Prison Management: “But parolees don’t perform legal slave labor and can’t be tortured on a daily basis!”
this post was submitted on 22 Jan 2024
134 points (96.5% liked)
politics
19159 readers
5438 users here now
Welcome to the discussion of US Politics!
Rules:
- Post only links to articles, Title must fairly describe link contents. If your title differs from the site’s, it should only be to add context or be more descriptive. Do not post entire articles in the body or in the comments.
Links must be to the original source, not an aggregator like Google Amp, MSN, or Yahoo.
Example:
- Articles must be relevant to politics. Links must be to quality and original content. Articles should be worth reading. Clickbait, stub articles, and rehosted or stolen content are not allowed. Check your source for Reliability and Bias here.
- Be civil, No violations of TOS. It’s OK to say the subject of an article is behaving like a (pejorative, pejorative). It’s NOT OK to say another USER is (pejorative). Strong language is fine, just not directed at other members. Engage in good-faith and with respect! This includes accusing another user of being a bot or paid actor. Trolling is uncivil and is grounds for removal and/or a community ban.
- No memes, trolling, or low-effort comments. Reposts, misinformation, off-topic, trolling, or offensive. Similarly, if you see posts along these lines, do not engage. Report them, block them, and live a happier life than they do. We see too many slapfights that boil down to "Mom! He's bugging me!" and "I'm not touching you!" Going forward, slapfights will result in removed comments and temp bans to cool off.
- Vote based on comment quality, not agreement. This community aims to foster discussion; please reward people for putting effort into articulating their viewpoint, even if you disagree with it.
- No hate speech, slurs, celebrating death, advocating violence, or abusive language. This will result in a ban. Usernames containing racist, or inappropriate slurs will be banned without warning
We ask that the users report any comment or post that violate the rules, to use critical thinking when reading, posting or commenting. Users that post off-topic spam, advocate violence, have multiple comments or posts removed, weaponize reports or violate the code of conduct will be banned.
All posts and comments will be reviewed on a case-by-case basis. This means that some content that violates the rules may be allowed, while other content that does not violate the rules may be removed. The moderators retain the right to remove any content and ban users.
That's all the rules!
Civic Links
• Congressional Awards Program
• Library of Congress Legislative Resources
• U.S. House of Representatives
Partnered Communities:
• News
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
The slave labor is only in Arizona, I believe. Could be wrong on that.
Parole does defeat the primary purpose of prison; I think across the board everyone would be happier if we properly funded our prisons, like Norway does.
No it’s in every system Arizona has some particularly egregious behavior in one of its jails where slave labor is federally illegal but prisons across the country use slave labor. Often they do provide financial compensation but not enough to have a full stomach and regular communication with your family, but more to the point, the labor isn’t optional.
And yeah at times it’s been particularly egregious like after the civil war where one state built walls around a plantation and sent prisoners (often freedmen arrested on bullshit charges) to work it.
My attitude is no new prisons. No new space for prisoners. I fully endorse prison reform with those conditions. For every cell spot built, one must be rendered unusable and irreparable. Often prison reform is used to smuggle in new prisons with the old ones still operating same as always. I want them to be dens of rehabilitation but I don’t trust them to do that. The guards are just as evil as the criminals and we have way too many prisoners. No other country has the prisoners per capita we have. We don’t try to alleviate the material conditions that create crime. We don’t try to remove laws that hurt more than help. We don’t treat ex prisoners as people. And we don’t rehabilitate.
The US have the highest prison population in the world, so maybe, just maybe, they could try locking up fewer people? You know, like those in for marijuana possession, homelessness, poverty or mental illness?
Don't forget innocent people
No, the vast majority of the states still have slave labor. The 13th amendment aboloshed slavery "except as punishment for a crime." Last I checked only six states had changed their state constitutions to abolish all slavery, even in prison, though several others had ballot measures to do the same, so maybe there's more now.
The slave labor is only in Arizona, I believe. Could be wrong on that.
Even if true, it's enshrined in the US constitution and could pop up in any state that doesn't have its own laws against it
Extend minimum wage laws to inmates. If you're going to make them work, you have to pay them at least minimum wage.
You can garnish their wages to cover victim restitution, child support, alimony, judgments, etc, so they might not be the ones actually receiving the money. But you will be paying them.
Well first they need to remove that bit about slavery being totally cool if your slaves are felons.
It's constitutionally permitted, not constitutionally protected. Congress, or the states, can legislate it away.
Parole isn't the issue when we have more people incarcerated per capital than anywhere. The problems go back to insufficiently restrained capitalism and systemic racism.
Fix it with better social policies so fewer people are poor, so fewer are resorting to drugs instead of actual mental health treatment, and so certain people aren't perpetually targeted by law enforcement steeped in systemic racism.
Oh and legalize drugs because the war failed decades ago and was only ever intended to suppress certain people.
And eliminate privately owned/run prisons so there's no longer a profit motive.
That would make too much sense and loose big prison corpo too much money.