Depressing.
http://seankerrigan.com/five-stunning-facts-about-americas-prison-system-you-havent-heard/
From Sean Kerrigan--some journalist guy--and I ran across it on ZeroHedge, which iirc has some kind of negative reputation but I don't recall why. Anyway, it's sourced and stuff:
QuoteWe've done several exposés on the prison system in America, including The Prison System Runs Amok, Expands at Frightening Pace (Sept 6, 2012) and Selling the American Dream is the Biggest Market of All (Sept. 30, 2013), but there's still much more to be said about this topic. America's massive prison system is creating a long list of unintended consequences, some of which will effect all of us in the coming years. To help explain just how bad things have gotten, we've compiled this list of the most stunning facts and statistics on the America's prison system today.
1) Because of its prison system, the US is the only country in the world where more men are raped than women.
According to the 2011 report from Department of Justice, nearly one in 10 prisoners report having been raped or sexually assaulted by other inmates, staff or both. According to a revised report from the US Department of Justice, there were 216,000 victims of rape in US prisons in 2008. That is roughly 600 a day or 25 every hour.
Those numbers are of victims, not instances, which would be much higher since many victims were reportedly assaulted multiple times throughout the year. Excluding prison rapes, there about 200,000 rapes per year in America, and roughly 91 percent of those victims are women. If these numbers are accurate, this means that America is the only country in the world where more men are raped than women.
Even if the number of unreported rapes outside of prison were substantially larger than most experts believe, the fact that many victims in prison tend to be raped repeatedly would indicate that rape against men is at least comparable to rape against women.
Kendell Spruce was one such inmate, sentenced to six years for forging a check for which he hoped to purchase crack cocaine. In a National Prison Rape Elimination Commission testimony, Spruce said:
"I was raped by at least 27 different inmates over a nine month period. I don't have to tell you that it was the worst nine months of my life... [ I ] was sent into protective custody. But I wasn't safe there either. They put all kinds of people in protective custody, including sexual predators. I was put in a cell with a rapist who had full-blown AIDS. Within two days, he forced me to give him oral sex and anally raped me."
Spruce was diagnosed with "full blown AIDS" in 2002 and died three years later.
2) There are more black slaves in America today than in 1850.
This sounds outrageous. How can there be more slaves in America today than before the Civil War? First, consider there are more black men in prison today than there were slaves in 1850, according to Michelle Alexander, an Ohio State law professor, who cited the last census immediately before the Civil War. This comparison not account for changes in population, but the statistic is accurate in terms of sheer numbers .
Next, consider the 13th Amendment to the constitution which reads:
"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."
Note there is an exception to the otherwise total abolition of slavery. Those suffering "punishment for a crime" can still be constitutionally enslaved. In other words, everyone convicted of a crime is at least potentially a slave. The Supreme Court has not ruled on whether or not they technically are slaves, but practically it is obvious they are.
Slavery has different definitions, but almost all include the following characteristics: 1) A slave is forced to work under threat of physical or psychological threat. 2) A slave is considered owned property, an asset or commodity which can be sold. Finally, a slave has restrictions on their liberties, including freedom of movement. Right or wrong, a US prison inmate easily meets this criteria.
Prisoners can be denied communication with their fellow inmates, or forbidden from voluntary associations including union membership. Obviously, they are denied their freedom to leave the prison, but they are also forced to work unpaid or for extremely low wages. Prisoners are effectively being bought and sold to private corporations who are using them as cheep labor for private gains. There is also a market for younger and healthier prisoners because their healthcare cost make them less expensive to hold. Private prison contracts allow the transfer of prisoners to state run institutions.
If this is not slavery, then what is?
3) Solitary confinement, widely used in American prisons, is regarded internationally as torture.
This form of punishment has become increasingly common in the US since it was introduced as a part of America's then new "Supermax" prison system which began growing in the mid-1980s. Prisoners held in solitary confinement are typically kept in a small, windowless cell for 23 hours a day, with minimal access to lawyers, family and guards. The number of prisoners currently in solitary is estimated to be around 80,000, though the number is growing faster than the overall prison population, indicating the method is becoming increasingly normalized.
Solitary confinement is used against a variety of offenders, including those picked up for immigration violations, which is a misdemeanor or the legal equivalent of a reckless driving ticket. Others are placed in solitary confinement "for their own protection" since they may be a target of other violent inmates. There are few regulations prohibiting its use or duration.
The Sun Times reports that Former US Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr., who is currently serving a prisons sentence for breaking campaign finance laws, was removed from the general prison population and placed in solitary confinement for 5 days after "advising other inmates in North Carolina about their rights in prison, according to the source, who said a guard took exception to that."
Human rights groups have called the practice torture. The Center for Constitutional Rights argues:
"Researchers have demonstrated that prolonged solitary confinement causes a persistent and heightened state of anxiety and nervousness, headaches, insomnia, lethargy or chronic tiredness, nightmares, heart palpitations, and fear of impending nervous breakdowns. Other documented effects include obsessive ruminations, confused thought processes, an oversensitivity to stimuli, irrational anger, social withdrawal, hallucinations, violent fantasies, emotional flatness, mood swings, chronic depression, feelings of overall deterioration, as well as suicidal ideation."
This was known as far back as the 1890s, when the Supreme Court originally ruled on the practice. They noted then:
"A considerable number of the prisoners fell, after even a short confinement, into a semi-fatuous condition, from which it was next to impossible to arouse them, and others became violently insane; others still committed suicide, while those who stood the ordeal better were not generally reformed, and in most cases did not recover sufficient mental activity to be of any subsequent service to the community."
Despite this admission, the practice itself wasn't ruled on and the method is still used today.
4) The food served in prisons is often stale, moldy, under-cooked, unhealthy and scarce.
In the 1940s, prison food used to be good, offering a wide variety of options. Today, they call it "shit on a shingle." The reality is not much worse. State budget cuts and the trend to privatize prisons and prison services has substantially cut food variety and quality.
Incentives to cut costs exist at the institutional and individual level. In Alabama, state law allows law enforcement to pocket leftover funds after feeding prisoners provided they can still provide for their basic needs. The incentive to cut on quality and quantity resulted in the arrest and sentencing of Morgan County Sheriff Greg Bartlett who kept over $200,000 in funds intended for prisoners. The judge concluded that Bartlett had failed to provide "a nutritionally adequate diet."
In April 2008, 277 prisoners at Florida's Santa Rosa Correctional Institution became sick after eating chili. The Tampa Bay Times repoted the Philadelphia based food provider, Aramark, "landed the state contract in 2001 and is currently paid $2.67 per inmate for three meals a day. It serves about 60,000 inmates across Florida and contends it has saved the state $100-million in food costs." The chili story is not an anomaly; it has been repeated across the country including New Jersey, where Aramark also provides meals.
This video shows some of what prisoners in Alabama are forced to eat — rotten and uncooked meat. It's difficult to hear, but skip to 0:59 to get a good view of what the meat looks like.
Even when the food isn't rotten, that doesn't mean it is particularly appetizing. Occasionally, the food tastes so bad that it has been considered "unconstitutional" in some states. States like Illinois and Pennsylvania feed inmates a food called "Nutraloaf," a mix of raw vegetables shaped like a meatloaf. In this video, the staff of the Glens Fall Post Star newspaper taste test the block of food. They conclude, "One bite is one thing, but if you have to live on that, that is awful."
Sickness and hunger are a common and increasingly accepted part of being a prisoner in America. In addition to stale and rotten food, servings are often extremely small. Truthdig columnist Chris Hedges quotes a prison inmate who said, "You could eat six portions like the ones we served and still be hungry. If we put more than the required portion on the tray the Aramark people would make us take it off. It wasn't civilized. I lost 30 pounds. I would wake up at night and put toothpaste in my mouth to get rid of the hunger urge." Read the rest of Truthdig's expose for more.
5) Many prisoners are forced to work real jobs for private corporations, forcing down wages in the rest of the economy.
While cheap sweatshop labor is becoming increasingly common across the country, no one takes better advantage of the system than prisons.
Alternet reports that almost 1 million prisoners are doing simple unskilled labor including "making office furniture, working in call centers, fabricating body armor, taking hotel reservations, working in slaughterhouses, or manufacturing textiles, shoes, and clothing, while getting paid somewhere between 93 cents and $4.73 per day." They continue:
"Rarely can you find workers so pliable, easy to control, stripped of political rights, and subject to martial discipline at the first sign of recalcitrance — unless, that is, you traveled back to the nineteenth century when convict labor was commonplace nationwide.... It was one vital way the United States became a modern industrial capitalist economy — at a moment, eerily like our own, when the mechanisms of capital accumulation were in crisis."
Compare the cost of less than $5 a day with the cost of a minimum wage worker at $58 a day and you begin to see the perverse influence on the entire labor market.
CNN Money reports that prison inmates are now directly competing for jobs in the rest of the economy, and employers are finding it increasingly difficult to keep up. Lost jobs are the result. They cite one company, American Apparel Inc., which makes military uniforms. They write:
"'We pay employees $9 on average,' [a company executive] said. 'They get full medical insurance, 401(k) plans and paid vacation. Yet we're competing against a federal program that doesn't pay any of that.'
[The private prison] is not required to pay its workers minimum wage and instead pays inmates 23 cents to $1.15 an hour. It doesn't have health insurance costs. It also doesn't shell out federal, state or local taxes."
The new influx of cheap, domestic labor will inevitably drive down wages for both skilled and unskilled jobs.
The solution, obviously, to America's prison state is to abolish prisons. Anything worth torturing someone over is also worth killing them over, but only the latter is civilized. There are, of course, only a few crimes worthy of each. The rest could be dealt with with a beating or wage garnishment or similar deterrent measure.
Quote from: Ideologue on April 29, 2014, 08:01:07 PMQuote"I was raped by at least 27 different inmates over a nine month period. I don't have to tell you that it was the worst nine months of my life... [ I ] was sent into protective custody. But I wasn't safe there either. They put all kinds of people in protective custody, including sexual predators. I was put in a cell with a rapist who had full-blown AIDS. Within two days, he forced me to give him oral sex and anally raped me."
what a bitch
Classy.
Yeah, it's pretty damn disgusting, Ide, both in terms of what it does to the labour and good & services markets in the US as well as the brutality and exploitation it inflicts on significant segments of the population.
I posted a link a little while ago to the huge variety of products made by prison labour in the US because I found it pretty eye-opening.
Quote from: Ideologue on April 29, 2014, 08:51:22 PM
Classy.
what else can be said? 27 rapists over nine months. there are a flaws in a system and then there are extreme examples. my first reaction was to roll my eyes.
Quote from: Jacob on April 30, 2014, 12:38:19 AMIt's definitely an example of class warfare.
it's an example of something, i'm sure, but not class warfare
Quote from: LaCroix on April 30, 2014, 03:10:11 AM
Quote from: Ideologue on April 29, 2014, 08:51:22 PM
Classy.
what else can be said? 27 rapists over nine months. there are a flaws in a system and then there are extreme examples. my first reaction was to roll my eyes.
Shockingly, someone in custodial restraint and who was victimized once was victimized over and over.
I guess child rape victims must be the biggest pussies on planet Earth.
Quote from: Ideologue on April 30, 2014, 03:21:48 AMShockingly, someone in custodial restraint and who was victimized once was victimized over and over.
lots of people are victimized in prison. not everyone was raped by 27 other people
Do you think the best tactical decision is to try to defend your statement, or just admit it was a terrible joke?
He's a law student, so he's probably getting comfortable in his trench.
Quote from: Peter Wiggin on April 30, 2014, 04:06:11 AM
He's a law student, so he's probably getting comfortable in his trench.
:(
The sixth stunning thing about America's prisons is that there are people who will cherry-pick stories to present "5 stunning things' that are hyperbole and exaggeration. The seventh stunning thing is that people on languish think the articles produced by those authors are worth reading.
The eighth stunning thing is that they have prisons at all, instead of a system of stocks, branding and hanging.
Quote from: Ideologue on April 29, 2014, 08:01:07 PM
Depressing.
[quote2) There are more black slaves in America today than in 1850.
Why no Emancipation Proclamation from President Obama? :(
The second one is pretty stupid. They should have just gone with more black men are in prison than there were slaves in 1850, actually insisting prisoners are slaves is pushing it a bit. Actually only the last one was shocking to me, the other facts while terrible are well known.
I am actually amazed they use prisoners for labor that extensively. I guess I only thought they used them for some lame state tasks like making license plates, nothing that would actually compete with free labor (though I suppose if we had no prisons the state would have to open that license plate factory).
Quote from: Valmy on April 30, 2014, 09:28:48 AM
The second one is pretty stupid. They should have just gone with more black men are in prison than there were slaves in 1850, actually insisting prisoners are slaves is pushing it a bit. Actually only the last one was shocking to me, the other facts while terrible are well known.
I didn't know there were (probably, stats on it being unreliable as they are) more male rape victims in America than female.
QuoteI am actually amazed they use prisoners for labor that extensively. I guess I only thought they used them for some lame state tasks like making license plates, nothing that would actually compete with free labor (though I suppose if we had no prisons the state would have to open that license plate factory).
That one didn't shock me. It's not called the prison-industrial complex for nothing.
Quote from: grumbler on April 30, 2014, 08:34:24 AM
The sixth stunning thing about America's prisons is that there are people who will cherry-pick stories to present "5 stunning things' that are hyperbole and exaggeration. The seventh stunning thing is that people on languish think the articles produced by those authors are worth reading.
So you think the facts that there is a problem with prison rape, there are lots of black men in prison, prison food is terrible, and American prisons use solitary confinement extensively are hyperbole and exaggeration? Do tell. Those are pretty well known. I do not see how the most famous aspects of the American prison system are stunning to anybody who lives here but...
Quote from: Ideologue on April 30, 2014, 09:31:44 AM
I didn't know there were (probably, stats on it being unreliable as they are) more male rape victims in America than female.
I think that is nonsense. But even if it is not, the fact that men in prison get raped a lot is hardly a shocker.
QuoteThat one didn't shock me. It's not called the prison-industrial complex for nothing.
I thought the whole 'prison-industrial complex' was debunked. Putting productive work in the hands of prisoners, at the expense of law-abiding citizens is a real shit sandwich. Not only do our tax dollars fund these horrible places but the lower classes get hit with cheap labor taking away jobs on the other end.
Quote from: Valmy on April 30, 2014, 09:39:25 AM
Putting productive work in the hands of prisoners, at the expense of law-abiding citizens is a real shit sandwich. Not only do our tax dollars fund these horrible places but the lower classes get hit with cheap labor taking away jobs on the other end.
... and the lack of paying jobs for lower-class types presumably drives more of them into crime, thus filling the prisons. It is win-win. :lol:
Quote from: Valmy on April 30, 2014, 09:34:35 AM
So you think the facts that there is a problem with prison rape, there are lots of black men in prison, prison food is terrible, and American prisons use solitary confinement extensively are hyperbole and exaggeration? Do tell. Those are pretty well known. I do not see how the most famous aspects of the American prison system are stunning to anybody who lives here but...
I agree with grumbler that there was a tone of sensationalism to the article; but as I understand it the facts are correct and the outrage justified.
Quote from: LaCroix on April 30, 2014, 03:34:08 AM
Quote from: Ideologue on April 30, 2014, 03:21:48 AMShockingly, someone in custodial restraint and who was victimized once was victimized over and over.
lots of people are victimized in prison. not everyone was raped by 27 other people
If you are in state custody, you should not be raped or abused at all. If it happens 27 times it's an indication of significant systemic, not individual, failure.
LaCroix will be a great defense atty. "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, as you can see, this slut's skirt was short at the time of the alleged attack. And since her genes have rendered her so small and defenseless, wasn't she clearly asking for it?"
Quote from: Jacob on April 30, 2014, 10:38:24 AM
I agree with grumbler that there was a tone of sensationalism to the article; but as I understand it the facts are correct and the outrage justified.
Some of his facts are correct, and outrage is certainly justified. What isn't justified is making shit up to try to make the story even more "stunning."
Quote from: Ideologue on April 30, 2014, 11:04:26 AM
LaCroix will be a great defense atty. "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, as you can see, this slut's skirt was short at the time of the alleged attack. And since her genes have rendered her so small and defenseless, wasn't she clearly asking for it?"
Wow. Values like these are why all decent people hate lawyers.
It's not really accurate to call prisoners slave labor, though. Every prison system I'm familiar with getting to do any of those jobs is actually a privilege for the better behaved prisoners and they work to avoid infractions to get the opportunity to do those jobs.
My understanding is it's not just limited to license plates, but the reason it often is license plates is they are something that is very strictly not used in interstate commerce. My understanding is the low wages for prison workers would violate minimum wage laws if they worked on something that was part of interstate commerce (I'm fine with being corrected on that one if it isn't true.)
Quote from: Ideologue on April 30, 2014, 03:40:08 AMDo you think the best tactical decision is to try to defend your statement, or just admit it was a terrible joke?
Quote from: Ideologue on April 30, 2014, 11:04:26 AMLaCroix will be a great defense atty. "Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, as you can see, this slut's skirt was short at the time of the alleged attack. And since her genes have rendered her so small and defenseless, wasn't she clearly asking for it?"
you're getting really emotional over this. plus, this is the second time you've twisted what i said. all i did was put myself in that guy's shoes and judge him for how he acted in his situation. he's definitely a victim, no doubt. but everyone judges on some level. you might not be judging this guy in this situation, but i guarantee that you have judged others in other situations
Quote from: Jacob on April 30, 2014, 10:39:57 AMIf you are in state custody, you should not be raped or abused at all. If it happens 27 times it's an indication of significant systemic, not individual, failure.
yes. abuse in prison systems is awful. terrible, really. it is a failure of the system. in a perfect world... etc. etc.
but there are levels of failure. the author used this extreme example and tried to suggest it occurs way more than it probably does with his "many victims are repeatedly raped. for example, this guy was raped by 27 different people in nine months!" it's dishonest.
I don't think one has to be particularly emotional to think it is a bad idea to jude a rape victim ho has been raped many times.
That said, are you saying in this new post that your first post was just a crass way of stating your incredulity at the facts being thrown out?
Is there really a meaningful difference between being raped by 18 people over 9 months vs 27?
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on April 30, 2014, 11:38:57 AM
but the reason it often is license plates is they are something that is very strictly not used in interstate commerce. My understanding is the low wages for prison workers would violate minimum wage laws if they worked on something that was part of interstate commerce (I'm fine with being corrected on that one if it isn't true.)
Not sure but that doesn't seem right. The manufacture of license plates presumably involves interstate commerce because at least some of the raw materials and equipment used comes from out-of-state. And the plates themselves are given cross-state recognition and facilitate the transport of people and goods across state lines.
My guess is that prisoners are not considered "employees" under FLSA but that is also just a guess,
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on April 30, 2014, 11:38:57 AM
It's not really accurate to call prisoners slave labor, though. Every prison system I'm familiar with getting to do any of those jobs is actually a privilege for the better behaved prisoners and they work to avoid infractions to get the opportunity to do those jobs.
My understanding is it's not just limited to license plates, but the reason it often is license plates is they are something that is very strictly not used in interstate commerce. My understanding is the low wages for prison workers would violate minimum wage laws if they worked on something that was part of interstate commerce (I'm fine with being corrected on that one if it isn't true.)
That's my understanding as well, and one of the things I am noting this guy appears to be making up. "Slave Labor" is a more stunning phrase than "dishonest cunt."
Quote from: grumbler on April 30, 2014, 11:34:27 AM
Some of his facts are correct, and outrage is certainly justified. What isn't justified is making shit up to try to make the story even more "stunning."
I can agree with this, grumbler.
Feels kind of weird.
Quote from: garbon on April 30, 2014, 12:10:13 PM
I don't think one has to be particularly emotional to think it is a bad idea to jude a rape victim ho has been raped many times.
That said, are you saying in this new post that your first post was just a crass way of stating your incredulity at the facts being thrown out?
a few months ago my roommate drank a few shots, four mixed drinks, and a beer or two on an empty stomach and blacked out. she woke up and discovered she slept with a guy. she filed rape charges against him because at one point during the night she remembered he touched her drink, therefore thinking she had been drugged. i told this story to a female friend of mine, and my friend judged my roommate. this might be an extreme example, but there are other instances where i've seen women say, "she should have been more careful," etc. women judge female rape victims all the time. this happens quite often, even if it isn't kosher
no, i believed his claim. there's no reason for me not to
Quote from: Otto von BismarckIs there really a meaningful difference between being raped by 18 people over 9 months vs 27?
is there a meaningful difference between someone being raped by one or two people over nine months vs 27? i think so
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on April 30, 2014, 11:38:57 AM
It's not really accurate to call prisoners slave labor, though. Every prison system I'm familiar with getting to do any of those jobs is actually a privilege for the better behaved prisoners and they work to avoid infractions to get the opportunity to do those jobs.
My understanding is it's not just limited to license plates, but the reason it often is license plates is they are something that is very strictly not used in interstate commerce. My understanding is the low wages for prison workers would violate minimum wage laws if they worked on something that was part of interstate commerce (I'm fine with being corrected on that one if it isn't true.)
It's a great bit more than license plates - data and document conversion services, linens and mattresses, industrial products and storage solutions, call centres, furniture, solar panels and electronics recycling, signs, eyewear, apparel manufacturing (I believe they supply upwards of 90% of American military uniforms, for example).
You can check out the services offered here: https://www.unicor.gov/
Quote from: LaCroix on April 30, 2014, 12:52:21 PM
is there a meaningful difference between someone being raped by one or two people over nine months vs 27? i think so
At 27 times I'm guessing you're probably considered an easy target.
Quote from: Jacob on April 30, 2014, 12:56:43 PM
It's a great bit more than license plates - data and document conversion services, linens and mattresses, industrial products and storage solutions, call centres, furniture, solar panels and electronics recycling, signs, eyewear, apparel manufacturing (I believe they supply upwards of 90% of American military uniforms, for example).
You can check out the services offered here: https://www.unicor.gov/
All of those potential products are for federal government agency purchase only and produced in federal prisons only. The license plate thing is for state-run prisons. Two totally different jurisdictions.
Quote from: Jacob on April 30, 2014, 12:58:21 PM
Quote from: LaCroix on April 30, 2014, 12:52:21 PM
is there a meaningful difference between someone being raped by one or two people over nine months vs 27? i think so
At 27 times I'm guessing you're probably considered an easy target.
Person != time.
Quote from: grumbler on April 30, 2014, 01:07:45 PM
Quote from: Jacob on April 30, 2014, 12:56:43 PM
It's a great bit more than license plates - data and document conversion services, linens and mattresses, industrial products and storage solutions, call centres, furniture, solar panels and electronics recycling, signs, eyewear, apparel manufacturing (I believe they supply upwards of 90% of American military uniforms, for example).
You can check out the services offered here: https://www.unicor.gov/
All of those potential products are for federal government agency purchase only and produced in federal prisons only. The license plate thing is for state-run prisons. Two totally different jurisdictions.
Ah, I see. I missed that distinction.
Business Insider article on clothing manufacturers losing contracts to FPI/Unicor and having to lay off workers as a result: http://www.businessinsider.com/corporate-prison-labor-is-forcing-small-businesses-to-close-factories-2012-9
Quote from: Jacob on April 30, 2014, 01:13:55 PM
Ah, I see. I missed that distinction.
That's because Kerrigan was disguising the distinction to try to spread the false belief that there is this 'prison-industrial complex' that uses prisoner slave labor to produce all kinds of products, incidentally putting millions of deserving Americans out of work. He wants us to be stunned.
Quote from: LaCroix on April 30, 2014, 12:52:21 PM
Quote from: garbon on April 30, 2014, 12:10:13 PM
I don't think one has to be particularly emotional to think it is a bad idea to jude a rape victim ho has been raped many times.
That said, are you saying in this new post that your first post was just a crass way of stating your incredulity at the facts being thrown out?
a few months ago my roommate drank a few shots, four mixed drinks, and a beer or two on an empty stomach and blacked out. she woke up and discovered she slept with a guy. she filed rape charges against him because at one point during the night she remembered he touched her drink, therefore thinking she had been drugged. i told this story to a female friend of mine, and my friend judged my roommate. this might be an extreme example, but there are other instances where i've seen women say, "she should have been more careful," etc. women judge female rape victims all the time. this happens quite often, even if it isn't kosher
no, i believed his claim. there's no reason for me not to
I don't see how those examples have any bearing on this discussion. Those are all a far cry from judging someone who has been raped 27 times - unless you are questioning whether those rapes actually occurred. Generally though stating "what a bitch" is an odd way to do that.
Prison labor when its products are for the benefit of government arguably is good for the economy because it reduces the need for revenue to support the prison and/or the purchases of the products/services in question. Government spending can be stimulative sure, but it's no replacement for demand from the private markets and you can't just use government expenditures to make an economy work in the long term.
I'm not sure that offsetting some of the very high expense of housing an inmate by utilizing them as cheap labor to produce products for the government is a net negative for the economy even if it does result in some private sector layoffs. Those private sector jobs were ultimately dependent on high government outlays and were thus probably more akin to parasitic positions than actual productive ones.
I'm curious, is Ide of the opinion he should have simply been executed? Cause we can still do that.
I was curious enough to research it...apparently the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) doesn't cover prisoners. So that is the first reason they aren't paid Federal minimum wage.
However, the Ashurst–Sumners Act, passed in 1935 specifically to get rid of prison monopolies on various government contracts, bans outright the interstate shipment of convict made goods. This is the primary reason license plates were so common, they are manufactured and "sold" all within State. Since the act only prohibits crossing interstate lines with the products for sale, just driving them across the border on a car isn't the same thing.
The Act did provide exemptions for various products and also allowed for an exemption where the product was being sold to the Federal Government, a not-for-profit, or another State or Local government.
In 1979 there was another Act that added some more exemptions, and also allowed for the direct sale of regular goods in interstate commerce but with the stipulation that prisoners used in the manufacture of those products must be paid a "prevailing wage" (not the Federal minimum wage, but the prevailing wage would often be higher.) Due to that requirement almost no prison goods are produced under that exemption as almost no prison wants to pay a prevailing wage, but there are some exceptions. I believe the call center prisoners may fall into that category.
Interesting. Didn't know about Ashurst-Summers, that makes sense now.
Thanks Otto. That's somewhat less dire than I've been led to believe, but not exactly ideal either.
Ashurts-Summers? :hmm:
I worked on a job for Department of Corrections where the carpenters and laborers where inmates. It was a bit unsettling.
When my brother got married his wife's family took us all to a high school baseball game in East Jesus, Florida. Inmates were chalking the lines.
Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 30, 2014, 06:30:44 PM
When my brother got married his wife's family took us all to a high school baseball game in East Jesus, Florida. Inmates were chalking the lines.
Inmates also do all the loading / unloading for a couple of weightlifting meets I've attended outside of Atlanta (so Mid-Jesus, Georgia).
Quote from: Admiral Yi on April 30, 2014, 06:30:44 PM
When my brother got married his wife's family took us all to a high school baseball game in East Jesus, Florida. Inmates Slaves were chalking the lines.
FYP Remember that "Note there is an exception to the otherwise total abolition of slavery. Those suffering "punishment for a crime" can still be constitutionally enslaved. In other words, everyone convicted of a crime is at least potentially a slave. The Supreme Court has not ruled on whether or not they technically are slaves, but practically it is obvious they are."
Did they sing "The Camptown Races' as they chalked the lines?
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on April 30, 2014, 12:14:34 PM
Is there really a meaningful difference between being raped by 18 people over 9 months vs 27?
I'd say, yeah. About 9 dicks' worth.
But surely one would rather be raped once by 27 men than 300 times by 1 man?
I dunno...I mean, at least getting raped by the same guy over and over, you wind up figuring out how long he usually takes, what his buttons are so you can get it over with as quickly as possible, etc.
OK, so that really looks as bad as it looks.
Quote from: OttoVonBismarck on April 30, 2014, 08:54:58 PM
But surely one would rather be raped once by 27 men than 300 times by 1 man?
Possibly not from a risk-of-getting-AIDS-and-dying perspective. I mean, the guy were talking about died from AIDS; he might have preferred one guy without HIV many more times instead of 27 guys, one of whom caused him to get AIDS and die.
My grandfather was in Chicago during WWII for training, where he met my grandmother and they got married. After the war, he met her in Illinois and they drove down south to live. She hadn't been in the south before, and apparently when she saw some of the chain gangs working was so appalled she insisted on returning to Illinois and not living here (she didn't win that argument).
I'm sure she wasn't excited about my grandfather running some chain gang crews (he worked for the road department). He told the story that he saw one of the older guys running off once, and had a gun to shoot him, but didn't have the heart to do it. They caught him peacefully a bit later.
What an uplifting story Dorsey.
Quote from: alfred russel on April 30, 2014, 10:08:26 PM
My grandfather was in Chicago during WWII for training, where he met my grandmother and they got married. After the war, he met her in Illinois and they drove down south to live. She hadn't been in the south before, and apparently when she saw some of the chain gangs working was so appalled she insisted on returning to Illinois and not living here (she didn't win that argument).
I'm sure she wasn't excited about my grandfather running some chain gang crews (he worked for the road department). He told the story that he saw one of the older guys running off once, and had a gun to shoot him, but didn't have the heart to do it. They caught him peacefully a bit later.
Slaves are valuable. You take off a foot, maybe, but you don't shoot them.