this post was submitted on 22 Dec 2024
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A Boring Dystopia

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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

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[–] feedum_sneedson@lemmy.world 7 points 1 day ago (4 children)

I put it to you that this might, with a few tweaks, actually be a step in the right direction. I'd rather be at work than in prison. Community service is a thing. This is clearly coming at it backwards on pretty much every count, but there's a kernel of a good idea in there.

[–] conartistpanda@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Do you trust not being put in jail for anything they come up with?

[–] feedum_sneedson@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

Goodness no, I'd more or less expect it. The whole model is upside down.

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[–] arin@lemmy.world 20 points 1 day ago (1 children)

This is how states fight wildfires

[–] A7thStone@lemmy.world 15 points 1 day ago

And then they don't qualify to work as firefighters after they are released.

[–] sik0fewl@lemmy.ca 22 points 2 days ago

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

[–] can@sh.itjust.works 18 points 2 days ago (2 children)

please be satire, please be satire, please be satire

[–] sik0fewl@lemmy.ca 25 points 2 days ago (1 children)

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

[–] can@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

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 8 points 1 day 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.world 33 points 2 days ago (3 children)

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 🙁

[–] sunzu2@thebrainbin.org 9 points 2 days ago (1 children)

But Soviet Union had a gulag system... Totally different!

[–] AeonFelis@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

USA and USSR are different flavors of the same patterns.

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[–] FordBeeblebrox@lemmy.world 8 points 2 days 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 6 points 2 days ago (1 children)

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 5 points 1 day ago (1 children)

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.)

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[–] IDKWhatUsernametoPutHereLolol@lemmy.dbzer0.com 15 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago) (1 children)

Brian Thomson is just hibernating, Luigi is hereby acquitted!

[–] deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz 5 points 1 day ago

Spending a year dead for tax reasons

[–] grue@lemmy.world 11 points 2 days ago
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