“Slavery has always been a legal institution. And it never ended.”
April 5, 2016 2:06 PM   Subscribe

prisoners are the slaves of today, and that slavery affects our society economically, morally and politically.” (pdf)
posted by jeffburdges (41 comments total) 29 users marked this as a favorite
 
Dang I hope they stay safe. And I hope they win too.

Anyone know what I can do to support the cause?
posted by sotonohito at 2:19 PM on April 5, 2016 [4 favorites]


It'll help them win if the strike was timed to maximize damage some particular time sensitive crop. And if they can repeat it to damage a few more.

It'll help their case enormously if depending upon prison labor costs the agriculture business owners money and predictability.
posted by jeffburdges at 2:54 PM on April 5, 2016


Bravo for them. It's quite a (horrifying) perspective realigner to realize that not only does the US have the highest incarceration rate in the world, but we've used it to legally recreate the slave state we supposedly abolished via the Civil War.
posted by Existential Dread at 3:02 PM on April 5, 2016 [24 favorites]


This was all carefully documented and explained in the book SLAVERY BY ANOTHER NAME some time ago.
posted by Postroad at 3:43 PM on April 5, 2016 [11 favorites]


Everyone should minimum wage. Period. Not pay for prison, literally with rent, but to actually earn income.

The impact socioeconomicly if prisoners earned minimium wage or higher would be huge. Not only would prisoners have money for housing upon leanving, they could supports their families.

Our prisons abs jails are insane, abusive and hostile. That can be changed.
posted by AlexiaSky at 3:44 PM on April 5, 2016 [12 favorites]


I still think that SLAVES are the slaves of today, though I agree that prisoners are treated horribly and exploited by both the govt. and private companies.
posted by jfwlucy at 4:03 PM on April 5, 2016 [3 favorites]


This was all carefully documented and explained in the book SLAVERY BY ANOTHER NAME some time ago.

Some other excellent books on this subject that document mass incarceration's cultural ties to slavery and how it has specifically affected Black men (the parallels may seem exaggerated until you read the evidence):
Worse Than Slavery by David Oshinsky (on Parchman Farm)
Texas Tough by Robert Perkinson
The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander
posted by thetortoise at 4:16 PM on April 5, 2016 [11 favorites]


Our justices systems can force people to work but they choose to make them do it for essentially nothing. We choose to be evil and use the constitution as a smoke screen.
posted by Slackermagee at 4:30 PM on April 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


Our justices systems can force people to work but they choose to make them do it for essentially nothing. We choose to be evil and use the constitution as a smoke screen.

Welcome to the entirety of American history. Everything is sacrificed in the interests of capital from the moment white men set foot on the land.
posted by Talez at 5:06 PM on April 5, 2016 [13 favorites]


Support Prisoner Resistance has a post on how to support them and includes another post on the prisoners' demands. They're using the hashtag #EyesOnTexas on Facebook and Twitter.
posted by Deoridhe at 5:58 PM on April 5, 2016 [8 favorites]


I still think that SLAVES are the slaves of today, though I agree that prisoners are treated horribly and exploited by both the govt. and private companies

Have you read the US Constitution? I have. These prisoners are performing slave labour, and thus are slaves.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 6:04 PM on April 5, 2016 [4 favorites]


In Texas, prisoners have traditionally worked on farms, raising hogs and picking cotton, especially in East Texas, where many prisons occupy former plantations.

“If you’ve ever seen pictures of prisoners in Texas working in the fields, it looks like what it is,” Greene said. “It’s a plantation: The prisoners are all dressed in white, they got their backs bent over whatever crop they’re tending, the guards are on horseback with rifles.” In the facilities Greene visited, prisoners worked all day in the heat only to return to cells with no air conditioning. “The conditions are atrocious, and it’s about time the Texas prison administration had to take note.”
My. God.
I knew about prison labor and how it was more or less modern day slavery. And I'm not suggesting that the license plate-stamping image conjured up suggests it's a better job than cotton picking or that it's less slave labor. But it at least pretends to be something a little different. I had no idea we were so bold to literally have people still picking on cotton farms:

So brash that it's the same plantations. And because we Americans love our punishment:
Although mechanical cotton pickers are almost universally used on modern-day farms, Angola prisoners must harvest by hand, echoing the exact ritual that characterized the plantation before emancipation.
This article features some images that frankly should be seen by everyone.

Least we think forcing prisoners to pick cotton is a new phenomenon, it has pictures dated 1975. We have no shame.
posted by [insert clever name here] at 6:05 PM on April 5, 2016 [16 favorites]


I got into a very heated family conversation about making inmates work corporate contracts with my mother, my aunt, and her wife, who are both very liberal people, but tried to characterize this as job training. That actually suggested being against forced labor made me more conservative, and it's one of the more baffling conversations I've ever had.
posted by lownote at 6:13 PM on April 5, 2016 [3 favorites]


Slavery remains legal in the US under certain circumstances.
Here's the text from the Constitution of the United States:
"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."

What is the difference between "slavery" and being required to work? According to the Washington State Legislature website: "Every prisoner in a state correctional facility shall be required to work".

UNICOR, a company that employs prisoners, publishes a delightfully named pamphlet, from which you'll learn that: "Absenteeism is the bane of the contact center world. UNICOR has effectively eliminated this issue from the equation".

It is true; slaves are rarely absent.
posted by pickles_have_souls at 7:05 PM on April 5, 2016 [10 favorites]


Prisoners are indeed performing slave labor. But they do still retain some human rights that are not granted to actual slaves. Their children, for example, are not automatically slaves. They cannot be forced to donate kidneys or be physically mutilated by the state. They cannot be made to bear children. They cannot be randomly killed without at least some type of investigation and report happening. These conditions do apply to the actual condition of chattel slave humans.

I agree completely that the treatment of prisoners is inhumane and cruel. But they are not in the same dreadful position that the hundreds of thousands of actual slave humans are around the world.
posted by jfwlucy at 7:31 PM on April 5, 2016 [5 favorites]


Prisoners are indeed performing slave labor. But they do still retain some human rights that are not granted to actual slaves. Their children, for example, are not automatically slaves. They cannot be forced to donate kidneys or be physically mutilated by the state. They cannot be made to bear children. They cannot be randomly killed without at least some type of investigation and report happening. These conditions do apply to the actual condition of chattel slave humans.

On the flip side a chattel slave could buy their freedom.
posted by Talez at 7:39 PM on April 5, 2016 [7 favorites]


jfwlucy, I don't disagree with you in theory, but the system we've put in place is insidious and allows people to more easily turn a blind eye. Sure, children are not automatically enslaved themselves, but there is a system in place that ensures many will. Women prisoners often have no choice but to give up their children and their parental rights. Male prisoners too, often loose their parental rights either functionally or actually.

And it's a system that gaslights its victims into believing they are responsible for their fate. Rights are trampled on and rarely available to be exercised by those who are conscripted into this system.

And it happens all while maintaining plausible deniability.
posted by [insert clever name here] at 8:39 PM on April 5, 2016 [17 favorites]


Slavery remains legal in the US under certain circumstances.
Here's the text from the Constitution of the United States:
"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."


With thr prevalence of plea deals, I take issue with duly.

I know you're not making the case, I'm just saying. But given our complicated history with slavery, should probably be striken anyway.
posted by [insert clever name here] at 8:48 PM on April 5, 2016 [3 favorites]


Thanks for posting this. I hope it works. I'm personally ashamed to live in a country where this happens.
posted by guster4lovers at 9:16 PM on April 5, 2016 [2 favorites]


They cannot be made to bear children.
Oh?
posted by gingerest at 3:53 AM on April 6, 2016 [6 favorites]


Their children, for example, are not automatically slaves.

Sadly, a Black boy in Baltimore whose father is incarcerated during his childhood has an almost 100% of being incarcerated during his life. (cite) He's also three times more likely to experience homelessness.

They cannot be forced to donate kidneys or be physically mutilated by the state

One of the documented effects of solitary confinement is self-mutilation, actually.

They cannot be randomly killed
They are tortured to death and the investigation buried.

They cannot be made to bear children.
gingerest's link is all you need, here. But we could also talk about giving birth in shackles.

I appreciate that you are making a principled argument about the horrors of chattel slavery being even worse than the horrors of mass incarceration. The problem is that mass incarceration is only a slight improvement, and quibbling about the differences here seems a bit tone deaf. There are prisoners demanding to be freed from forced work. They are legally understood as "slaves," like literally we made sure not to fully abolish slavery so we could keep using that word for these people.

These are literally the worst-off human beings in our country. Let's listen to them when they speak rather than quibbling with their language.
posted by anotherpanacea at 5:27 AM on April 6, 2016 [30 favorites]


"With each reincarnation of racial caste, the new system, as sociologist Loic Wacquant puts it, "is less total, less capable of encompassing and controlling the entire race." However, any notion that this evolution reflects some kind of linear progress would be misguided, for it is not at
all obvious that it would be better to be incarcerated for life for a minor drug offense than to live with one's family, earning an honest wage under the Jim Crow regime—notwithstanding the ever-present threat of the Klan. Moreover, as the systems of control have evolved, they have become perfected, arguably more resilient to challenge, and thus capable of enduring for generations to come. The story of the political and economic underpinnings of the nation's founding sheds some light on these recurring themes in our history and the reasons new racial caste systems continue to be born."

Michelle Alexander
The New Jim Crow
posted by Pater Aletheias at 5:57 AM on April 6, 2016 [9 favorites]


I appreciate that you are making a principled argument about the horrors of chattel slavery being even worse than the horrors of mass incarceration. The problem is that mass incarceration is only a slight improvement, and quibbling about the differences here seems a bit tone deaf. There are prisoners demanding to be freed from forced work. They are legally understood as "slaves," like literally we made sure not to fully abolish slavery so we could keep using that word for these people.

I do get that, but I'm not sure I understand the last part of your argument here and it sounds interesting. We kept the term slavery reserved for actual chattel slaves in order to minimize the degradation of prisoners and their slave labor?

I suppose my thoughts on using the word slave is that it sometimes seems to approach Godwin levels of misuse and misappropriation as a rhetorical device. Im not interested in denying or minimizing the heinous mistreatment of prisoners in the US by any means. But when Prince appears with SLAVE written on his forehead at a press conference about his relationship with his record label, it becomes more difficult for people to take that word seriously.
posted by jfwlucy at 7:49 AM on April 6, 2016


I'm not sure I understand the last part of your argument here and it sounds interesting. We kept the term slavery reserved for actual chattel slaves in order to minimize the degradation of prisoners and their slave labor?

No. When we passed the 13th Amendment, we left a loophole. We did not abolish slavery completely; we abolished it in all cases except as a punishment for a crime. And then after Reconstruction ended in the South, plantations re-enslaved their former slaves, using the convict-lease system and bogus "crimes" to square this with the Constitution. The outside leasing of convict slave labor ended during World War II, but convict slave labor itself did not end: now convict slaves work inside of prisons rather than outside, for contractors who produce goods like clothing, furniture, books, and yes even license plates and lingerie.

It's of course also helpful to recognize that the reason we always append "chattel" to the use of slavery in the US is because slavery comes in many forms. Chattel slavery is certainly the cruelest and worst version of it, but we must acknowledge the people who are not chattel slaves can still be slaves.
posted by anotherpanacea at 8:00 AM on April 6, 2016 [5 favorites]


Sticking with the Constitutional angle, it's true that the 13th allows forced labor in case of punishment for a crime. But equally, the 8th forbids 'cruel and unusual punishment'; couldn't a case be brought that using prisoners for farm labor (totally legal under the 13th) as a punishment (we edge into the 8th) in a manner employed by, literally, no one else in the country, and is brutal and demeaning, is the very definition of 'cruel and unusual' (firmly in the territory of the 8th)?
posted by eclectist at 8:58 AM on April 6, 2016


Now I understand. Thank you.
posted by jfwlucy at 9:25 AM on April 6, 2016


I think it's a general provision of constitutional scholarship that something allowed by one amendment can't be outlawed by an earlier amendment. This is why the 8th Amendment can't really be understood to ban the death penalty; the Constitution itself calls for the death penalty in some cases. To the extent that the 8th Amendment would ever have barred forced labor, that ended when the 13th Amendment explicitly recommended forced labor as a punishment.

Now, I do think there's a 14th Amendment case for banning forced labor and allowing labor unionizing inside prisons. It's a pretty clear equal protection violation, because of how it effects African-Americans so disproportionately.
posted by anotherpanacea at 9:26 AM on April 6, 2016 [2 favorites]


Now, I do think there's a 14th Amendment case for banning forced labor and allowing labor unionizing inside prisons. It's a pretty clear equal protection violation, because of how it effects African-Americans so disproportionately.

Ahahahahaha. Oh boy. McClesky v. Kemp sets precedent here. You cannot charge the system with being racist no matter how racist it looks. You need hard evidence of racism.
posted by Talez at 7:11 PM on April 6, 2016


I am beating the horse, here, but for reference, here is the Thirteenth Amendment in its entirety:
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.
(I am not addressing the conflicting-amendments question because IANAL much less a constitutional scholar, I just wanted to show that anotherpanacea was making an entirely literally accurate statement.)
posted by gingerest at 9:13 PM on April 6, 2016


Ahahahahaha. Oh boy. McClesky v. Kemp sets precedent here. You cannot charge the system with being racist no matter how racist it looks. You need hard evidence of racism.

That's right. Under current interpretations, the US Constitution does not force us to confront the discriminatory institutions we inhabit merely because they produce deeply racist outcomes and impacts. Only judiciable intentions matter.

THAT SURE IS FUNNY. Aha. Ha. Ha. Ha.
posted by anotherpanacea at 1:44 PM on April 7, 2016


Ignoring our racist legal precedents, how should we fix the Thirteenth Amendment to both (a) forbid forced labor, while (b) enabling, or dramatically encouraging, community service? A "voluntary requirement" with some rule like x to y hours of community service per day of jail?
posted by jeffburdges at 2:57 PM on April 7, 2016


One possibility would be to fully abolish slavery, which would require another amendment. That's basically impossible right now, I suspect. That said, you don't encourage community service in the Constitution; you do it in statutes. Besides, prisoners aren't performing community service: they're working. As such, they are owed the same remuneration and protections that any other worker would receive. (That's my view.)

To be honest, though, I think labor is not the primary problem. The primary problem is that we have about seven times too many prisoners in the US. That is, we have seven times the global average. To be clear, that means we've got to reduce incarceration by 85% in this country JUST TO GET TO NORMAL. Worse, we actually have a relatively low violent crime rate, so there's no real justification for it.

Some people seem to think that we basically have to incarcerate all those people to keep the crime rate low. That is: they think the crime rate is low because the incarceration rate is high. Yet the best evidence suggests that this really isn't the case. The UK's violent crime rate is calculated a bit differently, but most estimates suggest it's at least double the US rate. Yet their incarceration rate is five times smaller than ours. Our crime rate is three times higher than France's, yet our incarceration rate is seven times higher. There's basically no relationship between the two!

Fix mass incarceration and the slavery thing stops being a meaningful issue.
posted by anotherpanacea at 4:27 PM on April 7, 2016 [1 favorite]


THAT SURE IS FUNNY. Aha. Ha. Ha. Ha.

I have to laugh because if I don't I'm probably going to spiral into a deep dark depression about the utterly fucking idiotic state of our justice system.
posted by Talez at 7:25 PM on April 7, 2016




Huh. That doesn't surprise me at all, jeffburdges. The Maryland prison system has much more restrictive rules, in the name of "victim protection." The students in the prison college program I run can't be filmed as a part of news stories or documentaries unless they're vetted by the DPSCS, and then most are excluded.

God I wish the EFF would challenge that. I've had three documentaries tanked as a result of Maryland's rules.
posted by anotherpanacea at 11:29 AM on April 13, 2016 [1 favorite]


I suggest you email the author David Mass <dm@eff.org> with some short description of those situations because such stories might either impact their interest in working on the case, or else might be relayed to the ACLU who might be better able to pursue that case. In fact, they might be useful in showing that non-prisoner's speech rights were being infringed upon. I'd CC someone with the ACLU too if I were sending that email.
posted by jeffburdges at 1:49 PM on April 14, 2016 [1 favorite]


Why I Hated Being a Cop
posted by jeffburdges at 11:00 AM on April 22, 2016




There is a thread on Virginia's governor restoring voting rights to felons, btw.
posted by jeffburdges at 9:38 AM on April 23, 2016 [1 favorite]






« Older Swiss in CSS   |   After 100 years, the verdict is in Newer »


This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments