Prison
is big business, and working prisoners are a corporation’s dream.
Prisoners are being contracted for work right now on a massive scale,
and despite the alarming and unsustainable growth
of inmate numbers in
the United States, incentive to lock people up is only increasing. This
is the income that prisons — comprising one of the fastest-growing
industries in the United States, backed by Wall Street — depend on:
Now prison labor based in
private prisons is a multimillion-dollar industry with its own trade
exhibitions, conventions, websites, and mail-order/Internet catalogs
(Pelaez 2008). . . . The industry also has direct advertising campaigns,
architecture companies, construction companies, investment houses on
Wall Street, plumbing supply companies, food supply companies, armed
security, and padded cell manufacturing, all of which rival those of any
other private industry (Pelaez 2008). Furthermore, private prisoners at
the state level produce a variety of goods and services, from clothing
to toys to telemarketing and customer service (Erlich 2005). The private
federal prison industry also produces nearly all military goods, from
uniform helmet to ammunition, along with durable goods ranging from
paint to office furniture (Pelaez 2008). (
source)
Did you know that corporate stockholders
who profit from prison labor lobby for longer sentences? They do this
to expand their workforce, and so, according to a study done by the
Progressive Labor Party, “the system feeds itself.” The PLP also accuses
the prison system of being “an imitation of Nazi Germany” with regards
to forced slave labor and concentration camps.
If we look at the history of prison
labour in the United States, it becomes immediately apparent that the
entire system is birthed out of racism. After the civil wars of the
mid-to-late 18th century, the system of hiring prisoners was established
in order to continue the slavery that had dominated previous years.
This was, of course, a time when racial segregation was legal across the
United States:
Prison labor has its roots in
slavery. After the 1861-1865 Civil War, a system of “hiring out
prisoners” was introduced in order to continue the slavery tradition.
Freed slaves were charged with not carrying out their sharecropping
commitments (cultivating someone else’s land in exchange for part of the
harvest) or petty thievery – which were almost never proven – and were
then “hired out” for cotton picking, working in mines and building
railroads. From 1870 until 1910 in the state of Georgia, 88% of
hired-out convicts were Black. In Alabama, 93% of “hired-out” miners
were Black. In Mississippi, a huge prison farm similar to the old slave
plantations replaced the system of hiring out convicts. The notorious
Parchman plantation existed until 1972.(
source)
Vicky Pelaez, a Peruvian journalist and columnist for
The Moscow News,
points out
that dozens of states have legalized the contracting of prison labor to
corporations, which include such names as: IMB, Boeing, Motorola,
Microsoft, AT&T, Wireless, Dell, and many more. Some of these
inmates are getting approximately $2 a hour. She also outlines how
inmates are commonly imported and exported.
A surprising number of well-known corporations are making a killing off of the prison industrial complex, as you can see below.
7 Household Names Making A Killing Off Of The Prison-Industrial Complex
Whole Foods
The state allows inmates to work for the
profit of a private corporation, and Whole Foods is one of many
companies that takes advantage, buying fish and cheese produced by
prison inmates and paying them a rate of .74 cents a day. They then
increase the price of the product astronomically – tilapia raised by
inmates, for example, sells for $11.99 a pound at Whole Foods — and
enjoy all the profits. (
source)
McDonalds
It’s no secret that McDonalds is
suffering right now; in a world where people are steadily waking up and
moving towards a healthier lifestyle, there is no place for such heavily
processed and unethical ‘food.’ Yet despite being the world’s most
successful fast-food chain, they still source many of their goods from
prisons, including their containers, uniforms, and cutlery. The inmates
who sew the uniforms hardly make anything. (
source)
Wal-Mart
Although their company policy expressly
outlines that forced labor, as well as prison labour, is unacceptable, a
large portion of products sold in their stores have been supplied by
third-party prison labor factories. Wal-Mart purchases its products from
prison farms, where workers are put through several hours of intense
labor, in difficult conditions, without sunscreen, water, or food —not
to mention, basically working for free. (
source)
Victoria’s Secret
Undergarments and casual wear are sewn
by female inmates for Victoria’s Secret. In fact, in the late 1990s 2
prisoners were placed in solitary confinement for telling journalists
that they were hired to replace “Made in Honduras” garment tags with
“Made in U.S.A” tags. (
source)
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BP
This is a surprising one. When BP
spilled several million barrels of oil into the Ocean (Gulf Coast), the
company sent a workforce of prison inmates — almost all of them
African-American — to handle cleanup, despite there being scores of
displaced coastal residents desperate for work. The move sparked
considerable outrage, particularly since BP not only saved money by
hiring inmates over locals, but also through the significant tax breaks
they received as a result. (
source)
AT&T
In 1993 the company laid off thousands
of telephone operators, who were all union members, in order to increase
their profits. Despite being vocally against prison labour, they went
on to hire inmates to work in their call centres, paying them a mere $2
per day. (
source)
Aramark
This is a company that provides food to
hospitals, schools, and colleges. They also have a monopoly on food
served in approximately 600 prisons. They have a history of poor food
service, a problem which led to a prison riot in Kentucky in 2009. (
source)
More Information On The Prison Industrial Complex
Even though various social, political,
and human rights organizations have condemned the United States’ prison
system, it remains one of the biggest businesses in existence today. Did
you know that America has four percent of the world’s population, yet
still carries approximately twenty five percent of the world’s prison
population? That is a staggering number. America has the highest
incarceration rate in the world and it is increasing exponentially each
year. Almost half of American juveniles will have been arrested before
they reach their 23rd birthday, and children as young as 13 years old
have been sentenced to die in prison. The cost of this system?
Approximately $75,000,000,000 a year…
These are just a few startling statistics outlined in the video below. Check it out.
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