US prisoners are being assigned dangerous jobs. But what happens if they are hurt or killed?

girlfreddy@lemmy.ca to News@lemmy.world – 323 points – US prisoners are being assigned dangerous jobs. But what happens if they are hurt or killed?
apnews.com

Blas Sanchez was nearing the end of a 20-year stretch in an Arizona prison when he was leased out to work at Hickman’s Family Farms, which sells eggs that end up in the supply chains of huge companies like McDonald’s, Target and Albertsons. While assigned to a machine that churns chicken droppings into compost, his right leg got pulled into a chute with a large spiraling augur.

“I could hear ‘crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch,’” Sanchez said. “I couldn’t feel anything, but I could hear the crunch.”

He recalled frantically clawing through mounds of manure to tie a tourniquet around his bleeding limb. He then waited for what felt like hours while rescuers struggled to free him so he could be airlifted to a hospital. His leg was amputated below the knee.

Nationwide, hundreds of thousands of prisoners are put to work every year, some of whom are seriously injured or killed after being given dangerous jobs with little or no training, The Associated Press found. They include prisoners fighting wildfires, operating heavy machinery or working on industrial-sized farms and meat-processing plants tied to the supply chains of leading brands. These men and women are part of a labor system that – often by design – largely denies them basic rights and protections guaranteed to other American workers.

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...when he was leased out to work at Hickman's Family Farms

I love how the article opens with this, because leasing people like property is totally cool and fine in America, because old piece paper said it is ok.

Prisoners can be used as slaves. It's right there in the constitution.

Yeah. I know. I'm saying that it's crazy to me (as a non American) that slavery is viewed as normal in 2024, because the US Constitution says it's OK to buy, sell, lease people if they committed a crime.

Oh, I don't disagree at all.

And the fact that they get sent to private companies takes it from merely barbaric to absolutely grotesque.

and what if they don't do what they want?

A quick Googling suggests bread and water for food, solitary for a month, and showers once a week.

No idea how this backwards-ass hole ever became a superpower.

No idea how this backwards-ass hole ever became a superpower.

Well I’m sure the cheap slave labor helped.

Pretty sure that would be a human rights violation. Got a source for that?

https://www.ctas.tennessee.edu/eli/punishment-refusing-work

Pursuant to T.C.A. § 41-2-120(a), any prisoner refusing to work or becoming disorderly may be confined in solitary confinement or subjected to such other punishment, not inconsistent with humanity, as may be deemed necessary by the sheriff for the control of the prisoners, including reducing sentence credits pursuant to the procedure established in T.C.A. § 41-2-111. Such prisoners refusing to work, or while in solitary confinement, shall receive no credit for the time so spent. T.C.A. § 41-2-120(b).

https://www.quora.com/What-happens-if-you-refuse-to-work-in-prison

for the control of the prisoners

What does this mean? I assume the clause is moreso meant for unruly prisoners and not just simply refusing in the first place? And since this is state law, I'm guessing it can be very different across the others.

Slavery never ended. A carveout for slavery is still legal slavery. We haven't ended slavery in America at all, just changed the legal method of obtaining a slave and making it so only corporations get to have slaves.

We're such a fucking disgusting sorry excuse for a country.

(For those "JuSt LeAvE tHeN" I wish I could, but any country worth a damn has strict immigration requirement$ I don't meet...)

i wonder which other countries do the same?

looks like its poland, brazil, rwanda, belarus, vietnam, egypt, myanmar, mongolia, china, mali, zimbabwe, turkmenistan, russia, libya, eritrea, north korea.

Sound like those are also shitty countries that still have legal slavery that needs to end... :/

Kinda like the Imperial measurement system, if you are being compared to Myanmar then perhaps stop?

Weird that you left off France, the UK, Germany, Canada, Japan, and Korea.

The difference is that in these countries prisoners only have to work for the prison itself, doing stuff like cleaning, washing dishes, etc. They can work for a private company if they wish, but that's not required.

these countries prisoners only have to work for the prison itself

Hard labor an increasing punishment for poor people unable to pay fines

Current South Korean law dictates that people who are unable to pay a fine must make up the difference with hard labor. People who are sent to the workhouse under this system do hard labor alongside regular convicts. There are over 350 workhouses at more than 50 correctional facilities around the country at which a variety of work is done, including sewing and carpentry.

There are more than 40,000 people a year like Kim who are forced to do hard labor because they are unable to pay a fine. Figures from the Ministry of Justice show this number is on the rise: over 35,700 in 2013, over 37,600 in 2014, over 42,600 in 2015 and over 42,600 in 2016. This implies that polarization is worsening and that an increasing number of people are too poor to pay their fines, just like Kim.

“The first news I heard about my brother in 10 years was that he had died,” said Kim’s devastated younger brother Gyeong-ho, who spoke with the Hankyoreh at the flophouse in Seoul’s Jongno District where Kim had lived. The two brothers were the seventh and eighth of eight siblings. The brothers, who were eight years apart, had parted ways long ago because of their difficult financial circumstances. They had grown up together in Daegu but drifted apart after Kim left the city in search of work.

Worked to death but its okay because the prison itself profits.

just changed the legal method of obtaining a slave and making it so only corporations get to have slaves.

The Arkansas Governor's mansion was staffed by prison inmates for over a century. A lot of the post-80s privatization has resulted in convicts becoming corporate chattle. But for a long while we had a more traditional fascist take of public sector slave labor.

There's a reason the average black male spends 1/3 of their life in prison in America.

And then has the right to vote taken away when they get out....

This is so obviously bullshit, but I looked it up anyways. The closest source I could find was this page which claims a black male born in 2001 has a 1 in 3 chance of going to prison.

So yea. Don't lie, it discredits your cause.

Lol it's a lyric from dead prez, wouldn't get bent out of shape about it. Literally written in 2000 - I can't even find stats that old 🤷

But what happens if they are hurt or killed?

What do you guys at the Associated Press think was the point of the drug war?

Oppression, economic disenfranchisement, implicit slavery, oh yeah and racism.

It's not even implicit slavery, the amendment that makes slavery unconstitutional explicitly makes an exception for criminal punishment.

And just coincidentally the US has 25% of the world's prisoners while being only 3% of the world's population

Fun fact: the amendment that outlawed slavery also legalizes slavery.

There is no US without slavery.

Just move it to the third world like the rest of us already for fuck's sake.

Something about changing the past. We’ve got top men working on it though.

Same thing that happens when other slaves are hurt or killed on the job.

Not a hell of a lot.

Slavery is enshrined in the US Constitution so probably nothing

You get another prisoner? Sorry didn't read the article.

Don't think you need to with a question as obvious as that.

Considering the medical system in America totally fucks everyone, I would assume prisoners would also be fucked.

Hickman’s Family Farms: our workers may not be cage free, but the chickens are.

Can prisoners deny work placements? Like do they get any say in this? I'm guessing there would be some sort of retaliation which is why they accept them, that or there's a promise of a shorter sentance or something.

They can, but performing work is one of the things that is taken into account when determining whether or not a prisoner has had "good behavior", and "good behavior" can get a prisoner's sentence reduced.

So, effectively, they are coerced into accepting work placements.

It's carrot and stick. They can get released earlier but refusing has led to abuse by guards too.