Colorado voted to abolish slavery and involuntary servitude as punishment for crime in 2018 (though enforcement is reportedly poor). [2][3]
In other states voters have upheld forced labor[4] but sometimes it's because of issues with how it's worded[5].
You can argue it's involuntary servitude instead of slavery but to most people that's a meaningless distinction. Especially while they are being beaten for not working.[6]
[1] https://action.aclu.org/send-message/congress-end-forced-lab...
[2] https://www.npr.org/2018/11/07/665295736/colorado-votes-to-a...
[3] https://www.npr.org/2023/11/13/1210564359/slavery-prison-for...
[4] https://calmatters.org/politics/elections/2024/11/california...
[5] https://lailluminator.com/2022/11/17/the-story-behind-why-lo...
[6] https://apnews.com/article/prison-to-plate-inmate-labor-inve...
The purchase and sale of humans, or the lack of such transactions is a meaningless distinction?
It's not full chattel slavery such as was legal before the 13th Amendment, but the word "slavery" has always encompassed definitions short of that, e.g. in ancient Rome.
by which definition of slavery do we have “purchase and sale of humans” as part of that definition?!
Article 1(1) of the 1926 Slavery Convention: “Slavery is the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised.”
just because you are not purchased/sold does not mean your condition cannot be defined as slavery
"Chattel slavery".
I don't believe there's a need to soften language to attempt to weaken the narrative of a "prison slavery system". If one is a proponent of forced labor for convicts then just say so: plenty of people will agree (and plenty will disagree).
An imprisoned person may or may not be enslaved as part of that imprisonment. If they get paid a reasonable wage, they're a prisoner with a job. If they're not forced to work, they're a prisoner but not a slave.
The work component only existed because why else would one want a slave?
If someone born into slavery died before they could walk, they still were a slave. If an old slave was allowed to retire without working again, that didn't stop them from being a slave.
https://apnews.com/article/prison-to-plate-inmate-labor-inve...
Your labor should not have financial considerations to the prison. You taking a sick day should not risk punishment up to and included increased security points and should not impact any prison employees pay/bonus (COs/AWs/Ws often get bonus' based on inmate labor metrics). Security points are the 'nice sanitized' way penal systems threaten violence on inmates. If you get points you go to a more dangerous yard where your safety will be threatened and you will get hurt. Anything that can incur security points is a implicit threat of violence against inmates. Inmates should not be threatened with violence for taking sick days/losing a non-prison job. Inmates jobs should not include the possibility of overtime because inmates CAN NOT REFUSE it. Inmates should not be threatened with violence (security points) if they do not want to work overtime of need a sick day.
Inmate jobs should not include zero hour jobs (jobs where the schedule constantly changes and you are not guaranteed any hours) because inmates CAN NOT control their schedules and it works out to be a nightmare for them logistics wise. For example leading to inabilities to file legal mail (inability to schedule around mail room hours), missed meals (chow hall hours are fixed with almost no accommodation other than SHU/medical meals), excessive isolation during transfers, missed 'move times' resulting in no personal recreation time, etc.
The US penal system is explicitly a continuation of the former slave system. Slavery wasn't outlawed in the US, just made a monopoly franchise of the US government. It isn't coincidental that so many prisons were built on former plantation property, or that the incarceration rate of black men is so high.
The practice of "convict leasing" is modern day slavery. This system should be abolished or, at a minimum, the prisoners should be paid at least minimum wage so we don't have the state to pay to lock people up and then some private corporation to profit off slave labor.
[1]: https://harvardpolitics.com/involuntary-servitude-how-prison...
[2]: https://innocenceproject.org/how-the-13th-amendment-kept-sla...
[3]: https://www.newsweek.com/book-american-slavery-continued-unt...
Minimum wage is supposed to cover sustainable food, shelter, clothing and other basic physical needs (leaving aside the question whether it really does, it is the intent). The prisoner has these basic physical needs already taken care of. Therefore, it makes no sense to pay both prisoner and a free low-wage worker the same. Moreover, if it were the situation, the very next day every paper would have a headline "Workers are being paid prisoner wages - outrage!"
However, if the prisoners are allowed to work for commercial for-profit companies, the company that benefits from this work should be asked to cover a substantial part of the prisoner's sustenance bill - which also would be to the taxpayer's benefit. Of course, participation in such programs should be strictly voluntary - I imagine prison life is not too fun, so there should be a number of people who would agree to do it even for a relatively very low wage. That said, it could be incentivized e.g. by taking successful work experience into account for parole decisions, etc.
You've simply made this up. This is what you think minimum wage should be, so this is what you've decided it was meant to be.
The US prison system uses "commissary" to further extract wealth from prisoners and their families. We give prisoners substandard food and (usually) insufficient calories. How do they make that up? By paying out of pocket at commissary. And of course everything is overpriced.
Prison phone companies have historically gouged prisoners to keep in touch with family.
We even give female inmates insufficient sanitary products and, to get more, they need to see a doctor. But don't worry, we've financialized that too, as many states require a "co-pay" that might be $6 to see a doctor.
Now that doesn't sound like a lot. But remember if you have a prison job, which you pretty much have to in many prisons, you might be makihng 30 cents an hour.
So on top of forced incarceration, paid for by the state, we just have all these private profit opportunities that prisoners are coerced into.
* Many people locked up (in my country) are their families breadwinners * Many would if they could pay compensation, and victims would, if they could, receive it and improve their lives * Many leave prison with nothing. The ones not in the first clause often do not have families, nor friends left on the outside * Prisoners have, or can learn, valuable skills
Put it all together, please.
People (our fellow citizens, our comrades) should be sent to prison as punishment. Not for punishment. If they do not come out better than they went in (often a low bar) then we have failed.
We can do so much better
It occurs to me that prisoners are usually exempt from child support payments (for example), but it might be better if they could actually contribute.
> People (our fellow citizens, our comrades)
Our fellow citizens, our comrades did the crime to earn prison. Retaliatory and precautionary aspect is as important as confinement itself. Of course, it should be moderated both by the size of the crime and by the culture, but it still exists.
As I understand it, in a number of US states workers are being paid prisoner wages.
However regular workers aren't locked up in a prison and don't have to eat prison food. On the down side, they might have to pay for their own health insurance.
The question was whether or not US prisons use slavery. He answered the question of whether or not it would be legal for US prisons to use slavery. While is it legal, it is not mandated.
A proper answer would examine the labor requirements actually in use in US prisons, compare them to labor requirements in other first world country prisons (and yes, several other first world countries make prisoners work), define just what they mean by slavery, and then try to make the case that the differences between what the US does and what other first world countries with required prison labor do is enough to make it slavery in the US.
Penal labor is not exclusive to the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labour
> It isn't coincidental that so many prisons were built on former plantation property, or that the incarceration rate of black men is so high.
32% of prisoners are Black: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incarceration_in_the_United_St...
56% of homicide perpetrators are Black: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Race_and_crime_in_the_United_S...
Using homicide as indicator of general criminality because it's hard to fudge the numbers or inflate them with over-policing. Granted the correspondence is surely not perfect, but given such a parsimonious explanation, we'd need strong justification to reach for conspiratorial alternatives.
In prison and jail inmates work for rates like $.25 an hour. Many places in the south prison inmates are contracted out to work minimum wage jobs and denied parole.
Recidivism rates for people incarcerated more than 6 months is something like 66% for one year post release.
There are private prisons that benefit from more prisoners. In many places the jail or prison is the largest and best employer.
... .. . You can go on forever. It's maybe getting better in some places, but not where they used to have slavery.
and human rights are derived from feudal rights. okay, and? is this just supposed to make you feel bad with scary words?
> Recidivism rates for people incarcerated more than 6 months is something like 66% for one year post release.
this sounds very much like you are mixing up cause and effect. is it surprising that someone who commits more serious crimes is more likely to commit further crimes?
What's relevant here is comparing different prison systems wrt Recidivism.
eg: Nine out of 10 South African criminals reoffend, while in Finland it’s 1 in 3. This is why
https://theconversation.com/nine-out-of-10-south-african-cri...
Yes.
> I was hoping the author would posit a causal model, adjust for a few different factors, and have something robust.
They did to a degree.
> Nope, nothing
Perhaps you might click through and read again.
> just a wall of text
A "wall of text" is something, this one was broken up with paragraphs and had a number of observations regarding systems in two countries and quotes from people in several countries.
> even quoting Derrida.
Would you be kind enough to quote the "quote", Ctrl-F Derrida returns zilch, and expand on why that particular quote offends you?
> Empiricism is slowly dying, in large part due to truth seeking becoming subservient to confirmation bias.
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana
Where? I’m fairly facile with causal inference; this is the crudest observational “study” without even qualitative heuristics to make the comparisons apples-to-apples.
> and expand on why that particular quote offends you?
Generic low tolerance for high V, low M academics: https://infoproc.blogspot.com/2011/06/high-v-low-m.html?m=1
This is the paper he links to, where you can find references to Derrida: https://unisapressjournals.co.za/index.php/Phronimon/article...
Anyway, if this is the kind of nonsense that convinces you, I don’t intent to continue this discussion. We have very different notions of what qualifies as evidence.
My point on recidivism is that US jails focus on punitive rather than rehabilitative justice.
" the stats don't indicate any persistent institutional success despite decades of effort and rotating fashions"
This is the exact problem that fuels mass incarceration and costs us tax payers and society infinite sums. In some places, even in Texas this model has been rejected because it's more expensive for tax payers to jail everyone.
Let's spell it out for the obstinate:
Jails have incentive to fill beds.
Jails have incentive to not rehabilitate.
Inmates go to jail and become worse because they're in a bad place.
Inmates are released with hostile support (probation).
Jail bed gets filled.
....
It's clear you hate people. Most people in jail haven't even been convicted of a crime. Nearly all plea, and rarely any go to trial.
extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Where is the enslavement?