US prisoners are being assigned dangerous jobs. But what happens if they are hurt or killed?
US prisoners are being assigned dangerous jobs. But what happens if they are hurt or killed?
An Associated Press investigation into prison labor in the United States found that prisoners who are hurt or killed on the job are often being denied the rights and protections offered to other American workers.
Blas Sanchez was nearing the end of a 20-year stretch in an Arizona prison when he was leased out to work at Hickman’s Family Farms, which sells eggs that end up in the supply chains of huge companies like McDonald’s, Target and Albertsons. While assigned to a machine that churns chicken droppings into compost, his right leg got pulled into a chute with a large spiraling augur.
“I could hear ‘crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch,’” Sanchez said. “I couldn’t feel anything, but I could hear the crunch.”
He recalled frantically clawing through mounds of manure to tie a tourniquet around his bleeding limb. He then waited for what felt like hours while rescuers struggled to free him so he could be airlifted to a hospital. His leg was amputated below the knee.
Nationwide, hundreds of thousands of prisoners are put to work every year, some of whom are seriously injured or killed after being given dangerous jobs with little or no training, The Associated Press found. They include prisoners fighting wildfires, operating heavy machinery or working on industrial-sized farms and meat-processing plants tied to the supply chains of leading brands. These men and women are part of a labor system that – often by design – largely denies them basic rights and protections guaranteed to other American workers.
...when he was leased out to work at Hickman's Family Farms
I love how the article opens with this, because leasing people like property is totally cool and fine in America, because old piece paper said it is ok.
Prisoners can be used as slaves. It's right there in the constitution.
We can still ban it, it’s just not constitutionally prohibited
Slavery never ended. A carveout for slavery is still legal slavery. We haven't ended slavery in America at all, just changed the legal method of obtaining a slave and making it so only corporations get to have slaves.
We're such a fucking disgusting sorry excuse for a country.
(For those "JuSt LeAvE tHeN" I wish I could, but any country worth a damn has strict immigration requirement$ I don't meet...)
i wonder which other countries do the same?
looks like its poland, brazil, rwanda, belarus, vietnam, egypt, myanmar, mongolia, china, mali, zimbabwe, turkmenistan, russia, libya, eritrea, north korea.
just changed the legal method of obtaining a slave and making it so only corporations get to have slaves.
The Arkansas Governor's mansion was staffed by prison inmates for over a century. A lot of the post-80s privatization has resulted in convicts becoming corporate chattle. But for a long while we had a more traditional fascist take of public sector slave labor.
There's a reason the average black male spends 1/3 of their life in prison in America.
And then has the right to vote taken away when they get out....
This is so obviously bullshit, but I looked it up anyways. The closest source I could find was this page which claims a black male born in 2001 has a 1 in 3 chance of going to prison.
So yea. Don't lie, it discredits your cause.
It's the new 2/3 compromise.
Source:
But what happens if they are hurt or killed?
What do you guys at the Associated Press think was the point of the drug war?
Fun fact: the amendment that outlawed slavery also legalizes slavery.
There is no US without slavery.
Just move it to the third world like the rest of us already for fuck's sake.
Something about changing the past. We’ve got top men working on it though.
The US really wants slavery again.
It never totally went away.
The Thirteenth Amendment (Amendment XIII) to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. Source
The last correct take Kanye had.
Friendly reminder that chattel slavery didn't end in the United States until almost ww2, and
some places still illegally enslaved black families continously since the civil war up until the 1980s. (EDIT: I thought that I remembered an old AP article online about this from the 1980s about a police raid at a farm compound somewhere in Alabama. However, I cannot find the original source for this claim, so I am retracting it. From what I remember of the story, this family had basically just kept their slaves hidden away on their small plantation during reconstruction, then just kept them hidden away from the rest of society by not allowing them to leave the compound. Someone finally escaped during the 1980s, was discovered, and eventually taken into police custody. This eventually led to the raid on the compound and the AP article that I remember.)Then obviously prison slave labor is still an ongoing issue.
The US want to cut out the whole fake justice system portion that illegally targets poor and minorities, and jump straight to slavery again FTFY
Same thing that happens when other slaves are hurt or killed on the job.
Not a hell of a lot.
If they are killed, they probably die.
Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer.
Slavery is enshrined in the US Constitution so probably nothing
You get another prisoner? Sorry didn't read the article.
Don't think you need to with a question as obvious as that.
Actually, they die or get hurt.
Considering the medical system in America totally fucks everyone, I would assume prisoners would also be fucked.
Hickman’s Family Farms: our workers may not be cage free, but the chickens are.
Can prisoners deny work placements? Like do they get any say in this? I'm guessing there would be some sort of retaliation which is why they accept them, that or there's a promise of a shorter sentance or something.
They can, but performing work is one of the things that is taken into account when determining whether or not a prisoner has had "good behavior", and "good behavior" can get a prisoner's sentence reduced.
So, effectively, they are coerced into accepting work placements.
It's carrot and stick. They can get released earlier but refusing has led to abuse by guards too.