No state has a longer, more profit-driven history of contracting prisoners out to private companies than Alabama. With a sprawling labor system that dates back more than 150 years — including the brutal convict leasing era that replaced slavery — it has constructed a template for the commercialization of mass incarceration.

Most jobs are inside facilities, where the state’s inmates — who are disproportionately Black — can be sentenced to hard labor and forced to work for free doing everything from mopping floors to laundry. But more than 10,000 inmates have logged a combined 17 million work hours outside Alabama’s prison walls since 2018, for entities like city and county governments and businesses that range from major car-part manufacturers and meat-processing plants to distribution centers for major retailers like Walmart, the AP determined.

https://apnews.com/article/prison-to-plate-inmate-labor-investigation-alabama-3b2c7e414c681ba545dc1d0ad30bfaf5

  • hperrin@lemmy.caEnglish
    42·
    5 hours ago

    Yep. And it’s perfectly legal, because the US never banned slavery.

    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.

    I think we’re one of the only countries in the world who still has legal slavery. Pretty awful.

    • rottingleaf@lemmy.world
      11·
      33 minutes ago

      There are a few sharia lands and a bunch of not-yet-sharia lands with like half the population dreaming of it.

      Taken together - a huge chunk of the globe.

      There are also a few countries where the Western concept of slavery wouldn’t work, but with pretty feudal-despotic cultural legacy, like, ahem, Japan and Thailand and what not, which may have something similar to slavery again in future.

      So I wouldn’t say USA is that different.

      And in Russia there are whole small towns functional because of prison colony facilities there where prisoners work.

      Still, prisoners working for private companies with prisons collecting their wages, - seems kinda uncomfortably close. Because, yes, if they are safe enough to be let out into society, they are safe enough to not be prisoners.

    • andros_rex@lemmy.world
      8·
      3 hours ago

      Anytime you see one of those “silly laws” - stuff about not being able to ride a horse on Sunday or whatever - that’s why. “Vagrancy” laws were basically put in place to funnel black men into legal enslavement.

  • LateGreatHannibalLecter@lemmy.world
    75·
    3 hours ago

    Alabama is a very cruel and inhumane place full of borderline retarded sociopaths. And stupid-ass rednecks and women who look like a 5 but think they’re a 10. Mouth breathing morons in pickup trucks. A baptist church on every corner. Bojangles. Arresting people for smoking THCA that was legally bought from a gas station and charging them with marijuana possession and posting their mugshot all over the internet (happened to me). Cops who’ve known each other since kindergarten who peaked in high school and think at a third grade level. Hostility towards outsiders wrapped in a thin veneer of southern “hospitality”. Backstabbing gossipy little bitches, men included, everywhere you look. Nobody means what they say. If they act nice to you, it means they don’t like you. Many of them get off on taunting and tormenting other people. Football. Trees, lots of trees. There are diseases lurking you would expect to find in a developing country. The state is third world tier all around. The people are basically malicious, fundamentally. Let’s see what else… Oh yeah they all look inbred as fuck.

    • nadiaraven@lemmy.world
      43·
      3 hours ago

      Ok, so many things to unpack here. First, it’s important to remember that these kinds of issues are very much systematic. You can’t point your finger at one person or even one state and say that they are the issue. The issue here is deep seated racism in the United States, legalized slavery that is literally written into the US constitution. And Alabama being a poor state filled with uneducated people is not those people’s fault. It again comes back to racism and other huge issues of inequality. It’s best to have some curiosity. Why is Alabama full of these issues? Is it because people are different there? Probably not, it’s not like evolution works that fast on a geographic area that isn’t isolated. So you have to ask why, and look for the self perpetuating power dynamics. Second, insulting one group of people by referencing another group using a slur damages both groups. People with intellectual and developmental disabilities are vulnerable to discrimination and exploitation. Let’s not try to solve the problem of racism by deepening the problem of ableism. We have to work on it all at the same time. Power structures arise because one group exploits vulnerabilities in another. When you put down a whole group of people, it is likely because you feel that lack of powerlessness that comes with being in a hierarchy, and you’re acquiring power for yourself by rendering others less powerful than you. This isnt a moral failing on your part, instead, I would say that it’s an ineffective strategy that only serves to further entrench the hierarchy and your place in it. Instead, let’s work to equalize everyone, lifting up everyone to the same height.

      OK thanks for listening.

      • LateGreatHannibalLecter@lemmy.world
        62·
        2 hours ago

        Oh, you want to lecture me huh? Alright, well I guess it’s easy to take the moral high ground when you aren’t the one trapped in a small town where everybody is playing a game of telephone and you’re the target. I’m well aware of the systemic issues and it only makes me hate them even more knowing that the vast majority of them perpetuate the injustices that I am now a victim of. When I see these people smiling and laughing with their families I know that just beneath that there is a viciousness that could just as easily be pointed in my direction depending on the context. They have no empathy or awareness for the collateral damage their insular “society” inflicts on me, just insults and mockery. Absolute vileness. These people make my life a living hell every time I leave the house. They are like a bottomless well of venom and malice and they always have a way of making it known to me in the subtlest and most passive- aggressive ways. Let me tell you, I did not know the meaning of hate before I came here. I do now. They taught me very well.

        And you know what? Trump will give them everything they deserve. I think I’m starting to warm up to the guy for that reason alone. 30 days, assholes. Tick tock.

    • WhatAmLemmy@lemmy.worldEnglish
      54·
      8 hours ago

      So slavey never ended! Cool cool. Totally not a corporate dictatorship masquerading as a democracy…

      • pyre@lemmy.world
        23·
        2 hours ago

        the laws never pretended it ended. the thirteenth ammendment very plainly allows it:

        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.

        emphasis mine. it never said you can’t have slavery any more, it just said if you’re gonna do slavery you have to convict someone first.

        • Crikeste@lemm.ee
          8·
          4 hours ago

          That’s how propagandized Americans are. lmfao They act as if this is some shadowy hidden part of our culture

          • Klear@lemmy.worldEnglish
            1·
            14 minutes ago

            It’s not like you’d expect people to be closely acquainted with an obscure legal document like the constitution.

            Oh, wait…

      • Ignotum@lemmy.world
        19·
        8 hours ago

        Yup, it never ended, it just rebranded
        I believe it’s called neoslavery, I think the last privately (legally) owned slave was released in 1946 if i recall correctly, now the only legal slavery is prisons

  • FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world
    1371·
    11 hours ago

    It’s legal per the 13th Amendment.

    Doesn’t make it right, and it says a lot about how little both parties value human rights that it’s allowed to stand.

      • beliquititious@lemmy.blahaj.zone
        20·
        10 hours ago

        Literally in some cases recently freed slaves were arrested for being black and leased back to the same locations where they were enslaved to the same people.

        • FordBeeblebrox@lemmy.world
          141·
          9 hours ago

          That’s where our tireless and dedicated police force got started, the racism hasn’t gone anywhere they just have better toys now

          • corsicanguppy@lemmy.caEnglish
            112·
            9 hours ago

            I bet there were cops before that.

            I’m thinking that there were cops quite a while before America was a thing.

            But thanks for the surprising lack of history.

            • FordBeeblebrox@lemmy.world
              12·
              9 hours ago

              Perhaps I should have specified I am an American talking about American police in America, to make it easier for you to follow along but thank you for the surprising and completely unnecessary rudeness on behalf of the pigs though, happy holidays and fuck off to lick laces 🙂

  • sik0fewl@lemmy.ca
    16·
    9 hours ago

    If you don’t want slavery, then make it illegal. Maybe even make a constitutional amendment.

    • sik0fewl@lemmy.ca
      14·
      8 hours ago

      You must not be American - the thirteenth amendment codifies slavery and involuntary servitude into the constitution.

      • can@sh.itjust.works
        5·
        7 hours ago

        I’m not, but I am familiar with that but I didn’t know it went this far. It’s so blatent.

        edit: fellow canadian

        • sik0fewl@lemmy.ca
          6·
          7 hours ago

          Ya, I’m hyperbolizing a little bit… But not really. The 13th amendment is what outlawed black slavery in the United States… But also explicitly allows slavery in the United States:

          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.

    • cybervseas@lemmy.worldEnglish
      26·
      10 hours ago

      I’m sorry to say the Prison-Industrial Complex is a huge problem, and part of why this country has some of the highest incarceration rates in the world 🙁

      • FordBeeblebrox@lemmy.world
        6·
        9 hours ago

        Companies like Bob Barker (not the tv one) and Sysco are quietly making mountains of cash to supply all those “leasable” inmates with the lowest possible quality food and toiletries. I would love to see a political candidate campaign on repealing the 13th amendment, I doubt it’ll happen any time soon but one can hope.

      • can@sh.itjust.works
        5·
        8 hours ago

        I was aware but I didn’t know it was this level.

        I can only hope more and more Americans realise we’re looking over in horror.

        • orcrist@lemm.ee
          1·
          6 hours ago

          Americans on average don’t think your looks of horror have weight. Clearly America is superior, so you’re just jealous and looking for something trivial to make yourself feel better, is the gut reaction. (Sad to say.)