Blas Sanchez was nearing the end of a 20-year stretch in an Arizona prison when he was leased out to work at Hickman’s Family Farms, which sells eggs that end up in the supply chains of huge companies like McDonald’s, Target and Albertsons. While assigned to a machine that churns chicken droppings into compost, his right leg got pulled into a chute with a large spiraling augur.
“I could hear ‘crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch,’” Sanchez said. “I couldn’t feel anything, but I could hear the crunch.”
He recalled frantically clawing through mounds of manure to tie a tourniquet around his bleeding limb. He then waited for what felt like hours while rescuers struggled to free him so he could be airlifted to a hospital. His leg was amputated below the knee.
Nationwide, hundreds of thousands of prisoners are put to work every year, some of whom are seriously injured or killed after being given dangerous jobs with little or no training, The Associated Press found. They include prisoners fighting wildfires, operating heavy machinery or working on industrial-sized farms and meat-processing plants tied to the supply chains of leading brands. These men and women are part of a labor system that – often by design – largely denies them basic rights and protections guaranteed to other American workers.
…when he was leased out to work at Hickman’s Family Farms
I love how the article opens with this, because leasing people like property is totally cool and fine in America, because old piece paper said it is ok.
It’s a family farm, so it’s okay.
We’re helping small business owners
* to enrich themselves at the cost of others
Prisoners can be used as slaves. It’s right there in the constitution.
Yeah. I know. I’m saying that it’s crazy to me (as a non American) that slavery is viewed as normal in 2024, because the US Constitution says it’s OK to buy, sell, lease people if they committed a crime.
Oh, I don’t disagree at all.
And the fact that they get sent to private companies takes it from merely barbaric to absolutely grotesque.
We can still ban it, it’s just not constitutionally prohibited
and what if they don’t do what they want?
A quick Googling suggests bread and water for food, solitary for a month, and showers once a week.
No idea how this backwards-ass hole ever became a superpower.
No idea how this backwards-ass hole ever became a superpower.
Well I’m sure the cheap slave labor helped.
Pretty sure that would be a human rights violation. Got a source for that?
https://www.ctas.tennessee.edu/eli/punishment-refusing-work
Pursuant to T.C.A. § 41-2-120(a), any prisoner refusing to work or becoming disorderly may be confined in solitary confinement or subjected to such other punishment, not inconsistent with humanity, as may be deemed necessary by the sheriff for the control of the prisoners, including reducing sentence credits pursuant to the procedure established in T.C.A. § 41-2-111. Such prisoners refusing to work, or while in solitary confinement, shall receive no credit for the time so spent. T.C.A. § 41-2-120(b).
https://www.quora.com/What-happens-if-you-refuse-to-work-in-prison
for the control of the prisoners
What does this mean? I assume the clause is moreso meant for unruly prisoners and not just simply refusing in the first place? And since this is state law, I’m guessing it can be very different across the others.
But what happens if they are hurt or killed?
What do you guys at the Associated Press think was the point of the drug war?
Oppression, economic disenfranchisement, implicit slavery, oh yeah and racism.
It’s not even implicit slavery, the amendment that makes slavery unconstitutional explicitly makes an exception for criminal punishment.
And just coincidentally the US has 25% of the world’s prisoners while being only 3% of the world’s population
So, business as usual.
As a middle-aged white guy you can take my privilege out of my cold dead hands /s
Challenge accepted
Fun fact: the amendment that outlawed slavery also legalizes slavery.
The US really wants slavery again.
It never totally went away.
The Thirteenth Amendment (Amendment XIII) to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. Source
The last correct take Kanye had.
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Friendly reminder that chattel slavery didn’t end in the United States until almost ww2, and
some places still illegally enslaved black families continously since the civil war up until the 1980s. (EDIT: I thought that I remembered an old AP article online about this from the 1980s about a police raid at a farm compound somewhere in Alabama. However, I cannot find the original source for this claim, so I am retracting it. From what I remember of the story, this family had basically just kept their slaves hidden away on their small plantation during reconstruction, then just kept them hidden away from the rest of society by not allowing them to leave the compound. Someone finally escaped during the 1980s, was discovered, and eventually taken into police custody. This eventually led to the raid on the compound and the AP article that I remember.)Then obviously prison slave labor is still an ongoing issue.
Do you have any more information about illegal slavery until the 1980s? I’m not doubting it, I’ve just never heard that and would like to learn more.
I guess not. I thought that I remembered an old AP article online about this from the 1980s about a police raid at a farm compound somewhere in Alabama. However, I cannot find the original source for this claim anywhere! So either all evidence of this event has been scrubbed from the internet, or I have misremembered the event. I consider one of these more likely than the other.
From what I remember of the story, this family had basically just kept their slaves hidden away on their small plantation during reconstruction, then just kept them hidden away from the rest of society by not allowing them to leave the compound. Someone finally escaped during the 1980s, was discovered, and eventually taken into police custody. This eventually led to the raid on the compound and the AP article that I remember.
I remember doing a lot of research into neoslavery right around when this video from Knowing Better and this video from All Gas No Brakes came out. Both videos talked a lot about slavery after the Civil War (The AGNB video was more indirect, but an interviewee in the video name-dropped a lot of stuff that I was ignorant about), which is what piqued my interest. I guess that I must be conflating a couple of different events despite my vivid memory of the article. If anyone else remembers reading the article, or the event occurring (because again, 1980-something is not that long ago), please let me know!
The US want to cut out the whole fake justice system portion that illegally targets poor and minorities, and jump straight to slavery again FTFY
Same thing that happens when other slaves are hurt or killed on the job.
Not a hell of a lot.
If they are killed, they probably die.
Disclaimer: I’m not a lawyer.
Slavery is enshrined in the US Constitution so probably nothing
You get another prisoner? Sorry didn’t read the article.
Don’t think you need to with a question as obvious as that.
Actually, they die or get hurt.
Considering the medical system in America totally fucks everyone, I would assume prisoners would also be fucked.
Hickman’s Family Farms: our workers may not be cage free, but the chickens are.
Can prisoners deny work placements? Like do they get any say in this? I’m guessing there would be some sort of retaliation which is why they accept them, that or there’s a promise of a shorter sentance or something.
They can, but performing work is one of the things that is taken into account when determining whether or not a prisoner has had “good behavior”, and “good behavior” can get a prisoner’s sentence reduced.
So, effectively, they are coerced into accepting work placements.
It’s carrot and stick. They can get released earlier but refusing has led to abuse by guards too.
