Earlier quoted context omitted.
Never heard about it myself before, and went to Wikipedia of course, and found this: > Prison labor in the US is mostly optional. Although inmates are paid for their labor in most states, they usually receive less than $1 per hour. As of 2017, Arkansas, Georgia, and Texas did not pay inmates for any work whether inside the prison (such as custodial work and food services) or in state-owned businesses. Additionally, A…
> It sounds like it isn't optional everywhere, the pay is beyond inhuman, they don't always get any benefits at all, no training, don't safety and are overworked. Most of these are true, but I would push back on the pay angle. If a person is in jail, they are a ward of the state and have no expenses at all. There is no sense in paying them a "living wage" because they don't have to live off it. In any case, most ster…
only the last sentence here is true.
https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/amer...
many prisoners receive a bill for their incarceration and will come out of prison with debt, even if they're working while in prison.
it varies prison to prison, but even basic toiletries may not be provided. the most commonly purchased items at commissary are food.
> The US definitely puts too many people in prison, but that's for cultural reasons and not because of some nefarious plan to get cheap labor.
the constitutional amendment abolishing slavery contains a single exception: prisoners.
the largest maximum security prison in the united states is a slave plantation, operated continuously since the 1830s. they still farm cotton.