Prison Labor In The United States

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As quoted earlier, today's inmates in private, state or federal prisons have been branded the term, “modern-day slaves” of the 21st century. The Thirteenth Amendment has created a way for prisoners to perform mandatory essentially unpaid hard labor than there were in 1830, 35 years before American slavery was abolished. Having 25% of the world’s prison population, more than 80% of inmates are locked up because of victimless, non-violent crimes, with most of them being drug related (Hartney, 2011, p. 5). Prison labor helps produce goods and services for almost every large-scale business in America. Over the last years, prison labor has significantly expanded in scope and reach. Locked up workers, laboring within convict leasing or in-house operations …show more content…
Their pay is often zero to 50 cents per hour for a maximum of six hours per day. Most inmates in privately-run prisons receive about 17 cents per hour while those in “high skilled positions” receive about 50 cents per hour for the six hours (Vicky, 2016, web). Compared to federal prisons where inmates are paid better, once again for-profit prisons fade out. Organizations such as McDonald's, among the world’s most successful fast-food franchise purchases prison manufactured goods such as uniforms for their employees while those that sew this uniforms earn less than those who wear them. Wal-Mart, another successful enterprise, company policy is against prison or forced labor, however, they continue to buy produce from third party prison labor factories. Previously, we heard the cases of the two women prisoners that were placed in solitary after telling journalists that they had been hired to replace “Made in Honduras” cloth tags with “Made in USA” cloth tags. Also, there has been cases of companies rushing to secure “cheap labor” that is almost guaranteed in the past like AT&T which laid off thousands of their telephone operators for inmate phone operators as a method to cut down on cost (Vicky, 2016,

Against Mandatory Minimums

increased America's reliance on prison made goods. The increased prison population has created a much larger cheap labor force. The practice of forcing prisoners to work for below minimum wage has been defended by saying, “that work is central to rehabilitation, reform, and the effectiveness of prison time” (Kang, 2009 Pg: 147). However that explanation does not elucidate why labor laws do not protect prisoners. America is clearly using prisoners as a source of cheap labor and mandatory minimums have…

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13th, By Ava Duvernay

DuVernay. Centered on race in the United States criminal justice system. The documentary is titled after the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which outlawed slavery. The documentary begins with a quote from the President Barack Obama, “The United States is home to 5% of the world’s population but 25% of the world’s prisoners”. This statistic stated by Obama sets the tone for what's ahead; a very overwhelming and straightforward look on the United States today. The cold hard truth…

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Auburn Prison Model

Although the Auburn prison served as a model for nearly ten years, it eventually began to be a financial burden to the State due to the threat of convict labor with the free labor market. As a result, a new model emerged in the 1820s. The Eastern State Penitentiary was built in response to the miserable conditions of earlier facilities. This penitentiary was capable of housing more inmates for longer sentences. The facility valued cleanliness as well as structure and order (Tarter and Bell 2012:107)…

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Mandatory Minimums

Introduction The United States is in the middle of a prison crisis. “From 1980 to 1997, the national correctional population rose from 1.8 million to 5.7 million, an increase of 217 percent. During the same period... the number of prisoners (rose by) 271 percent.” (Mackenzie 2001). The leading cause of this uptick in the prisoner population has been the implementation of mandatory minimums to fight a ‘war on drugs.’ Mandatory minimums are laws that require judges to give minimum sentences for specific…

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Crime In The United States

The United States was built on crime and now more than ever it is as though they benefit from making criminals. Now it seems like companies as well as the government are benefiting from prisoners going to jail, because they get criminals to work for less money than they have to pay other people who are not in jail. Often times criminals going into jail come out better criminals, leaving them less functional in todays society. This sometimes results with them going back to prison. The government…

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History of Prisons in US Essay

The history of prisons in the United States is a long and sorted one dating back to this country’s inception. The American colonies were originally used as penal colonies for the British Empire, much the way Australia was. Since then, correctional institutions in America have taken on many forms. In the paper, I will explain the history of prisons, and compare and contrast the various prison systems this country has seen over the centuries. Imprisonment as a form of criminal punishment became a…

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Prison Systerm Essay

Purpose and History of Penitentiaries Penitentiaries originally began as an idea in the 1800s (Seiter, 2011). As time progressed the idea of a penitentiary evolved from an idea into a structure. During the late 1800s prisons began to develop. These structures are used to facilitate citizens who do not abide by the laws of the land. These citizens are known as criminals. These penitentiaries are used as a form of punishment to ensure criminals do not further aggravate…

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Essay on Prison History

system was to rehabilitate offenders, rather than to punish. Later the term corrections replaced the term penology. The history of prison development also has a history like the term punishment. Two systems that have been developed over time are, The Pennsylvania and The Auburn Systems. Prison labor has also developed, and adapted to the development of the prison systems. The Quakers of Pennsylvania were economic and hardworking people. The Quaker realized that capital punishment was inhumane…

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The Path Of Punishment

The Path of Punishment The United States has played a big part in shaping what corrections is today. We have put a great deal of focus into refining and adjusting our corrections system, more so than any other country. Before the 1800s, the United States punished criminals in much of the same way that the Europeans did. From being whipped or branded to being hung, punishment was usually physical. As in Europe, offenders could be sentenced to hard labor but that looked nothing like our sentencing…

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Incarceration In America

African-Americans (Blacks) in the United States. Although, in reality, modern and more indirect mechanisms for carrying out systemic racism and all its economic underpinnings have emerged. We see a shift from legalized racism, backed up and standardized by the law and legal systems, to a more “informally” adopted style of racism. In this version of racism, African-Americans are subject to unequal protection of the laws, excessive surveillance, extreme segregation, and neo-slave labor through incarceration,…

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