[MuffinFlavored]

> Penal labor in the United States is explicitly allowed by the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution: "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction."

What are most prisoners forced to do?

[verall]

They are "forced" to work at below minimum wage rates both for the government and individual firms in public-private partnerships.

I use "forced" in quotation marks, because although prisoners are no longer forced chain-gang style, these jobs can be a prisoner's only source of money, which is required to purchase communication with the outside world.

[jasonhansel]

In some states (e.g. Texas) prisoners aren't even paid any wages--they're just punished if they refuse to work.

An article about this: https://truthout.org/articles/unpaid-labor-in-texas-prisons-...

[fighterpilot]

Is this work economically valuable/worthwhile to whoever is employing them? What are the profit margins that their employers make from their prison labor?

[geofft]

Near where I grew up there's a state prison called Angola, built in 1880 on the site of an old plantation called Angola. The slave quarters were repurposed as the original prisoner quarters. Mostly-black prisoners raise cotton and other crops for pennies on the hour, overseen by mostly-white officers called "freemen."

https://ccnmtl.columbia.edu/projects/caseconsortium/casestud...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana_State_Penitentiary

[hairofadog]

If you're sincerely interested, I found the documentary "13th" to be informative and thought-provoking.

https://www.netflix.com/title/80091741

[jreese]

Last Week Tonight on Prison Labor: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AjqaNQ018zU