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Prisoners fight against working in heat on former slave plantation, raising hope for change in South (apnews.com)

submitted 3 months ago by MicroWave to c/news

25 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Beneath the blazing summer sun on a former slave plantation, Lamont Gross and fellow prisoners stooped in long rows, picking vegetables by hand under the watchful eyes of armed guards on horseback. He said breaks were short and infrequent, with nothing to protect workers from the heat.

“I saw guys collapse,” Gross said of his days on the so-called farm line at Louisiana’s state penitentiary, where men work for pennies an hour or nothing at all and face punishment if they refuse. “There were dudes that got heat stroke. There were dudes with underlying conditions, older or had some sort of disability, but they had to go out there, too.”

As daily temperatures hit record highs across much of the South, a federal judge took an unusual step, challenging the treatment of mostly Black incarcerated workers in the fields.

America’s largest maximum-security prison, known as Angola, sits on 18,000 acres. It was once a patchwork of cotton fields where, historians note, even enslaved pregnant women and young children worked from dawn to dusk during the busiest and hottest harvesting months. Prisoners have toiled on the same farm lines since after emancipation often without shade, adequate work breaks or even sunscreen.

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[–] NegativeInf 4 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Is this a for-profit prison if it's state owned? Are they actually making profit? Is this just so they can cosplay as slave holders?

[–] [email protected] 15 points 3 months ago (1 children)

I believe even state owned prisons can "lease" out their prisoners for labour in order to bring extra money into their budgetary coffers. Though I could be wrong.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 months ago (1 children)

You are correct. Prison labor is often used for things like government production (military uniforms, office supplies, state license plates) and private industry (call centers, telephone 411 services).

[–] NegativeInf 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Is there a list of companies that use prisoners for call center work so I can never use their products and services?

[–] Viking_Hippie 10 points 3 months ago

I couldn't find a comprehensive list*, but here's some articles about it that include specific examples, listed by source website as the titles of articles on this subject tend to veer very verbose, verily:

Prison Inside

Corporate Accountability Lab

Truthout

Fastcompany.com

*scratch that, managed to find a database of all 4000+ of them after a bit more searching.

[–] Maggoty 4 points 3 months ago

There's no rule saying the state can't make a profit...