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The Convict Leasing Forced Labor System (slrpnk.net)

submitted 4 months ago by octopus_ink@lemmy.ml to c/whitepeopletwitter@sh.itjust.works

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cross-posted from: https://slrpnk.net/post/11237867

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[–] dessalines@lemmy.ml 14 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

Yep, slavery was largely re-instituted (in a less dominant form) during the reconstruction era.

The US still has a significant portion of its economy based on slave-labor, including at least 54 state-run prison farms, and US-state-run companies like Federal Prison Industries which operates a multi-billion dollar industry with ~ 52 prison factories, where prisoners produce furniture, clothing, circuit boards, products for the military, computer aided design services, call center support for private companies. 1, 2, 3

The US also has the highest incarceration rates in the world, with states like Louisiana basically being slave states. Most individual US states outrank all other countries.

[–] Maeve@sh.itjust.works 9 points 4 months ago

That last link..."freest country in the world" just means "most indoctrinated country in the world, and also slavers."

[–] ricecake@sh.itjust.works 3 points 4 months ago (2 children)

Not to diminish how messed up prison labor is, or how private prisons shouldn't be a thing at all, to say that prison labor makes up a significant portion of the US economy is a pretty big stretch.

FPI/UNICORE only has about a half billion in gross revenue, and the entire private prison sector is around ~$8 billion.
The US economy is in the $25 trillion range. Arby's is about half the size of the private prison industry, and eight times larger than FPI. ($4 billion)

Neither should exist in the modern era, and getting rid of them would be an almost unnoticeable impact on the economy.

[–] psud@aussie.zone 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

"neither" you mean prison labour and Arby's, right?

[–] ricecake@sh.itjust.works 3 points 4 months ago

I suppose I should have said "none".
Even though Arby's has personally hurt me more than private prisons, I still think that privatized cruelty that somehow manages to be worse than our already pretty shitty penal system is worse that the gastrointestinal nightmare that Arby's has given me.