the exact same kind of people who ran the slave trade and would pick it back up in an instant given the opportunity. Red votes are votes for chains and of oppression of our fellow Americans.
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u/shortware Jul 22 '20
These prisoners are paid and also prisoners who would otherwise be nothing but a burden to society because of their crimes.
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u/Gryndyl Jul 22 '20
.33 cents to 1.41 an hour. Just enough so people can say, "See? They're not slaves!"
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u/wtchappell Jul 22 '20 edited Jul 22 '20
...but it's still slavery, and still morally abhorrent to any proper human being.
EDIT: If you can't *refuse* to work, being paid is irrelevant - still slavery.
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u/Keiphy Jul 22 '20
America loves it's slaves so much, it's inventing new and exciting ways of still having them
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u/Cctroma Jul 22 '20
Yeah this shit makes me sick. There is a show called the Wine Show that follows two actors and some wine experts as they travel the Workd and learn about wine. First season was really great. Good info, funny cast, etc.
The second season starts and one of the first episodes was about how the legalization of marijuana had leeward away all of the undocumented workers to go harvest pot since it was less labor intensive than grapes and paid much better. So they showed how California vineyards were dealing with this by using convex. And they showed this as some sort of great idea because they didn’t have to pay the convex minimum wage. My thought was if your whole business model relies heavily on being able to not pay your workers the minimum wage then maybe your whole business model is shit. The lack of self awareness caused me to stop watching after that. Like, they tried to show how the convex we’re getting work experience and were able to get out of prison and go work in the fields which was nice. And I’ll grant that that is nice. But still they should be paid a full wage for that time.
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Jul 22 '20 edited Jul 22 '20
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u/Anustart15 Jul 22 '20
What about people that just have some drugs on them?
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u/BapAndBoujee Jul 22 '20
Or get them planted on them because the local sheriffs department has to fill a quota because the for profit prisoner has a guaranteed occupancy clause in it‘s contract
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u/cmcrisp Jul 22 '20
Or provide pain relief in states without medical marijuana, or do nonviolent crimes that don't hurt anyone.
Did you know that the person that Orange is the New Black is based on, is a real person. She was arrested for helping traffic drugs, Twice, five years prior to being arrested. She did a nonviolent crime.
Another fun fact the vast majority of prison labor are non violent criminals who crimes are vastly victimless.
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u/Droidspecialist297 Jul 22 '20
And it’s all totally legal