Very neatly written exposition of how prisons have replaced slavery as a means of augmenting the wealthy of the wealthy – on the backs of society’s most vulnerable.
“Insourcing,” as prison labor is often called, is an even cheaper alternative to outsourcing. Instead of sending labor over to China or Bangladesh, manufacturers have chosen to forcibly employ the 2.4 million incarcerated people in the United States. Chances are high that if a product you’re holding says it is “American Made,” it was made in an American prison.
On average, prisoners work 8 hours a day, but they have no union representation and make between .23 and $1.15 per hour, over 6 times less than federal minimum wage. These low wages combined with increasing communication and commissary costs mean that inmates are often released from correctional facilities with more debt than they had on their arrival. Meanwhile, big businesses receive tax credits for employing these inmates in excess of millions of dollars a year.
A lot more good information here .. and for those who wish to understand the entirety of the prison-industrial complex machinery, there’s Michelle West Alexander’s book The New Jim Crow.