Modern-Day Slavery': Many Southern States Have Prison Inmates Working in Governor's Mansions and Capitol Buildings
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'Modern-Day Slavery': Many Southern States Have Prison Inmates Working in Governor's Mansions and Capitol Buildings
Another old tradition that belongs in the dustbin of history.
By Celisa Calacal / AlterNet
June 23, 2017, 10:26 AM GMT
http://www.alternet.org/human-rights/number-southern-states-prisoners-se...
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Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Briank
Floops is wondering what you
Floops is wondering what you think about it. Posting links without commenting upsets his delicate sensitivities.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Hitchhiker awaiting "true call"
It's 112 degrees in Redding.
It's 112 degrees in Redding.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Ausonius
Sorry, that isn't slavery.
Sorry, that isn't slavery. You might not like the policy, but calling it slavery is just intellectual dishonesty. And purposefully confrontational.
Was having prisoners make license plates "slavery" as well?
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Racketinmyhead
They still make plates in
They still make plates in calif.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Hitchhiker awaiting "true call"
These strawberries are
These strawberries are delicious.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Sycamore Slough
The prisoners who work don't
The prisoners who work don't get paid much, but are happy to do something besides rot in a box.
The ones who get to do "Governor Mansion / Capitol Building" detail are most likely stoked to have those high-grade jobs rather than laundry or license-plate duties. They would shank Oaksterdam in a heartbeat if his squawks got their cushy Gov-Manse jobs cut.
Not being allowed to work in the prison system is much more boring, soul-crushing and painful. Every inmate wants to do something besides rot in a Box. Owsley polished the jail floors and did kitchen work during his stint.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Lucky Day
>>>>but calling it slavery is
>>>>but calling it slavery is just intellectual dishonesty.
If there's on Zoner that knows intellectual dishonesty it would be Thom.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Briank
It's more indentured
It's more indentured servitude than slavery.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Jackstraw
Is Oaksterdam Dan, Nancy's
Is Oaksterdam Dan, Nancy's husband or alter ego?
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: An organ grinder’s tune
dude they make like $1.10 an
dude they make like $1.10 an hr.....
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Sideshow Bob
In Thom's world if you can't
In Thom's world if you can't get paid to be on social media all day it's slavery
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Thumbkinetic
Thom calling out purposely
Thom calling out purposely confrontational, intellectual dishonesty is fuc*ing priceless.
Mmmmm. Rich, gooey irony.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: jeff
I could see Thom fluffing the
Brian d.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Thumbkinetic
The stalky little bitch thing
The stalky little bitch thing is so '07.
And frowned upon, I think.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Imagine
Hey, inquisitive mind want to
Hey, inquisitive mind want to know.
Having only read the thread,
I agree with Thom.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Druba
(No subject)
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: nebulous nelly
One summer, while in
One summer, while in high school, i worked as a landscaper at a prison. The crew was made up of three civilizations and a dozen or do inmates. The inmates on the crew were very happy to have the job.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Def. High
Greek, Roman, and Chinese?
Greek, Roman, and Chinese?
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Briank
I kind of agree with Thom,
I kind of agree with Thom, too. They are convicted prisoners.
The morality of why most of them are in prison is a whole other thing.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Hitchhiker awaiting "true call"
>>>I kind of agree with Thom,
>>>I kind of agree with Thom, too. They are convicted prisoners
you now own them
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: jonaspond
Slavery? Lol.
Slavery? Lol.
Hmmmm.. Work in the 105 degree laundry room or work in the air conditioned mansion?
Nevermind those poor fuckers that are housed in prison tents. Those guys would kill to be a 'slave'.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Hitchhiker awaiting "true call"
Stop worrying about those
Stop worrying about those guys.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Briank
I own nothing.
I own nothing.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: .............
In some states it is required
In some states it is required to work in these bldngs BEFORE you go to prison...( our own John Rowland comes to mind)
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: RickP
My brothers did some time at
My brothers did some time at Hendry outside Immokalee, FL, in the late 70s. This place is so desolate and surrounded with swamps that inmates would escape, wander the swamps for a couple of days, and come back asking to be let in. They got 3 years for 954 lbs (the days before min/mans). They got jobs as cooks...made $0.14/hr. Ate well, made lots of friends (cooks are popular in the system, an extra scoop of food goes a long way with some folks) and, most importantly, each day worked was a day off of their sentence. They did just over 19 months of the 36 sentenced.
Working while in prison is a good thing no matter what the job is.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Billy Shears
This is why Sessions reversed
This is why Sessions reversed the Obama policy that Federal prisoners not be kept in private prisons.
Sessions has stock in Private Prisons.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: he who was Crabneesh
Forced labor is slavery. What
Forced labor is slavery. What is wrong with you people. I did a year in Federal Prison & was forced to work. Did I want to be on a chain gang breaking rocks with a sledge hammer in the Mohave Desert? No. I was paid 11 cents per hour. Why? They paid me so the rest of the world could not say America has slave labor. What did I do with my 11 cents? If I wanted toothpaste or vitamins I had to buy them from them @ inflated prices twice as much as a drug store.
I was sentenced to time not hard labor. Forcing someone to work by use of coercion is slavery. & I did not get time off for doing it.
Was I guilty? Yes, of marijuana crimes.
Should I have been subjected to slavery?
NO?
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Across
I love your post, Crabneesh.
I love your post, Crabneesh, and am sorry you had to spend a little time in the desert.
Also, I want to thank you for spelling Mohave the way you did. You the man, seriously.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: he who was Crabneesh
The coercive quality of my
The coercive quality of my forced labor was the armed guards watching me while I broke rocks while in chains. MARIJUANA.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Oaksterdam Dan
Go see my niece swim one
Go see my niece swim one lovely sunday morning to come home to this.
Crabneesh had to set you all straight on forced labor and how to give a shit about prisoners. Weed no less smoke that in zone. With Jeff Sessions that could be lots of us!
Prisoners clean up after LSU football games as well. Go Tigers...WTF
Forces labor in any form to save money or make money by a state this day in age is reprehensible.
Brian tell Floops I like to poop in sandbox and return a day later to see if daisy are growing. It's called drive-by posting very west coast.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: ltk173
>>>shank Oaksterdam in a
>>>shank Oaksterdam in a heartbeat if his squawks got their cushy Gov-Manse jobs cut.
It's funny.............., because it's so true.-Homer Simpson
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Lucky Day
>>>>>>Go see my niece swim
>>>>>>Go see my niece swim one lovely sunday morning to come home to this.
No thanks, that would be weird.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Sideshow Bob
>>>>>>> It's funny...........
>>>>>>> It's funny.............., because it's so true.-Homer Simpson
That quote is by Fat Tony, voiced by Joe Montegna
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Sideshow Bob
My state (CT) did away w
My state (CT) did away w/convict labor in the 1990's. The agency I worked for (DOT) then had to literally "pick up" the primary job they were doing (litter removal on highways). So if you started as an entry level unskilled Maintainer 1 in DOT, you got to pick up litter for several years before moving on.
Nerdy story I've told before but sorta related: In my project management position, I had to tell a town gov't one time that we couldn't give them new water & sewer lines as part of one of our jobs (we are a transportation agency, not a utility). That was standard policy, & fair to all. Well, I had no idea this town was the hometown of the then - #2 Republican in the entire state (after the Gov, who eventually went to jail for corruption), who was a state Senator and Minority Leader. Well, he called the DOT Public Relations office screaming angrily "Who Is this "SideShow Bob" guy, I want him Bucked Down To Litter Picker Upper". I was called into my boss's office & asked "What Did You Do To Sen Louie DeLuca?" I had no idea @ time. He ended up in trouble over hiring a hitman to intimidate his brother in law & for other connections to mob run waste removal companies. But I do give him credit for knowing that much about our agency, ie, that litter picker upper is the entry level job.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tnxDdplF-g
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Sideshow Bob
1:05 in that video: Fucking
1:05 in that video: Fucking EPIC eyebrows . . . .
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Sideshow Bob
The lip sync from 1:20 to 1
The lip sync from 1:20 to 1:25 is pretty awesome too . . .
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: jonaspond
So again, though I'll always
So again, though I'll always love a good crabneesh story, if you were a prisoner would you rather break rocks all day or work in a mansion? The debate isnt about prisoners working -- that's a simple fact.
The better discussion for anyone jumping on this bandwagon is abolishing the prison industrial complex.
I spent some time away for the same 'crime'. Thankfully not enough to get on any work detail.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: That’s Nancy with the laughin’ face
After Bill Mather said that
After Bill Maher joked that he'd rather be a House N--ger than spend a day working in the fields he spent an entire show apologizing. So much for thumbing his nose at political correctness.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: An organ grinder’s tune
weird thread.
weird thread.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: ________
work or die
work or die
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: always
ever had a mass produced
ever had a mass produced florida tomato?
http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/30/world/ciw-fair-food-program-freedom-projec...
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: _
>> 1:05 in that video:
>> 1:05 in that video: Fucking EPIC eyebrows . . . .
You could braid those!
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: ________
"If capital is privately
"If capital is privately controlled, then people are going to have to rent themselves in order to survive. Now, you can say, "they rent themselves freely, it's a free contract"—but that's a joke. If your choice is, "do what I tell you or starve," that's not a choice—it's in fact what was commonly referred to as wage slavery in more civilized times, like the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, for example."
Chomsky
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Mylar
Prisons are just one part of
Prisons are just one part of the company store and, unless you own the store, we're all working for it one way or another.
I think Carlin summed this up quite accurately sometime ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5dBZDSSky0
When I pulled my time in Sac County back in the early 80s and got my hoeing license, most of the jobs my work crew did was landscape maintenance for schools where cops' kids attended and wealthy gated communities.
Did I get paid? No. I had to pay for the "privilege" of not being locked up 24/7, so I could continue my court approved valuable contribution to the company store (i.e., my job).
The only real problem I ever had with cocaine was being an early casualty of the war on some drugs.
Cheap labor will always be in demand by the store owners or "big club", as Carlin put it. Seems to me there are many ways to acquire cheap labor and prisons are just one method, along with union busting and legislation that favors the oligarchic dictatorship we live under.
What to do? Stay under their radar, stay healthy, help each other, be kind and make the best of things as they happen. Life and the pursuit of happiness seem to be the only unalienable rights left to most Americans now and I, for one, will try to keep the first and continue to seek the latter.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: smiley
<<<<That quote is by Fat Tony
<<<<That quote is by Fat Tony, voiced by Joe Montegna
https://youtu.be/YXJZBjylYlo
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: jazfish
I work for the local
I work for the local municipality. I have survived several lay offs. The town now uses work release inmates (jail not prison)to save money to do the work of some of the lower tiered positioned. The inmates don't seem to mind.
I think it's kind of fucked up the job loss at the expense of the local government fuck ups on spending and blinding the public it's all for the public benefits.
The LEO that assigns the inmate positions is named Officer Crook. No shit.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: _
>> job loss at the expense of
>> job loss at the expense of the local government fuck ups on spending
Louisiana's fate is tied to oil prices. I sense a downward spiral.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: jazfish
This state is broke, ender,
This state is broke, ender, yet local municipalities decision makers continue to spend money in the wrong places.
We have a moderate Democratic governor trying his hardest to fix the situations created mostly by bad decesions made by previous Republican governors.
Remember, Bobby Jindal, that mother fucker.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Oaksterdam Dan
The term "prison–industrial
Prison–industrial complex
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison%E2%80%93industrial_complex
The term "prison–industrial complex" (PIC) is derived from the "military–industrial complex" of the 1950s,[2] and is used to describe the attribution of the rapid expansion of the US inmate population to the political influence of private prison companies and businesses that supply goods and services to government prison agencies for profit.[3] The most common and prominent agents of the PIC are corporations that contract cheap prison labor, construction companies, surveillance technology vendors, companies that operate prison food services and medical facilities,[4] private probation companies,[4]lawyers, and lobby groups that represent them. Activist groups such as the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) argue that the PIC perpetuates a flawed belief that imprisonment is an effective solution to social problems such as homelessness, unemployment, drug addiction, mental illness, and illiteracy[citation needed].
The term "prison–industrial complex" has also been used to describe a similar issue in other countries' prisons of expanding populations.[5]
The portrayal of prison-building/expansion as a means of creating employment opportunities and the utilization of inmate labor are cited as particularly harmful elements of the prison-industrial complex as they boast clear economic benefits at the expense of the incarcerated populace. The term implies a network of participants who prioritize personal financial gain over ensuring one's debt to society is adequately paid or rehabilitating criminals. Proponents of this view, including civil rights organizations such as the Rutherford Institute[6] and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU),[7] believe that the desire for monetary gain through prison privatization has led to the vast growth of the prison industry and contributed to the number of incarcerated individuals. Such advocacy groups would assert that incentivizing the construction of more prisons with the potential for profitability will doubtlessly lead to the unjust incarceration of millions more citizens, affecting people of color at disproportionately high rates.
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California Maybe Replacing Its ‘Prison-Industrial Complex’ With Something Far Worse
The main players in California's "treatment-industrial complex" are the very same ones involved in the for-profit prison industry.
By Sarah Cronin | June 14, 2017
https://www.mintpressnews.com/california-maybe-replacing-its-prison-indu...
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Alias
You get extra credits in Cal.
You get extra credits in Cal. prisons if you can get to a fire camp--hot as hell, dangerous, sweaty work. Most inmates really want to go to fire camp though. I'm sure that there are non-inmates who would like those jobs.
The treatment industrial complex is real. Every person convicted of "domestic violence" in CA, which can include yelling too loudly or throwing a non-dangerous object at your S/O or throwing something at the wall or grabbing your S/O by the arm, or just talking shit has to attend a FIFTY TWO WEEK CLASS which they have to pay for. I'm sure all you hand wringers think this is good because domestic violence is bad, but it is pretty ridiculous when there is no judicial option to consider a shorter/no class depending on circumstances. There are typically only a few state permitted providers per county. It's a racket, plain and simple.
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: Sideshow Bob
>>>>>>> That quote is by Fat
>>>>>>> That quote is by Fat Tony, voiced by Joe Montegna
Ahhhhhh, Mr Smiley, always an Eager Beaver for a chance to prove me wrong. However, in this circumstance, we're both right:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYBMbGPAqsU
Top of Page Bottom of Page PermalinkFull Name: ________
Should be 53 weeks
Should be 53 weeks