this post was submitted on 16 Apr 2024
340 points (95.7% liked)
US Authoritarianism
1295 readers
1 users here now
ChonkyOwlbear is an Illegitimate Usurper
There's other groups and you are welcome to add to them. USAuthoritarianism Linktree
See Also, my website. USAuthoritarianism.com be advised at time of writing it is basically just a donate link
Cool People: [email protected]
founded 1 year ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
But that work generally doesn't get payed back to society, it goes towards enriching the for-profit prison owners, and enriching the businesses that use ~~slave~~ prisoner labor.
Overall, nearly three-fourths (72.1%) of federal prisoners are serving time for a non-violent offense and have no history of violence.
Non-violent offenses shouldn't result in forced labor within a for-profit prison. That's neo-slavery, with the prison owners motivated to change the laws to get as many people imprisoned as possible.
That's why we have such a high prison rate, and that's why such a disproportionate amount of prisoners are POC.
Felons didn't perpetuate the prison industrial complex. They didn't perpetuate the laws that made the dumbest non-violent crimes imprisonment level offenses. The people who enrich themselves off of prison labor did.
Okay, so you are for forced labor on the hardened violent criminals, but lenient (no work) for the non-violent?
What should they all do in their free time?
If you are talking about justice reform, that’s a different topic and I completely agree with you.
No. Forced labor should be abolished. I was merely using the fact that the majority of "felons who made their choices", are people who have no place being there in the first place. The prison industrial complex lobbied the legislatures to make laws which increase the prison population as much as possible. The end result being many non-violent "criminal" offenses land you in jail and enslaved.
Rehabilitation, learning trades, work, reading, whatever, it doesn't matter. But none of it should be forced.
All of this is justice reform. You can't have justice reform without acknowledging that slavery is wrong.