No state has a longer, more profit-driven history of contracting prisoners out to private companies than Alabama. With a sprawling labor system that dates back more than 150 years — including the brutal convict leasing era that replaced slavery — it has constructed a template for the commercialization of mass incarceration.
Most jobs are inside facilities, where the state’s inmates — who are disproportionately Black — can be sentenced to hard labor and forced to work for free doing everything from mopping floors to laundry. But more than 10,000 inmates have logged a combined 17 million work hours outside Alabama’s prison walls since 2018, for entities like city and county governments and businesses that range from major car-part manufacturers and meat-processing plants to distribution centers for major retailers like Walmart, the AP determined.
It's legal per the 13th Amendment.
Doesn't make it right, and it says a lot about how little both parties value human rights that it's allowed to stand.
Oh, that's nothing. Ever wonder who tough on crime legislation actually benefits, and who's lobbying for it?
Government: "WELL ACHSHUALLY, They aren't slaves because they consented...
~under~ ~the~ ~threat~ ~of~ ~23~ ~hour~ ~solitary~ ~confinement~ ~with~ ~zero~ ~amenities~ ~and~ ~nothing~ ~to~ ~do~ ~and~ ~shitty~ ~food~ ~and~ ~absolute~ ~boredom~~,~ ~and~ ~practically~ ~psychological~ ~torture"~
Oh no that's most states. Alabama is straight up sentencing them to labor. There's not even a fiction of them volunteering.
Genuine, semi-passive psychological torture, right?
Depends...
Under project 2025, they could remove all the cameras then do some ol' fashioned "Enhanced Interrogation"
Yeah it was written that way in order to have slaves with extra steps
That's how success is made, boy