Yes. They cut you off from all human contact. Feed you the most bland food in a bar form literally called nutrabars. Lights are kept on 24 hours a day and you're left in that place for as long as you refuse to work. Solitary confinement is no longer legal in most places but luckily restricted housing, segregated housing, and special or intensive management are the exact same thing but are completely legal still.
Oh you want to see other people and get fresh air? Guess you're willing to work now?
In addition to what the other guy said, the parole board also looks upon it unfavorably. You don't want to be a slave? Well then, for your "bad attitude" and "lack of rehabilitation," get ready to serve your whole sentence instead of only half of it.
Maybe the issue isn't ultimately the immigration laws or the prison complex. Maybe they're just proximate causes, like symptoms of some deeper issue. Maybe it has something to do with greed and exploitation?
Laws and regulations can only go far to stop private citizens from abusing the weak and helpless, but it is better if they exist, there's a chance they may be enforced.
Whatchu think wage labor is? Companies lease you for your labor, and can nullify the contract agreement (i.e. fire you) at will. If you work for a wage, you’re a wage slave.
On the other hand, let's not minimize American prison slavery by saying "we're all slaves". If you strain the definition you can argue all workers under capitalism are enslaved, but even then, some forms of slavery are far more brutal and dehumanizing (and racist. Let's not forget racist) than others.
Yeah, especially since the majority of imprisoned people tend to be non-white (this is an issue with our justice system, I'm absolutely not saying non-whites do more crime, only they're convicted far more often due to a racist system. A great many are innocent.) this will turn into 1 to 1 a facsimile of slavery from yesteryear. Bunch of white landowners leasing cheap labor (suspiciously predominantly non-white) from people who have no other legal options. Gross.
That's like living as another slave of a dictatorship, versus living as a free person in a democracy. In context I think they're talking about typical (dictatorship) corporations.
I think California is the only state that is a current initiative to ban prison slavery. It's on the ballot this November and it's important that we vote for it.