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
    6·
    60 minutes 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
    15·
    4 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
    16·
    7 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
    24·
    8 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.

  • feedum_sneedson@lemmy.world
    11·
    8 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
      10·
      4 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
      6·
      7 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.

  • hperrin@lemmy.caEnglish
    80·
    15 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.

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
      14·
      11 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
      23·
      13 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.

    • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.worldEnglish
      70·
      19 hours ago

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

      • pyre@lemmy.world
        38·
        12 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.

        • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
          4·
          10 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.

        • Crikeste@lemm.ee
          16·
          15 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
            4·
            11 hours ago

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

            Oh, wait…

      • Ignotum@lemmy.world
        19·
        18 hours 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
      1·
      10 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
    172·
    21 hours 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.

    • nadiaraven@lemmy.world
      11·
      13 hours ago

      Ok, so many things to unpack here. First, it’s important to remember that these kinds of issues are very much systematic. You can’t point your finger at one person or even one state and say that they are the issue. The issue here is deep seated racism in the United States, legalized slavery that is literally written into the US constitution. And Alabama being a poor state filled with uneducated people is not those people’s fault. It again comes back to racism and other huge issues of inequality. It’s best to have some curiosity. Why is Alabama full of these issues? Is it because people are different there? Probably not, it’s not like evolution works that fast on a geographic area that isn’t isolated. So you have to ask why, and look for the self perpetuating power dynamics. Second, insulting one group of people by referencing another group using a slur damages both groups. People with intellectual and developmental disabilities are vulnerable to discrimination and exploitation. Let’s not try to solve the problem of racism by deepening the problem of ableism. We have to work on it all at the same time. Power structures arise because one group exploits vulnerabilities in another. When you put down a whole group of people, it is likely because you feel that lack of powerlessness that comes with being in a hierarchy, and you’re acquiring power for yourself by rendering others less powerful than you. This isnt a moral failing on your part, instead, I would say that it’s an ineffective strategy that only serves to further entrench the hierarchy and your place in it. Instead, let’s work to equalize everyone, lifting up everyone to the same height.

      OK thanks for listening.

      • LateGreatHannibalLecter@lemmy.world
        11·
        13 hours ago

        Oh, you want to lecture me huh? Alright, well I guess it’s easy to take the moral high ground when you aren’t the one trapped in a small town where everybody is playing a game of telephone and you’re the target. I’m well aware of the systemic issues and it only makes me hate them even more knowing that the vast majority of them perpetuate the injustices that I am now a victim of. When I see these people smiling and laughing with their families I know that just beneath that there is a viciousness that could just as easily be pointed in my direction depending on the context. They have no empathy or awareness for the collateral damage their insular “society” inflicts on me, just insults and mockery. Absolute vileness. These people make my life a living hell every time I leave the house. They are like a bottomless well of venom and malice and they always have a way of making it known to me in the subtlest and most passive- aggressive ways. Let me tell you, I did not know the meaning of hate before I came here. I do now. They taught me very well.

        And you know what? Trump will give them everything they deserve. I think I’m starting to warm up to the guy for that reason alone. 30 days, assholes. Tick tock.

        • LouNeko@lemmy.world
          3·
          9 hours ago

          Yeah people say ‘Oh poor racists, they are just uneducated and don’t know any better.’, like there aren’t racists running around with a Harvard degree. It’s really easy to condemned open racism and then pat yourself on the back for doing the right thing. Real racism is quiet, for a racist to pretend that their not, is easy, because the payoff is that they can do way more damage behind the scenes. It’s like a cancer. You can’t just put a bandaid on it and call it a day. Cut it out or kill it and then check regularly if it hasn’t come back, don’t let is spread over a whole state. Pouring money into education will only give you educated racists, which is arguably even worse.
          I’m so sick of this ‘wining the battle losing the war’ kind of bullshit. It’s always the same - racism, nazis the bourgeoisie. There’s always blood but then a few ‘not so bad ones’ are spared and that shit grows back like ivy and becomes more systematic with every step. You know how many times I’ve watched the news and thought ‘Ah shit, looks like the Nazis won at the end anyway.’? How many people died in wars just for little Timothy still be gunned down in the streets for a parking ticket. How many people died to see people still waving swastikas in the streets. How many people threw themselves against castle walls under hunger and disease for people to say ‘Yes daddy Elon, you did everything by yourself and your workers shouldn’t deserve any pay, you’re the king.’ Each time you think we are done with this shit it comes back.

        • IcyToes@sh.itjust.works
          2·
          9 hours ago

          You think Trump is going to do anything other than enable and empower racists? Why do you think the proud boys love him?

      • beliquititious@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        23·
        20 hours 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
          15·
          20 hours 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
            1·
            19 hours 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·
              19 hours 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·
    19 hours ago

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

    • sik0fewl@lemmy.ca
      22·
      18 hours ago

      You must not be American - the thirteenth amendment codifies slavery and involuntary servitude into the constitution.

      • can@sh.itjust.works
        7·
        18 hours ago

        I’m not, but I am familiar with that but I didn’t know it went this far. It’s so blatent.

        edit: fellow canadian

        • sik0fewl@lemmy.ca
          8·
          18 hours ago

          Ya, I’m hyperbolizing a little bit… But not really. The 13th amendment is what outlawed black slavery in the United States… But also explicitly allows slavery in the United States:

          Section 1. 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.

          Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

    • cybervseas@lemmy.worldEnglish
      31·
      21 hours ago

      I’m sorry to say the Prison-Industrial Complex is a huge problem, and part of why this country has some of the highest incarceration rates in the world 🙁

      • FordBeeblebrox@lemmy.world
        8·
        19 hours ago

        Companies like Bob Barker (not the tv one) and Sysco are quietly making mountains of cash to supply all those “leasable” inmates with the lowest possible quality food and toiletries. I would love to see a political candidate campaign on repealing the 13th amendment, I doubt it’ll happen any time soon but one can hope.

      • can@sh.itjust.works
        6·
        19 hours ago

        I was aware but I didn’t know it was this level.

        I can only hope more and more Americans realise we’re looking over in horror.

        • orcrist@lemm.ee
          4·
          17 hours ago

          Americans on average don’t think your looks of horror have weight. Clearly America is superior, so you’re just jealous and looking for something trivial to make yourself feel better, is the gut reaction. (Sad to say.)