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.”
Could it possibly be, just possibly, that there is a step between paying prisoners far less than minimum wage and making prison like a hotel?
Again: They’re in prison for a reason. Why are they allowed to make money in first place? All of their salary should 100% go towards paying the expenses of their jail time to relieve the taxpayers.
The state has a legal duty to guarantee prisoners’ safety. Forcing them to labor risks that safety. Labor should be voluntary and include pay
Prison is for punishment not for making money.
OK but the state has a duty to protect you while in custody. Is forced labor upholding that duty?
I know you Americans do everything a bit different but here in Europe prison is for rehabilitation, at least on paper.
I’m not an American, but I still don’t believe in rehabilitation - at least for some crimes.
Prison as punishment (or deterrent) has been proven to not work.
Prison works as temporarily removing dangerous people from the population, and when used to rehabilitate and teach marketable skills. Especially paired with laws that forbid employers from discriminating against former convicts.
Why are they forced to work in the first place? And “because they’re in prison” is not an answer. Prisons are not work houses.
Exactly!
Traditionally, prison has not forced people to work. Why must they now? Explain it. Again, “because they’re in prison” is not an answer. Prison is for locking people away from society, not making them slaves.
…for the great majority of human history, forced labor and prison sentences have gone hand in hand.
Since I am not a criminal I actually don’t really care why inmates are “now forced” to work. But since I’m a taxpayer I’d prefer their salary is used to lower the amount taxpayers need to pay.
So everyone in prison is a criminal? No one is innocent? You could never be accidentally imprisoned? Or someone you care about? Or would that not matter?
As long as you don’t provide reliable sources on this: yes. I think, the amount of accidentally imprisoned people is likely below 1 percent in total. But again, since I am not a criminal, I don’t really care about other criminals or jail time work.
1% of the U.S. prison population is 20,000 people. 20,000 people and you’re convinced you couldn’t possibly be one of them and that they deserve to be slaves anyway.
It’s actually between 4-6%, per Google.
If we figure 5%, that’s 1 out of 20 people, or for the US: 60,000 people.
Abcnews states that there have been 3,287 official exonorations since 1989.
What if you were a criminal?
In that case, it should be across the board. Charge them all to be housed or charge none of them. Otherwise, you’re disincentivizing work which is a terrible idea
Yes, charge them all and offer them to work those charges off while in prison.
Bad take
Why are the taxpayers paying so much for prisoners when they have to work at burger king to afford soap?
Yeah, that’s the question. Let the inmates pay. And for being able to do so: offer them to work for it.
Once a criminal has served their time, then they need to be reintegrated with society or else they are going to fail. So what’s the realistic plan here? Currently we have a revolving door because the US doesn’t do rehabilitation. We do punishment. Both are warranted depending on the severity of the crime.
Do you think someone should lose their job and home over an unpaid parking ticket? One of the states in the south (it might be Alabama, can’t recall) is imprisoning people for unpaid medical bills from hospitals.
Therapy after jail time.