No state has a longer, more profit-driven history of contracting prisoners out to private companies than Alabama. With a sprawling labor system that dates back more than 150 years — including the brutal convict leasing era that replaced slavery — it has constructed a template for the commercialization of mass incarceration.

Most jobs are inside facilities, where the state’s inmates — who are disproportionately Black — can be sentenced to hard labor and forced to work for free doing everything from mopping floors to laundry. But more than 10,000 inmates have logged a combined 17 million work hours outside Alabama’s prison walls since 2018, for entities like city and county governments and businesses that range from major car-part manufacturers and meat-processing plants to distribution centers for major retailers like Walmart, the AP determined.

https://apnews.com/article/prison-to-plate-inmate-labor-investigation-alabama-3b2c7e414c681ba545dc1d0ad30bfaf5

  • Allonzee@lemmy.world
    18·
    7 hours ago

    You can hate other empires as well, and I do, but the US has the largest prison population on Earth, and that isn’t even per capita. 2 million prisoners. We should all be ashamed of that.

  • ManOMorphos@lemmy.world
    26·
    11 hours ago

    And you know that small businesses and independent establishments aren’t seeing one minute of that free prison labor under their roof. It’s all going to large companies with connections to government.

    I’m not arguing that either should benefit from effective slave labor, but the fact that the biggest players get this insane advantage just rubs extra salt in the wound.

  • AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.worldEnglish
    19·
    13 hours ago

    Wait, could I move to the US and rent a sexy inmate for my mansion? To parade in front of my geek friends? And play video games with?

    (I mean I’d cruelly punish him of course, being in the US, like I wouldn’t put any toppings on his ice cream, or something unusually painful, or whatever the law says you have to do).

  • Zement@feddit.nl
    301·
    14 hours ago

    Oh this is delicious. Keep in mind they hate abortion and hate sexual education. It’s not a conspiracy any more. They want the poor to be uneducated and reproductive to have a jailed bottom slave minority.

  • hperrin@lemmy.caEnglish
    861·
    21 hours ago

    Yep. And it’s perfectly legal, because the US never banned slavery.

    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.

    I think we’re one of the only countries in the world who still has legal slavery. Pretty awful.

    • LovableSidekick@lemmy.worldEnglish
      1·
      5 hours ago

      The accurate term for prison labor is involuntary servitude - and it’s right there in your quote - but nobody ever gets internet points for using it.

      • hperrin@lemmy.caEnglish
        1·
        5 hours ago

        If you’re arguing whether something is involuntary servitude or slavery, you’ve lost the plot. Both are unethical and inhumane, and involve coercing someone to work against their will to benefit another.

        • LovableSidekick@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          3 minutes ago

          How much more ethical is confining people in a small room against their will for years or decades? - Let alone executing some of them?

          There are distinct differences between prison and slavery. With slavery you’re kidnapped with no justification and no trial, somebody literally owns you, and you have fewer rights than farm animals. Prison is a punishment for a crime. Miscasting anything involuntary as “slavery” to make an argument have more dramatic impact is what loses the plot - it misappropriates the experiences of millions of people who were shipped across the ocean and actually enslaved.

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
      161·
      17 hours ago

      There are a few sharia lands and a bunch of not-yet-sharia lands with like half the population dreaming of it.

      Taken together - a huge chunk of the globe.

      There are also a few countries where the Western concept of slavery wouldn’t work, but with pretty feudal-despotic cultural legacy, like, ahem, Japan and Thailand and what not, which may have something similar to slavery again in future.

      So I wouldn’t say USA is that different.

      And in Russia there are whole small towns functional because of prison colony facilities there where prisoners work.

      Still, prisoners working for private companies with prisons collecting their wages, - seems kinda uncomfortably close. Because, yes, if they are safe enough to be let out into society, they are safe enough to not be prisoners.

    • andros_rex@lemmy.world
      24·
      19 hours ago

      Anytime you see one of those “silly laws” - stuff about not being able to ride a horse on Sunday or whatever - that’s why. “Vagrancy” laws were basically put in place to funnel black men into legal enslavement.

  • feedum_sneedson@lemmy.world
    136·
    14 hours ago

    I put it to you that this might, with a few tweaks, actually be a step in the right direction. I’d rather be at work than in prison. Community service is a thing. This is clearly coming at it backwards on pretty much every count, but there’s a kernel of a good idea in there.

    • thebestaquaman@lemmy.world
      13·
      10 hours ago

      To back you up: In Norway (and quite a few other countries I assume), job training and/or education are typically included in a prison sentence as a way to re-integrate inmates into society. Norway also happens to have one of the lowest repeat offender rates in the world.

      Of course, this has to be voluntary on the inmates part, and they have to be paid some compensation for the work they do. I believe a part of the system involves inmates being placed for job training in some company that’s willing to employ them, but the government pays their salary, because the employing company is expected to spend resources training them. This also incentivises the company to hire them once they finish doing time, as they’ve now been trained in the job.

      Inmates that are regarded as too dangerous to be outside the prison can typically get jobs within the walls. In Norways highest-security prison, there’s a Gardening businesses, where inmates grow all kinds of flowers, and inmates run a shop where people from outside can buy them. It’s regarded as a huge success in helping the inmates prepare for an ordinary job.

    • laserm@lemmy.world
      7·
      13 hours ago

      Fair enough, but for this to be just it must be voluntary for the prisoner and it must not be used as a motivation to deny parole.

    • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.worldEnglish
      72·
      1 day ago

      So slavey never ended! Cool cool. Totally not a corporate dictatorship masquerading as a democracy…

      • pyre@lemmy.world
        40·
        18 hours ago

        the laws never pretended it ended. the thirteenth ammendment very plainly allows it:

        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.

        emphasis mine. it never said you can’t have slavery any more, it just said if you’re gonna do slavery you have to convict someone first.

        • Crikeste@lemm.ee
          18·
          21 hours ago

          That’s how propagandized Americans are. lmfao They act as if this is some shadowy hidden part of our culture

          • Klear@lemmy.worldEnglish
            6·
            17 hours ago

            It’s not like you’d expect people to be closely acquainted with an obscure legal document like the constitution.

            Oh, wait…

        • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
          41·
          16 hours ago

          Not saying it’s not true, but it was pretty much in the spirit of English legal tradition. This probably even wasn’t a huge point of contention when written.

          If that part is changed, no kind of convict labor (or “public work” or whatever it’s called in Europe and elsewhere) will be legal. All the convicts will do is rot in the same building for many months and years.

          Without some deep prison reform you’ll have an increase in suicides and mental health cases. I’ve spent only 10 days in a mental hospital (from medical commission for conscript service, I live in Russia), and every opportunity to go do something unusual was happiness there. Even to help nurses with carrying somewhere some vaguely piss-smelling bed sheets in bags. It was nothing like prison. It was nothing like a usual mental hospital even. Still boredom gets you.

          Like I said, without a deep reform. With said deep reform - convict labor being allowed only with competitive wages somehow limited in use (say, only available upon release?), so that these wouldn’t go to overpriced prison goods or something like that to indirectly reproduce slave labor, - then yes.

          Actually, about prison goods - I think prisons can afford to provide inmates with a free delivery service, while what they buy they pay for themselves. Prisons in general shouldn’t sell anything to inmates or buy anything from them, the power imbalance is unacceptable. Or maybe it won’t be a free delivery service, just prison authorities will be obligated to accept those deliveries.

      • Ignotum@lemmy.world
        19·
        1 day ago

        Yup, it never ended, it just rebranded
        I believe it’s called neoslavery, I think the last privately (legally) owned slave was released in 1946 if i recall correctly, now the only legal slavery is prisons

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
      13·
      17 hours ago

      I guess it became more egalitarian and less racist though? One can say they failed to end slavery, but they managed to end exclusively black slavery.

      So it turns out that USA is actually not land of the free, but land of the equal. Seems what they like to accuse USSR of. Those damned commies.

  • FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world
    1773·
    1 day ago

    It’s legal per the 13th Amendment.

    Doesn’t make it right, and it says a lot about how little both parties value human rights that it’s allowed to stand.

      • SmilingSolaris@lemmy.world
        1·
        6 hours ago

        Cmon buddy. I get that the “both sides” argument is lame and tired when it comes to things like abortion and women’s rights but this is a perfect example of it being true. I know you identifying as a Democrat believe that they couldn’t possibly support slavery but they do. Slavery as punishment for a crime is universal in American politics as a policy neither side would ever go against. This is a real example of capitalism triumphing over morals that is prevalent in neo liberalism. The first step to making sure your party is better is to acknowledge that they ain’t being better when its pointed out. Aka, don’t defend the slavers

        • Jericho_One@lemmy.world
          11·
          5 hours ago

          First, I didn’t say the Democrats didn’t support slavery for felons, I called out the fact that you think there’s only 2 sides. So, you know, maybe take a breath before making assumptions and responding next time

          Seconably, there’s a huge political cost to amending the constitution. You think the political party that just lost to a convicted rapist and multi-felon has the kind of clout to amend such an obviously terrible thing when they’re too busy trying to prevent anyone younger than 70 years old from fighting against billionaires? GTFO with that!

          Long story short: we know “one side” would do it if they had the power, but they don’t, because they suck up to the same billionaires the “other side” does…

          • SmilingSolaris@lemmy.world
            1·
            2 hours ago

            First, the words you said have meaning. They have cultural history. It’s not assumptions it’s called context. Ain’t my fault if you didn’t mean what you was saying. Typically the response to that is “sorry, let me try again”

            Second. Slavery apologist in the year of our Lord 2024. You ain’t a strategist. Your a person. Have a soul. Be angry. That gives the “political capital”. Christ alive, don’t do slavery apologia

    • pivot_root@lemmy.world
      68·
      1 day ago

      Oh, that’s nothing. Ever wonder who tough on crime legislation actually benefits, and who’s lobbying for it?

    • ERROR: Earth.exe has crashed@lemmy.dbzer0.comEnglish
      522·
      1 day ago

      Government: "WELL ACHSHUALLY, They aren’t slaves because they consented…

      under the threat of 23 hour solitary confinement with zero amenities and nothing to do and shitty food and absolute boredom, and practically psychological torture"

      • beliquititious@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        23·
        1 day ago

        Literally in some cases recently freed slaves were arrested for being black and leased back to the same locations where they were enslaved to the same people.

        • FordBeeblebrox@lemmy.world
          151·
          1 day ago

          That’s where our tireless and dedicated police force got started, the racism hasn’t gone anywhere they just have better toys now

          • corsicanguppy@lemmy.caEnglish
            113·
            1 day ago

            I bet there were cops before that.

            I’m thinking that there were cops quite a while before America was a thing.

            But thanks for the surprising lack of history.

            • FordBeeblebrox@lemmy.world
              13·
              1 day ago

              Perhaps I should have specified I am an American talking about American police in America, to make it easier for you to follow along but thank you for the surprising and completely unnecessary rudeness on behalf of the pigs though, happy holidays and fuck off to lick laces 🙂

  • sik0fewl@lemmy.ca
    21·
    1 day ago

    If you don’t want slavery, then make it illegal. Maybe even make a constitutional amendment.