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NEWS & LETTERS,
January-February 2002
U.S. prisons as forced labor camps
The Bureau of Prisons reports
over 560 new prisons built since 1985, costing over $30 billion to the
taxpayers. The lawmakers, law enforcement, judicial officials and prison
officials understand that they have created, enforce and execute laws that are
warehousing millions of their own people in America’s prisons for political
and economic reasons. African Americans are nearly
half of the more than two million prisoners behind bars. African Americans are
more likely to receive longer sentences, and the imposition of outrageous
convictions and sentences has produced a spectacular expansion of incarceration. PROFITEERING OFF THE
INCARCERATED These are significant numbers
of men and women whose prime years of their lives are spent in prisons. This is
a loss to minority people who have a legitimate interest in the job market and
the wages they never receive. People are forced to work for state institutions
throughout this nation, and to be exploited by state-owned facilities. It is
state-owned institutions and corporations which make profits, while the
nation’s people pay for incarcerating people. The feeding frenzy perpetuated
by conviction and sentencing of millions has created a large incarcerated labor
force. This idea of incarcerating large groups of people is based on profit for
state-owned institutions. The Prison Industry Enhancement
Act (PIE) regulations apply to prisons where prisoners are not being as
exploited, but are paid prevailing wages. This does not mean prisoners actually
receive such wages. Most prevailing wages go to medical, housing and education. Corporations and businesses
which are quickly growing from prison labor are exerting considerable power on
the government to weaken PIE regulations and make it possible to more easily
exploit prisoners. The fact is that prisoners are being exploited for profit in
the interest of the few. The history of this nation’s labor movement has shown
us this is true. HISTORY OF LABOR If prisoners refuse to work
under state servitude, they will be thrown into solitary confinement and
brutalized psychologically and physically for their refusal to submit. If they
do work, they are placed under hazardous conditions, with inhuman treatment,
long working hours and stressful environment. Many jobs done by prisoners in
the U.S. are done elsewhere only in Third World countries. These Third World
countries have been condemned by the U.S. for human rights violations. This
shows the contradiction of legally accepted slavery under imprisonment in the
U.S. supported by the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution. The American penal system needs
a massive reconstruction in areas that have failed prisoners. We must give
education, rehabilitation and job skills that are in demand by society that
would give prisoners a real opportunity to integrate well into society upon
release. These are the tasks that the
people must undertake if society is to defuse the brutal era of political and
economic brutality and social unrest built upon the rhetoric and laws that have
claimed a significant part of the people of society to slavery. —Sheik M. Moore El, National
Coordinator, Missouri Prison Labor Union |
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