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Corporations Now Using Slave Labour Right Here In The ‘land Of The Free’?


“Mass incarceration on a scale almost unexampled in human history is a fundamental fact of our country today — perhaps the fundamental fact, as slavery was the fundamental fact of 1850. In truth, there are more black men in the grip of the criminal-justice system — in prison, on probation, or on parole — than were in slavery then. Over all, there are now more people under ‘correctional supervision’ in America — more than six million — than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height.” — Adam Gopnik, “The Caging of America”
Sweatshop labor is back with a vengeance. It can be found across broad stretches of the American economy and around the world. Penitentiaries have become a niche market for such work. The privatization of prisons in recent years has meant the creation of a small army of workers too coerced and right-less to complain.
Prisoners, whose ranks increasingly consist of those for whom the legitimate economy has found no use, now make up a virtual brigade within the reserve army of the unemployed whose ranks have ballooned along with the U.S. incarceration rate. The Corrections Corporation of America and G4S (formerly Wackenhut), two prison privatizers, sell inmate labor at subminimum wages to Fortune 500 corporations like Chevron, Bank of America, AT&T, and IBM.
These companies can, in most states, lease factories in prisons or prisoners to work on the outside. All told, nearly a million prisoners are now making office furniture, working in call centers, fabricating body armor, taking hotel reservations, working in slaughterhouses, or manufacturing textiles, shoes, and clothing, while getting paid somewhere between 93 cents and $4.73 per day.
Rarely can you find workers so pliable, easy to control, stripped of political rights, and subject to martial discipline at the first sign of recalcitrance…
On the supply side, the U.S. holds captive 25% of all the prisoners on the planet: 2.3 million people. It has the highest incarceration rate in the world as well, a figure that began skyrocketing in 1980 as Ronald Reagan became president
Prison slavery benefits nobody. In addition to the harm it does to the prisioners themselves, it undercuts “legitimate” labor on the outside, making it hard for US workers to compete with such cheap workforces. Meanwhile, the profits that companies reap create incentives to put more people in prison…whether they belong there or not. And when they get out, a lack of opportunity often means ex-convicts have to live a life of crime to survive. The only ex-convicts I’ve ever heard of who were able to find any kind of real success in life are the tiny handful who have managed to escape abroad and re-invent themselves away from the “land of the free.”
In many places, as other business opportunities dry up, the prison itself becomes the only game in town, and people who in an earlier age would have been farmers or factory workers instead become prison guards to make a living. I don’t blame the guards and others who work for prisons – often its their only choice of honest work. But when one becomes a guard and enforces inhuman conditions day in and day out, one’s personality changes, leading to psychological desensitization and dehumanization.

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Corporations Now Using Slave Labour Right Here In The ‘land Of The Free’?


“Mass incarceration on a scale almost unexampled in human history is a fundamental fact of our country today — perhaps the fundamental fact, as slavery was the fundamental fact of 1850. In truth, there are more black men in the grip of the criminal-justice system — in prison, on probation, or on parole — than were in slavery then. Over all, there are now more people under ‘correctional supervision’ in America — more than six million — than were in the Gulag Archipelago under Stalin at its height.” — Adam Gopnik, “The Caging of America”
Sweatshop labor is back with a vengeance. It can be found across broad stretches of the American economy and around the world. Penitentiaries have become a niche market for such work. The privatization of prisons in recent years has meant the creation of a small army of workers too coerced and right-less to complain.
Prisoners, whose ranks increasingly consist of those for whom the legitimate economy has found no use, now make up a virtual brigade within the reserve army of the unemployed whose ranks have ballooned along with the U.S. incarceration rate. The Corrections Corporation of America and G4S (formerly Wackenhut), two prison privatizers, sell inmate labor at subminimum wages to Fortune 500 corporations like Chevron, Bank of America, AT&T, and IBM.
These companies can, in most states, lease factories in prisons or prisoners to work on the outside. All told, nearly a million prisoners are now making office furniture, working in call centers, fabricating body armor, taking hotel reservations, working in slaughterhouses, or manufacturing textiles, shoes, and clothing, while getting paid somewhere between 93 cents and $4.73 per day.
Rarely can you find workers so pliable, easy to control, stripped of political rights, and subject to martial discipline at the first sign of recalcitrance…
On the supply side, the U.S. holds captive 25% of all the prisoners on the planet: 2.3 million people. It has the highest incarceration rate in the world as well, a figure that began skyrocketing in 1980 as Ronald Reagan became president
Prison slavery benefits nobody. In addition to the harm it does to the prisioners themselves, it undercuts “legitimate” labor on the outside, making it hard for US workers to compete with such cheap workforces. Meanwhile, the profits that companies reap create incentives to put more people in prison…whether they belong there or not. And when they get out, a lack of opportunity often means ex-convicts have to live a life of crime to survive. The only ex-convicts I’ve ever heard of who were able to find any kind of real success in life are the tiny handful who have managed to escape abroad and re-invent themselves away from the “land of the free.”
In many places, as other business opportunities dry up, the prison itself becomes the only game in town, and people who in an earlier age would have been farmers or factory workers instead become prison guards to make a living. I don’t blame the guards and others who work for prisons – often its their only choice of honest work. But when one becomes a guard and enforces inhuman conditions day in and day out, one’s personality changes, leading to psychological desensitization and dehumanization.

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What Should Be The Sentence For These Two Muslim Arabs Who Killed Three Children And Their Parents In Itamar?


Two Palestinian Arabs, Hakim Maazan Niad Awad, an 18-year-old high school student, and Amjad Mahmud Fauzi Awad, 19, both from the West Bank village of Awarta, located 2 kilometers south of the settlement of Itamar were arrested in recent days for the brutal slaying of five members of the Fogel family in their Itamar home last month, the IDF and Shin Bet said on Sunday following the lifting of a media ban on the investigation.
The suspects have confessed to the stabbings and re-enacted the murders, security forces said on Sunday. According to Army Radio, they did not express remorse for their crimes.
Both men are affiliated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PLFP) terror group and received significant assistance from family members and friends after the attack, security forces added.
The suspects planned the stabbings days ahead of time. On the night of March 11, after unsuccessful attempts to obtain firearms from a local PFLP representative in their village, the two set out toward Itamar on foot, armed with knives, a wirecutter and masks to cover their faces.
After walking one kilometer, they cut the wire fence that surrounds Itamar, climbed through a forest and over a hilltop, and reached a row of homes.
The suspects at first entered a home adjacent to the Fogel residence, but found that nobody was home. They stole an M-16 rifle from the home, ammunition and body armor, before walking on.
“They saw children sleeping in the home, and entered the Fogel family residence,” the IDF said.
Immediately after entering the home, the youths set their knives on two young brothers sleeping in their beds, 4-year-old Elad and 11-year-old Yoav.
They then entered the parents’ bedroom, where they launched a knife attack on Ehud and Ruth Fogel. The parents fought back, attempting to fend off the attackers, but died of their stab wounds during the struggle.
The two then left the house. One of the suspects returned and stabbed the three-month-old baby Hadas after she began crying to death in her crib.
According to Israel Radio, Amjad said that he was unaware that there were two other children in the house, and that if he had known, he would have stabbed them as well.
After completing the slaughter, the suspects walked back to the village and told Hakim’s uncle, PFLP member Salah Adin Awad, what they had done.
Salah hid their firearms and instructed them to burn their clothes, which were covered in blood.
The youths then resumed their daily life, while Salah sent the weapons to a friend in Ramallah, Jad Avid, who hid the guns in his home.
What would you do with them?

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