TIL Prisoners in the US are part of a hidden workforce linked to hundreds of popular food brands

I love how there's actual companies like Coke, Pepsi, McD's, BK, Aldi, and then there's Kellog's Rice Krispies - Guess anything else Kellog's is fine then.

Except if it's from Aldi.

Who "sell" products? Which ones makes them?

Willie Ingram picked everything from cotton to okra during his 51 years in the state penitentiary, better known as Angola.

Fake news, this country only got fucked after Trump got elected or bush or reagan. It was all sunshine and peaches otherwise.

gReAtEsT cOuNtRtY iN tHe wOrLd

-most yankistanis

He was told he would serve 10 ½ years and avoid a possible death penalty, but it wasn’t until 2021 that a sympathetic judge finally released him. He was 73.

note: he was released because he wasn't usable as a prison laborer anymore. he was released because the prison couldn't make money off him anymore. he was released so he has to look for his own shelter.

Built into the constitution, in fact. 13th amendment.

Once it's in an amendment, it can't be changed again. Them's the rules.

The question to me is how could we fix it. I believe prison should be about herabilitation, but overall I'd say most of the population does not. Someone gets a DUI, robs a store, commits fraud, gets in a fight, beats their spouse, stabs someone, murders someone... whatever it is. People say they should be imprisoned, many say they should never be let out especially on multiple offenses. Most of the prisoners take the jobs because it is used as a "privilege.". You have to have good behavior to be eligible, then you choose one if you want with benefits that slowly "work off" hours of their sentences. (If it's available). Certain jobs pay more time off their sentences than others, and some will try to get into those jobs. Yet we will have people who scream that they shouldn't be let out after 5 years because they "insert crime here".

IF leaving their imprisonment and performing tasks in the world around people with good behavior isn't a step to proving they are re-integratable into society, what is? I would say they need a hell of a lot more therapy, access to actual healthcare, psychologists, and resources that allow for easy integration back into society so they can find gainful employment, cut ties with their past and land on two feet to be able to move forward without extreme struggles that bring them back in.

Our country doesn't vote for that, because those same things aren't available for citizens on the street who didn't commit crimes yet. And they think they are better and don't deserve less opportunities than those who did something illegal.

So I guess what I'm saying is the first step to reforming our prisons is reforming our healthcare system... And wage inequality... And fuck... It's not going anywhere

Lol I had to go look at the Australian information: https://modernslaveryregister.gov.au/statements/FkWupflwbKmOisg/pdf.

I love how their solution is "e-training" modules for their suppliers. Really performative guys.

A lot of companies here as well have legal provisions in the contracts we have with external vendors to state anti-slavery.

They're trying to build a prison, they're trying to build a prison, they're trying to build a prison - for you and me to live in

They also aren’t learning skills that will help them when they are released

That's by design. Teaching people skills to support themselves gives them an opportunity to break out of the cycle of recidivism. Teaching people skills that are useless for most employers but are profitable to the slavers ensures that they are left disadvantaged, where they'll eventually end up back in prison for another round.

To the same end, having a culture where employers are legally permitted to background-check candidates for any old job makes it harder for reformed criminals to reintegrate into society.

When adding "tough on crime" politicians and their legislature to the mix, you can begin to see exactly what the goal is.

For you and me to live iiin!

It will never be defeated for good. Fascism is very profitable

I don't need your civil war. It feeds the rich while it buries the poor.

It's pretty common for people to be released before they've served their full sentence. It makes sense if we were to consider the purpose of prison to be rehabilitation — someone who cooperates is far more likely to be deemed safe to release. The problem is that the penal system barely pays lip-service to rehabilitation. Ideologically, it seems like it's split between two, often contradictory models: the rehabilitative approach, and the punitive approach.

If someone is in for a crime where early parole seems likely (if good behaviour), then it's not so much that their sentence is being reduced for doing the menial work, but that they will experience an effective increase to their sentence if they refuse to work.

Plus even if someone was unlikely to get parole, I imagine they'd still be pretty disincentivised to resist. I know someone who did time, and there was a particular prison guard who hated her, and when this guard was working, she would often find that her food was bad in some way, such as mouldy bread (She struggled with depression and suicidality, which meant there were periods where she would eat her food in her cell alone, rather than in the canteen). She would also receive disproportionate punishment for things under this guard, such as being sent to solitary confinement if someone tried to start a fight with her. I think the original beef with this guard started when my friend spat in her face during initial processing, but my point is that guards have an insane amount of power to make someone's already miserable life even worse. I wouldn't be surprised if refusing to work might lead to privileges being removed for the entire group, which would mean the guards wouldn't even need to punish you — the other prisoners would do it.

The prison system is disgustingly inhumane even when they're following all the rules they're meant to. It's even worse in reality though, because of how little accountability there is. People trying to push for political change constantly hit a wall because the average politician doesn't want to stick their neck out for prisoners, and the average voter thinks of themselves as ontologically different to prisoners (who they see as criminals who deserve everything they get (which also ignores the fact that a heckton of innocent people are in prison))

" Or if their sentences get reduced for arbitrary menial work, that seems like a robbery of justice to victims"

Victims are already robbed of justice. They are dragged through the courts, often being retraumatised again and again, because the system cares more about punishment of criminals than it does about actually helping people heal from a crime. As someone who has been a victim of a violent crime, one of the most painful things was learning that the same person who had robbed me had gone on to do more severe crimes after their release. I hate knowing that the prison system made that outcome more likely, and I wonder whether there might have been more justice in the world had I not reported my attack. It feels like the sentence they got for robbing me might as well have been a death sentence, from what I've heard about them after they were released. Society says "once a criminal, always a criminal", and then it puts you in a context where all you can be is a criminal. It's fucked up and it hurts my heart to think about. Someone made a victim of me, and that was something awful that should never have happened. However, it's not justice to then turn that person into a victim too (especially as I learned that they had had a pretty fucked up life before attacking me. It doesn't excuse it, but it does help to explain it).

Sorry. That got longer and heavier than I expected. I feel quite strongly about this topic.

It's a scam, like everything in modern prisons. They intentionally underfeed prisoners, so that you have to buy extra food from the prison store, where it's overpriced but at least you'll get the calories and nutrients you need to stay healthy. Most prisoners don't have external income, so they are forced to work those prison jobs for pennies on the dollar.

And this is just one example of how prison administrators have intentionally set things up to fuck over prisoners as much as possible. In the U.S., it is sad but true that a large percent of the general public simply does not care, they think the prisoners "deserve it".

Oh, and those books you're talking about, do you think those come for free? Do you think you'll get them if you're on the guards' shit list because you're too lazy to work? That varies by location, but you can be sure that there's no guarantees of access to literature.

plus gays arent allowed to work