Prisoners in the US are part of a hidden workforce linked to hundreds of popular food brands
Unmarked trucks packed with prison-raised cattle roll out of the Louisiana State Penitentiary, where men are sentenced to hard labor and forced to work, for pennies an hour or sometimes nothing at all. After rumbling down a country road to an auction house, the cows are bought by a local rancher and then followed by The Associated Press another 600 miles to a Texas slaughterhouse that feeds into the supply chains of giants like McDonald’s, Walmart and Cargill…
And by hidden we mean so brazenly open Nu-metal bands make songs about it
13th amendment
Slavery never ended here.
Nope, we enshrined it in the Constitution. It was bad enough when the Constitution didn’t talk about it specifically one way or the other. But when they added it officially. It was worse.
You do realize you have to first commit a crime to end up in prison?
False
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The goods these prisoners produce wind up in the supply chains of a dizzying array of products found in most American kitchens, from Frosted Flakes cereal and Ball Park hot dogs to Gold Medal flour, Coca-Cola and Riceland rice.
The AP sifted through thousands of pages of documents and spoke to more than 80 current or formerly incarcerated people, including men and women convicted of crimes that ranged from murder to shoplifting, writing bad checks, theft or other illegal acts linked to drug use.
Mammoth commodity traders that are essential to feeding the globe like Cargill, Bunge, Louis Dreyfus, Archer Daniels Midland and Consolidated Grain and Barge – which together post annual revenues of more than $400 billion – have in recent years scooped up millions of dollars’ worth of soy, corn and wheat straight from prisons, which compete with local farmers.
Pastorick said the department has transformed Angola from “the bloodiest prison in America” over the past several decades with “large-scale criminal justice reforms and reinvestment into the creation of rehabilitation, vocational and educational programs designed to help individuals better themselves and successfully return to communities.” He noted that pay rates are set by state statute.
In March 2020, though all other outside company jobs were halted, the Arizona corrections department announced about 140 women were being abruptly moved from their prison to a metal hangar-like warehouse on property owned by Hickman’s Family Farms, which pitches itself as the Southwest’s largest egg producer.
Though the company has since stopped using them, in recent years they were hired in Arizona by Taylor Farms, which sells salad kits in many major grocery stores nationwide and supplies popular fast-food chains and restaurants like Chipotle Mexican Grill.
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It is fucking insane we’re productively using prison labor. Prison should be focused on rehabilitation, adding a profit motive just perverts incentives.
I realize there are like a dozen other things insanely wrong with US prisons - and I don’t mean to minimize any of those.
You’re not wrong about how prisons should be about rehab etc, and prison labor is vile.
But you got it backwards. These woke agendas are perverting the prison system…. It was always meant to be this way. (Which is why prison labor is the only form of forced labor constitutionally protected.)
If you use the words woke agenda unironically, you are not welcome in this instance of Lemmy.
it was absolutely sarcastic.
the point I’m trying to make is that… prison labor is protected as the sole exception to slave labor in the US constitution. Prison labor has always been intended as a replacement for outright slavery.
Ah okay, you’re not a conservative idiot, you’re a liberal who is very bad at conveying sarcasm. Carry on.
It’s hard to do sarcasm about conservatives. The shit they say is so much crazier then anything I’d think of to mock them
I believe they’re using it sarcastically, especially considering that they say prison labor is vile.
Woah there, fascist alert
That’s amusing. So fascists are for prison reform?
all I’m really saying is that the using prisoners for slave labor was always intended- which is why it’s enshrined in the US constitution as the only exception to slave labor:
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.
You can hate that all you want. I certainly do. It should be changed, but the unfortunate reality is it would take a constitutional amendment to get rid of it. A state might be able to pass a law forbidding it it, but I some how doubt it would survive in the current judicial atmosphere.
It’s not hidden. The slavery of convicts is literally written in our constitution.
Thirteenth Amendment:
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.
EDIT: Just to clarify; I believe that segment (in bold) should be removed from the 13th amendment.
I honestly think people read too much into that portion of the 13th, a reasonable reading of the ammendment yields a concession that the 13th ammendment wasn’t intended to make imprisonment impossible.
It’s only over time that challenges to the legal system have extended that definition from self-hygiene and prison activities to being forced to be a full time employee without recompense.
That all said, the damage is done and we need to revise that ammendment - at the very least companies must be forced to expend the equivalent to payroll and ideally those funds are either immediately disbursed or held in trust for the prisoner’s release.
I honestly think people read too much into that portion of the 13th, a reasonable reading of the ammendment yields a concession that the 13th ammendment wasn’t intended to make imprisonment impossible.
What? My guy, it literally says “no slavery, unless it’s used as a punishment for someone duly convicted of a crime”. It straight up makes an exception for when slavery is okay.
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.
My suspicion is that law makers were concerned that they might accidentally open a door for prisoners to sue America for unjust involuntary servitude using that ammendment as a justification.
It could definitely be a lot clearer written, though.
lmao, no.
It was specifically written after the civil war so that the South could still technically have slavery, they just have to criminalize and convict a person first. It’s how we get the ‘war on drugs’ where even though black and white populations smoke around the same amount, black populations were criminalized FAR harsher, and sent to prison far more often. It’s exactly “Rules for thee, but not for me” on a grand scale where white people would likely ‘get a pass’ for their first arrest. That grace was not extended to black populations, and so we’re back at having slavery with extra steps.
It’s a nice thought that it just happened over time by accident, but in reality it was planned like this.
In most states, it’s not involuntary. It’s just horrifically sub-minimum wage. The issue is less that clause of the 13th, and more the general attitude and laws towards prisoners.
“not involuntary” but extremely coerced
Yes, but the distinction is legally important. Like I said - the issue is general attitudes towards how it’s ‘okay’ to treat prisoners rather than the wording of the 13th Amendment.
real hard to oppose forced labor in xinjiang when they can point to shit like this
World news hey…
If they are truly guilty I have no problem about they working for free, they have think twice before messing around.
A blanket statement about “true guilt” gives a whole lot more credibility to the veracity of the government’s legislation than I’m willing to give them.
You’re implying that lawmakers have never been wrong.
Can someone help me understand. “forced to work… sometimes for nothing”. Can anyone tell me how an inmate can’t refuse that? What are the ramifications of them basically saying “um, no”. Especially those in there with life sentences.
Just because you’re in prison forever doesn’t mean there isn’t further punishment that can be doled out. Officially, solitary confinement is a pretty catch-all punishment for misbehavior, and extended stays in solitary can and will drive humans insane. Like, nonfunctionally insane, can no longer interact with other humans without extensive therapy. Unofficially, prisoners can get the shit kicked out of them on the regular by gangs of guards, or specially targeted for constant “random” shakedowns, have rumors spread about them among other inmates, the list goes on.
For non-lifers, you can always get time tacked on. For lifers, you can paint a target on yourself for guard harassment or lock yourself into solitary until you’re no longer a human being. And the constitution enshrines slavery as being specifically allowed as punishment for a crime in Amendment 13, so unfortunately the prison is well within its rights to do so and punish for noncompliance.
Hidden? Chain gangs have been a longstanding trope, and things have only gotten worse. Slavery isn’t illegal in the USofA, it’s just tucked
out of sightto the side with the “undesirables”.Slavery thats called slavery Edit sorry thats called slavery in civilized countries but the US is not one of them, we do not consider this slavery legally lol
