Abolish prison labor.
Happy Friday! And welcome back to the Anti-Racism Daily.
When the rioting happened at the Capitol last week, I couldn't stop thinking about how that place was built by enslaved Black people. I was reminded of it again when we saw videos of Black custodial staff cleaning the site in its wake. And again, when news sources noted that it's likely that prison labor would replace the broken furniture.
Prison labor is slavery with a new name. We must abolish prison labor as part of our efforts to dismantle the prison industrial complex.
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Nicole
TAKE ACTION
Boycott companies that use prison labor. You can find a list of them here.
Learn which specific policies uphold prison labor in your state. This spreadsheet by Samuel Sinyangwe is a good place to start.
Learn about the "Abolition Amendment" proposed last December, and encourage Sen. Merkley to reintroduce the legislation in this new session of Congress.
GET EDUCATED
By Juan Michael Porter II (he/him)
Though the 13th Amendment abolished slavery and made involuntary servitude illegal within the U.S., it managed to preserve slavery in another form; penal labor (Center for Human Rights Education). Under Section 1 of the law:
"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” (Crime Report, Find Law). As written and in practice, the amendment creates a class system that allows convicted members of society to be exploited against their will (The Nation).
Though many think that the current prison-industrial complex was born out of the 70s or mid-90s, it actually began immediately after the Civil War. In a move to invalidate the newly gained rights of emancipated Black people, southern states passed racially motivated laws— called “black codes,” “pigs laws,” and “Jim Crow”—that sent thousands of Black citizens back into slavery through the prison system (History, National Geographic). Under these statutes, a Black person could be incarcerated for violations as arbitrary as loitering, having debt, being unemployed, or making “attitudinal infractions,” i.e., not showing “proper deference” to white people (History, PBS).
As Douglas A. Blackmon revealed in his documentary and Pulitzer Prize-winning book, Slavery By Another Name – which reviews county prison records in southern states – this exploitative system effectively extended slavery into the 20th century (PBS, NYTimes, Wall Street Journal). To compensate for lost revenue previously earned on the backs of kidnapped Africans, the government coordinated with industry leaders through these laws to falsely arrest as many as 200,000 Black citizens and force them into brutal and legally sanctioned slave labor without pay (The Conversation, Washington Post).
Slavery was effectively rebranded as "convict leasing" while continuing its most despicable aspects, including auctioning off Black citizens, delivering severe beatings, working people to death, and keeping them locked up for life (Washington Post).
Convict leasing was “officially” abolished in 1941, but revised under the Justice System Improvement Act of 1979. This act created the Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program (Al Jazeera, Bureau of Justice Assistance), which purports to provide inmates with post incarceral job training. In reality, it rents them out to businesses as a cheap labor force (The Guardian). Sentenced inmates are legally required to work unless they have been declared medically incapable (Federal Prison Bureau). They meet this mandate by working at the facility where they are serving time or through Federal Prison Industries (AKA UNICOR), which administers and markets their low-wage contracts to private companies as a “cost-effective labor pool” (Vox).
On a national average, inmates are paid 14 cents to 63 cents an hour (Prison Policy). In Texas, Georgia, Arkansas, and Alabama, they are paid nothing (The Guardian). Meanwhile, they are required to pay for basic necessities—such as hygiene products, soap, and socks (Mother Jones)—at inflated prices in an exploitive scheme that replicates sharecropping by keeping them locked in debt (US News, Vox, Pacific Standard).
Meanwhile, though participation in UNICOR’s outside work program is billed as by choice and even a reward for inmates in good standing, refusal to comply can result in punishment as severe as solitary confinement, a form of torture that has been proven to drive people insane (NPR, The Atlantic, Wired, PBS).
Forced labor takes place at immigrant detention centers as well through a “voluntary work program” that has been sued six times for taking advantage of and coercing detainees to participate, all while paying them $1 to $3 an hour (Truth Out, NYTimes).
By contrast, UNICOR presents itself as a good deal by paying inmates up to $17 an hour, though after deductions are applied, the program reports that their takeaway is on average 23 cents to $1.15 an hour (Economist, UNICOR). Even this system is rife with abuse, with reported wage theft sans recourse often occurring (Mother Jones, The Guardian). For all its talk about providing on-the-job training, the program ignores the reality of rampant employment discrimination that ex-offenders face following their release (Politico) and has yet to report interceding on behalf of even a model prisoner.
UNICOR compromises inmates’ safety. It operates 24 hours a day and restarted operations for over 63,000 workers nationwide during the pandemic (Marshall Project, Washington Post). It also requires federal agencies and state universities to purchase prison labor manufactured products—ranging from air filters to office furniture—unless they receive a waiver for an unavailable product (Economist, NBC News, Inside Higher ED).
This means that the U.S. Capitol will have to replace any damaged furniture during the failed insurrection with products built by an underpaid prison forced disenfranchised of its right to vote (Refinery 29, Prison Policy).
The 13th Amendment may have abolished slavery, but as written, its opening statute ensures that inmates, who are disproportionately Black people, remain in shackles with—as the prison abolitionist Ruth Gilmore has argued—very little that is worthwhile to do (NYTimes). Keep in mind that Black people make up 33% of the US’s prison population in the US, even as they make up only 13% of the entire country’s population (USA Facts, Pew Research). For all of UNICOR’s claims otherwise, recreating slavery does not result in convicts’ redemption.
On January 26, 2021, President Joe Biden signed an executive order instructing the attorney general to “reduce profit-based incentives to incarcerate” by eliminating private prison contracting at the federal level (White House). While the gesture might seem purely symbolic, it does return 14,000 incarcerated individuals to public prisons. The Obama administration found these prisons “were more dangerous and less effective at reforming inmates than facilities run by the government” (NBC News, Criminal Justice Programs).
This initial step did not happen overnight. Nor does it fix Biden’s support of the Crime Bill of 1994, which helped increase prison incarceration, or eliminate the use of privately-run immigration detention centers (Washington Post, AP News). But it does signal that when we amplify these issues, change can happen.
It is essential to call on our legislators to remove the statutes requiring federal agencies to purchase prison-made goods and boycott any business that refuses to divest of these services. As was proven by the social-media-driven boycott against Ivanka Trump’s shuttered fashion line and #DeleteUber campaign, hurting a business’ reputation is a key component to making them change (Glamour, The Atlantic, Washington Post).
KEY TAKEAWAYS
Slavery still exists in the prison system, partially due to Section 1 13th Amendment
Former inmates face reduced opportunities for success due to employment discrimination.
Slave labor disproportionately affects Black people and continues to be revamped every time it is shot down.
Providing education to inmates is a key component towards reducing recidivism.
RELATED ISSUES
1/20/2021 | Fight to close Guantanamo Bay.
1/12/2021 | Abolish the death penalty.
10/9/2020 | Learn about slavery and the White House.
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