Prisoners should learn professional skills that help them prepare for release, instead of being forced to work, sometimes picking crops in triple-digit heat for pennies an hour or nothing at all, Sen. Sen. Cory Boeker He said this on Tuesday during a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee hearing on prison labor.
America incarcerates more people than almost any other country in the world – almost 2 million – and they are disproportionately people of color. Those who refuse to work can be punished, including solitary confinement, Booker noted. And those who are injured or killed often lack access to most of the basic rights and protections guaranteed to other American workers.
“Our prisons should reflect the best of who we are, they should reflect our values,” the New Jersey Democrat said. “And they should be, in my strong opinion, places that are not just for punishment, but also for rehabilitation and for creating pathways to redemption.”
While most incarcerated workers today help maintain prisons, others are hired out to private companies or participate in work release programs. Companies including McDonald’s, KFC, Walmart, Cargill and Tyson Foods have profited from the multibillion-dollar industry, The Associated Press found as part of an ongoing two-year investigation into how prison labor is quietly entering the supply chains of some of America’s most privileged companies. recognized companies and brands.
Booker, chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice and Counterterrorism Subcommittee, spoke at a hearing focused on finding ways to rethink prison labor, from making jobs voluntary and raising wages to protecting workers from injury and abuse.
Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas pushed back, saying prisoners are dangerous people housed in dangerous facilities where “vain hands are the devil’s workshop.” He added that prison labor is a way for prisoners to give back to the society they have wronged.
“And if that means scrubbing the toilets, mopping the floors or picking up the trash,” he said, “then so be it.”
American prisoners were put to work in the early 1800s, but the practice increased after the Civil War with the passage of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which contained a loophole. It ended slavery for all except those convicted of a crime. For decades after emancipation, black men were rounded up – often for petty crimes – and put to work under brutal conditions during the convict leasing era. It filled the coffers of industrial giants like U.S. Steel and Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company, while helping rebuild the South’s shattered economy.
Andrea Armstrong, a law professor at Loyola University New Orleans, said incarcerated workers are sometimes given dangerous assignments with little or no training, leading in some cases to painful and lifelong, debilitating injuries and even death.
That, she said, was never intended to be part of their punishment. She listed a number of inmates who have died preventable deaths while working behind bars, and also highlighted the work of the AP.
“Refusing to work under dangerous conditions can even lead to new criminal charges and new penalties in some states,” she said. “And we, the general public, have no idea about it, because this forced labor takes place in spaces where oversight, transparency and accountability are lacking.”
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