New Forms of Slavery
The cycle of incarceration and re-incarceration provide free labor
In Michel Foucault's work on Docile Bodies we dive into the ways that the prison system molds its inmates to conform so that they work within the confines of the time and space allotted to them. The way our system works we can see that this more of a cycle with our laws and regulations geared more towards reincarnation as opposed to the rehabilitation it claims to try to impose.
In 1865, the United States under Abraham Lincoln ratified the 13th amendment which sought to abolish slavery. However, as many people would argue, it still exists today just in a less concretely designed form. The amendment which did away with slavery as we know it actually left a loophole that was immediately exploited by many former slave owners who relied on the free labor. the amendment is written as such,
With the exception to this law under the exception of punishment for crime laid the ground work for prisons to become the new slave institutions generating cheap or even free labor. After the 13th amendment was ratified, many new laws were put into place in the south, criminalizing legal actions for black people. It became a crime for black people to freely do what white people were allowed to such as freely associate with more than two people or even walk on the same sidewalk as an oncoming white man. In some localities, a black person could be thrown in jail simply because he was suspected of a crime. In some states, all white men were deputized to take action against any black people who broke these laws. While they were no longer systematically enslaved across the country, most free blacks landed right into jail. At first it was the same farmers or businessmen in the south who profited off the cheap labor as they did with their slaves, however as time went on private corporations began to take part in this exploitation of labor from the unprotected population. The United States public and private prison industry account for a large portion of essential manufactured goods that are used in America. This is viewed as beneficial to some; or as a clear violation of the U.S. code 1589 which outlines what qualifies as forced labor to others. Those that are opposed to the prisoners working argue that inmates are paid only $.93 to $4.73 a day, which is grossly less than minimum wage. In some states, prisoners don’t even receive any wages, and are forced to work under threat of retaliation by the prison warden. Some proponents of forcing prisoners to work for less than minimum wage helps not only the actual prisoners by giving them some sort of income for savings when they’re released, but it helps develop skills for inmates they might not otherwise attain and it helps keep the company from outsourcing jobs to another country. This argument fails to realize however, that the working middle class American is not seeing the benefit of the addition of these jobs to the US economy. These jobs provide no benefit by existing within the country as they are essentially completed by people forced to work for wages bordering on nonexistence as they would be if they were outsourced. Whether a corporation exploits cheap labor within the country or outsources it to one with no minimum wage and few to no laws protecting workers does not make much a difference as some of the population is still being exploited. The prison population has become an American powerhouse of workers that companies exploit with no financial return for the American people. The second idea that workers attain career skills they could not outside of prison fails to see that this is by design. Once you are imprisoned, you carry with you for life a record that anyone can look up, from any future employer to any person interested enough. Most jobs will not hire a convicted felon after they are released, despite the amount of time between their offense and the current date of the application. Once employers see that the box on the application is checked yes for past felony the application is thrown away. The job skills inmates learn in the prisons would not be so significant if former felons were allowed to attain any job they were qualified for after they served their prison sentence. There are many corporations that utilize workers within the prison population to generate their goods. From fast food chains to the American government, inmates are responsible for building office furniture, to body armor, to the iconic license plate stamping. It is cost effective to use these people as a work force as compared to the general population as prison labor is responsible for 2.4 billion in revenue annually. As an added benefit, the companies that hire these prisoners don’t have to supplement these prisoners pay by dishing out any benefits as the normal American worker would receive. They also retain much more control over their workforce as they do not have to worry about workers missing days from external family issues or unforeseen reasons, there are no sick days or unionization to promote their own self interests. Prison labor programs now employ more people than any company on the Fortune 500 list and that labor force is only ever growing. The United States has only 5% of the worlds population, but we hold 25% of the worlds prison population. Almost 1 in 100 people are behind bars. This current system is one which seeks to criminalize the population rather than treat them and work to eliminate the causes of deviancy. The US prison system is not an institution that seeks to rehabilitate the criminal population, but rather profit off of it.