The Convict Leasing Forced Labor System
The Convict Leasing Forced Labor System
Either stay in your country or go through the proper channels. Or work as a field laborer for pennies on the dollar…sounds like there are a couple choices here, no one is forcing people to cross illegally.
In your rush to dunk on folks who have made a difficult decision at a low point in their likely quite difficult lives, you failed to actually read what you replied to. But I’m guessing your response is now “they are criminals so they have no rights, and so who cares about their humanity.”
If you want an example, the hellhole prison nicknamed “Angola” (because it’s full of black people haha so funny) is a good case study for why this is slavery and not just prisoners paying their way through prison.
They’re forced to do work or get solitary confinement, make $0.02/hr under inhumane conditions, punish people who get heat stroke, don’t provide shade or fans or clean water (literally, they have to drink dirty water if they don’t use their teeny wages to buy water) or anything, in temperatures that exceed 113°F in Louisiana. They’re forced to water plants with paper cups, pick rotten fruit by hand, weeding by hand, it’s all totally pointless shit an the cruelty is the point.
Why is it supposed to be funny? It’s true that the majority is black and Angola is a nation in Africa, is that embarrassing to blacks?
Calling the slave plantation “Angola” to mock the Black people forced to work there is clearly a reference to America’s history of chattel slavery of Black people.
They helped keep me alive because I was facing 20 years at 100% and had a lot of suicidal thoughts.
The heat at the Angola slave plantation literally kills people and causes them to self harm.
Oh did I mention this is a juvenile prison?
Death to America
So you want to use this case to abolish any work opportunities for inmates across the US?
The concept of prison labor isn’t inherently bad, I have nothing against gulags for example.
I want to abolish the ability to profit from it because it incentivised the creation of the largest prison population on Earth. America is literally the worst on Earth, by the numbers, and it’s solely because of the perverse incentive structure created by for-profit prison slave labor.
I also think much of the work is pointless and sadistic makework (like forcing people to water fields with paper cups in extreme heat - how is that supposed to make people not want to kill themselves?) That’s just torture for the fun of the prison guards, not work.
Children in the custody of Louisiana’s Office of Juvenile Justice being held in a former death row building at an adult prison are suffering dangerous heat conditions and routine isolation in their cells that experts say could cause serious and irreversible harm, according to a federal court filing Monday.
You don’t believe juveniles should be punished for rape and murder?
Being in prison is already punishment. Torturing them in the heat and Sun is just pointless sadism.
So do you do any kind of work or activism against this place or prison labor for profit? Have you ever visited Angola or any prison ? Have you seen these fields?
I can barely convince myself not to drive into oncoming traffic on the way home from work.
Yesterday I beat the shit out of myself with my bare fists because of the heat and stress of factory labor. Literally punched myself in the face over and over as hard as I could. I look like I was swarmed by bees.
I think if I put more on my plate I’d do something to get myself put in prison.
You seem really passionate and I think if you will get your hands dirty then you could help make some significant changes.
You think I’m the first person to give a shit? Many people much smarter and stronger than me are fighting against modern slavery, all I can do is support them. I’d fuck it up.