Prison Labor Is Slave Labor and the Constitution Says That’s Fine - Truthdig
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Incarcerated people work for cents on the dollar or for free to make goods you use.

Incarcerated people work for cents on the dollar or for free to make goods you use.

Brittany White, 37, was arrested for marijuana trafficking in Alabama in 2009. She went to trial to contest the charges — after all, just a year prior the United States president had admitted, cheekily, that inhaling was “the point.”

She was sentenced to 20 years. But her sentence was meted out in portions, based on good behavior, and she, posing no discernable public safety risk for selling a plant increasingly legal in states all across the U.S., was allowed to work on the outside.

She got a job at a Burger King.

But the state of Alabama took a significant portion of her paltry minimum wage. “They charged me $25 a week for transportation,” she tells Truthdig. “And they take away 40% of your check. It’s egregious to be making minimum wage, and then to have so much taken away by the state.”

Minimum wage in Alabama is $7.25.

Still, White considers herself lucky. Even her paltry earnings were better than nothing. She was able to purchase soap from the commissary. The prison-provided soap is full of lye, she says, which you definitely do not want near your private parts.

Many stuck behind bars are forced to work for cents per hour, or for nothing. While corporate culprits are commonly blamed for exploiting the labor of incarcerated people, it’s actually primarily states and the federal government who take advantage, and make the public unwittingly complicit.

Got a car? Your license plate was likely made by inmates. In New York, inmates make the trash cans. High school desks are often made on the inside; so are glasses for Medicare patients.

Many stuck behind bars are forced to work for cents per hour, or for nothing, for corporations, states and the federal government.

Companies like CorCraft in New York manage labor in the state’s prisons. They’re funded by the state’s budget, and boast they’re New York state’s preferred choice for “office chairs, desks, panel systems, classroom furniture, cleaning, vehicle, and personal care supplies, and more.”

“Summer Sizzles with Classroom Furniture from Corcraft,” their website declares.

They also claim to help in “the department’s overall mission to prepare incarcerated individuals for release through skill development, work ethic, respect and responsibility.”

The people behind the “sizzling” furniture beg to differ.

In the 12 years he was incarcerated in New York state, Dyjuan Tatro was forced to work a variety of jobs, from making desks to license plates. “At the end, I didn’t have a resume,” he tells Truthdig. “I didn’t get one thing to help me be successful on the outside from the prison. No resume, no job experience… Just $40 and a bus ticket — from 12 years of prison labor, I couldn’t use any of it to get a meaningfully paying job.”

Bianca Tylek, the executive director of Worth Rises, an organization devoted to eradicating unjust prison practices, goes further. “It’s slavery,” she tells Truthdig.

The 13th Amendment, which ended slavery, left an important exception: it’s still legal to garnish wages, or more commonly, refuse to pay incarcerated people for forced labor. “As a result, incarcerated people live in slavery-like conditions,” Tylek adds.

Of course, there are nuances. For example, trading community service, like, say, picking up trash, in exchange for not serving time, is one example of a noncarceral approach. But incarceration changes the equation. Tylek notes that it’s not just about the miniscule (or nonexistent) wages. It’s compelling people to work, with the alternative being a stint in solitary and other punishments, like refusing to let them see relatives, consequences that are meted out by guards. She also notes that they have to work in dangerous trades they may not be trained for, including industrial-sized laundries or ovens.

Despite what someone did or did not do, to end up behind bars, coercing them into performing free labor is wrong, Tylek notes. “I like to ask people the question, ‘Under what circumstances is slavery OK?” she tells Truthdig.

“If you can’t answer that question, the answer is, slavery is never OK.”

  • NateNate60
    1·
    1 year ago

    It’s to attach a cost to prison labour in order to dissuade abuse and to ensure that the prisoner generates enough value to support themselves after release. There are two points to address here:

    • If penal labour is available without cost then this creates a rather large incentive for corruption as it is guaranteed profit for whoever receives the labour. It creates an incentive to label more people as criminals or to prolong sentences for the sole purpose of benefitting from more free labour.
    • The goal of prison ought to be rehabilitation because that’s the only rational choice. The goal is to take a criminal and turn them into a productive member of society that will hopefully offset the costs of their imprisonment through their later economic activity. If criminals are left with nothing as they leave prison then it pushes people to commit crime to support themselves. Martin Luther King Jr. said: “If people can’t work to support themselves, then they’re going to have to beg; if not that, then they’re going to have to steal.” The “tough on crime” mentality only works if you’re willing to push that to its absolute maximum by executing all of the criminals you find. Even then, 19th-century London pickpockets would steal from crowds gathered to watch the hanging of another pickpocket.
    • MomoTimeToDie@sh.itjust.works
      1·
      1 year ago

      If penal labour is available without cost then this creates a rather large incentive for corruption as it is guaranteed profit for whoever receives the labour

      This can be almost entirely mitigated by ensuring separation between those responsible for sentencing, and those who manage the money, along with transparency so that collusion between the two can be found.

      Personally, I support a system in which the value prisoners create is first directed back towards whoever their victim was, with costs of living being deducted as well. With this in mind, I would also argue for sentencing to be dynamic to match their repayment of societal debts. Do a lot of useful work, you get out faster. Jack off in your cell and do nothing useful, expect a life sentence for stealing a purse.

      The “tough on crime” mentality only works if you’re willing to push that to its absolute maximum by executing all of the criminals you find

      I agree with this sentiment to some extent, though I suspect in a direction you’re not a fan of. Because I believe we should absolutely be executing a lot more people. Like at some point, I don’t really care if technically Joe the chomo could be rehabilitated, I’m perfectly fine with just getting rid of them. Because honestly if you’re going to put someone in prison for life, let’s just save the time and end that life sooner rather than later.

      • NateNate60
        1·
        1 year ago

        It’s certainly uncontroversial that a lot of criminals deserve death. However, I oppose the death penalty for two reasons.

        The first reason is that criminal justice systems, especially the American criminal justice systems, aren’t great at achieving high accuracy. It’s a bit too easy for innocent people to be wrongly convicted and executed. There is a reason why death penalty cases take so long to litigate, and why I oppose making the system “more efficient”. In the course of litigation, it’s not unheard of for new evidence to appear that questions the condemned’s guilt.

        The second reason is that such people can still provide value. A person who is sentenced to life in prison can still work and provide value. I think they still ought to be given some portion of that value, as motivation to work if nothing else. Capital punishment destroys that value for merely the feeling of justice. The death penalty as it is applied today exists as a means of revenge, not as a means of preventing crime.