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
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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.