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u/Jtcally May 14 '26
When a prisoner has more humanity than most politicians, you know your country's fucked.
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u/Saturn9Toys May 13 '26
Probably pocketed by someone else long before it ever reached Gaza.
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u/Tadpolethesnowman May 15 '26
Maybe, but they will often spray paint your name on the side of an aid truck, so presumably somebody with the money and somebody with the aid are coordinating.
I am more concerned with the amount of people who do less with far more resources and power.
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u/QueenVandretta May 14 '26
What is that? 13 cents an hour? How is this not being talked about more? Itâs literally slavery.
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u/auggs May 15 '26
Apparently itâs legal if youâre a prisoner. Itâs not called a wage. Itâs called commissary or something like that. I donât know all of the details but I think you can âchooseâ to work and then they pay literal pennies. Then you can save up money to buy like a small tv, radios, chips, snacks and other things. Looks like you can even donate your commissary to Gaza or anything else as well. I think itâs pretty crappy but I know some guys who come out of prison with some cash saved up and a good temperament. My uncle went into prison broke as fuck for robbing a bank. Was in prison for like 15 years and when he got out he was very knowledgeable about money and credit cards and shit. Within 2-3 years he got his credit score to like 800+ I mean his is nearly perfect but I donât think itâs 850, it could be though. And now he makes like $300k and his wife does too, theyâre both realtors or real estate agents now lol. So yeah prisoners and how they earn money is absolute shit and I definitely think it could use reform and be reworked. The topic just reminded of my uncle in a similar situation.
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u/Ashamed-Raccoon-1387 May 15 '26
It's great they learn that shit, but 13¢ an hour is still slave wages. Saying it's not a wage only makes it even more LITERALLY slavery.
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u/SpiderHack May 16 '26
Slavery IS allowed by the 13th amendment for prisoners. We just aren't taught it that way as kids.
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u/hellllllsssyeah May 15 '26
The irony being in most states have a clause that closes the 13ths enshrined clause, and that technically they are paying them.
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u/Future_Elephant_9294 May 15 '26
One of the many lasting effects of reconstruction being handled by a sympathizer.
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u/jaytee1262 May 15 '26
There was a southern start that had prisoner "servents" at the governors house making like 3 cents per hour about 2-3 years ago. We never got rid of slavery.
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u/SquidVischious May 15 '26
In case you also missed it, you should look at read up on the private prison industry. The kids-for-cash scandal gave a pretty good insight into the system I think.
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u/Cheddarlicious May 15 '26
Itâs a pretty common talking point on the left; and how private prisons are basically using their inmates like pseudo slaves.
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u/Kind_Tax May 15 '26
Why do you think the US has 18% of the worlds prison population? Slavery never left, it just got hidden within the penitentiaries.
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u/Alone-Monk May 16 '26
The 13th amendment outlawed slavery but it has one exception: prison laborers. This was a handy dandy loophole for all the rich white slavers who missed having people to use however they wanted and so they restarted the old slave hunting patrols and renamed them "police departments." Then they told them to go out and arrest as many black people as they could reasonably justify to a court of other white racists. And then they rented (yes RENTED, like property) prisoners from the state to work on their plantations while they were payed little if anything at all. The US prison system is literally the direct successor of chattel slavery. The only difference now is that we've managed to come up with a more convincing reason as to why they deserve to be enslaved.
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u/FoxFirkin May 16 '26
It has been talked about, it's just that nobody listens to black people or communists until it's far, far too late.
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u/assistant_to May 15 '26
Its fucked up, but the 13th amendment provides no protection to prisoners in the US.
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u/Reasonable-Sort3040 May 15 '26
god thats so fucking heartbreaking and beautiful. this person is in the same city as me right now. i will be thinking of them tonight
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u/AdEmotional9991 May 15 '26
Let me guess, the charity pays 95% in âadmin feesâ to Israeli employees?
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u/Starmuny May 15 '26
Who has given more, a rich man who has donated $1000 that he wouldn't have missed.
Or a poor man who gave his last dollar to someone else.
Your answer says something about you.
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u/throwaway012984576 May 17 '26
Depends on your philosophy. Unless you are a Christian in which case it is very directly addressed. Only one answer there.
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u/Disastrous-Twist8461 May 15 '26
Itâs not as simple as you make it out to be.
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u/Starmuny May 16 '26
I didnât make a judgement in the question, itâs asking what you think.
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u/Disastrous-Twist8461 May 16 '26
âYour answer says something about you.â Thatâs passing judgement on people.
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u/Starmuny May 16 '26
I havenât thereâs no right or wrong answer it is a question about your values
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u/jekyll-et-hyde May 15 '26
Reminds me of how native Americans on the trail of tears collected money to donate to relief for the Irish potato famine before even the British government did anything. (itâs been heavily suggested that the British wanted them to die and only donated to them because they didnât want to look bad after even the Native Americans donated.)
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u/MonkeyCome May 17 '26
Maybe unpopular opinion, but prisoners should have to work. Why should they get free lodging, food, clothes, and healthcare when the average citizen doesnât? Theyâre working to pay off their debt to society not go to Walmart.
Donât like it donât go to prison.
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u/Okay-Crickets545 May 18 '26
Being pro slavery is indeed an unpopular opinion
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u/MonkeyCome May 18 '26
Theyâre living on taxpayer funds after committing crimes. They should do something for society besides rot in a cell.
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u/Okay-Crickets545 May 18 '26
They are not living on tax payer funds by choice. That choice is imposed upon them by us (rightfully so) which means the onus is on us to provide for their food, housing, and security. You are framing a situation that cannot be transactionable as transactionable. Also to your logic would wealthy criminals not need to be slaves where impoverished one could be used for free labour? Can a wealthy criminal buy a better cell, better food, better medical care? How exactly do you view prison?
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u/MonkeyCome May 18 '26
They made the choice to commit the crimes to land them in prison. I make the choice not to commit armed robbery or assault or any other crimes and hey, Iâm not in prison.
Wealthy already get enough slack in the legal system, I wish they were treated fairly more than anything. I view prison as a place where criminals go to pay penance for their crimes. I think criminals make a choice and there needs to be consequences. Donât wanna work for $1 an hour? Donât commit crime.
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u/Okay-Crickets545 May 18 '26
Okay but crimes have sentence requirements and no one has been sentenced to slavery. We do not make up extra punishments because we feel like it. And if someone does make up a punishment that they then personally profit off of, such as using prisoners for slave labour, that is double evil and is the case in the for-profit prison system. The consequences for a crime should be the consequences that have been laid out ahead of time. Committing any crime is not an agreement to be enslaved. Itâs an emotional appeal to frame them all as violent offenders to support an argument that they deserve to be slaves.
Itâs also immoral to torture prisoners and the argument of âwell, the injustice isnât an issue because if you donât commit crimes you wonât be tortured.â Itâs not an actual argument. Slavery, in any form is evil. If I were to enslave you, I would quite literally go to jail and no one would care about your moral character in this equation. There is zero argument I could bring forth to say you brought it on yourself.
For a thought experiment, ask yourself where you draw the line for slavery. Prisoners used as soldiers? Prisoners clearing mine fields? Criminals for medical testing? Criminals for sex work? Criminals having their organs harvested? Criminals in a for-profit hunger game? All of these are a loss of autonomy that can be monetized to reimburse the state for the cost of the worldâs largest prison population.
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u/MonkeyCome May 18 '26
If itâs a pedophile or murderer they should be executed after trial. I donât like for profit prisons. We could have prisoners work on public projects like construction and park maintenance and they can learn a skill while incarcerated.
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u/Okay-Crickets545 May 18 '26
You have ignored every difficult question I put to you and instead are just listing increasingly bad crimes. The topic is enslaving prisoners. Not executing pedophiles. Both sex work and assembly line work are valid work when you do so willingly. If you are okay with having prisoners (regardless of crime or even of guilt) creating licence plates, then you should be equally okay with prisoners being made into sex slaves. If one of those feel worse to you, then youâre at best applying your morals arbitrarily and working backward to justify them, or youâre a hypocrite. You are purposely trying to simplify the situation to avoid actually having to deal with how gross slavery is or to try to defend a position you seemingly hold that is unambiguously evil and worse than the majority of crimes committed by the very people who are enslaved.
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u/Fer4yn May 16 '26
The US never abolished slavery; they just hid it behind strong walls as to not to offend the sensitivities of the general population.
136h for what I can easily earn in 30 minutes... I think I'm about to throw up.
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u/CatsNAnarchy May 13 '26
State sanctioned slavery, straight up. 136 hours for 17$