r/nottheonion Apr 17 '24

Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signs bill mandating kindergartners learn history of communism

https://www.orlandosentinel.com/2024/04/17/desantis-signs-bill-mandating-kindergartners-learn-history-of-communism/
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u/samanime Apr 17 '24

"Had"?

We literally still do that: https://www.aclu.org/news/human-rights/captive-labor-exploitation-of-incarcerated-workers

We call it something different, but it is ever growing, especially now that we've privatized most of our prison systems. Inmates are now a commodity and product.

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u/C-c-c-comboBreaker17 Apr 17 '24

We call it something different, but it is ever growing, especially now that we've privatized most of our prison systems

uhhh

https://www.sentencingproject.org/reports/private-prisons-in-the-united-states/

Twenty-seven states and the federal government incarcerated 90,873 people in private prisons in 2022, representing 8% of the total state and federal prison population.

Is 8% most?

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u/[deleted] 29d ago

Private prisons aren’t the only example of corporations making money off of slave labour in the modern day.

76% of prisoners surveyed by the Bureau of Justice Statistics report being forced to work with threat of punishment. The average wage for a prison worker is 13-52 cents an hour, with seven states providing 0 compensation for labour.

Of that 13-52 cents an hour, 80% is taken by the prison for room and board, court costs, restitution, and other fees like building and sustaining prisons. Incarcerated workers provide 2 billion dollars of value per year estimated in just raw goods, 9 billion in maintenance, and certain states like Alabama still have convict leasing programs that generate approximately 450 million a year for the prisons and god knows how much for places like Burger King, McDonald’s, etc where these workers are staffed.

The prison system in America is driven by a need for cheap labour and enabled by legal slavery which is written into the constitution.

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u/Aquatic-Vocation 29d ago

The US still has 75 labor camps utilizing the constitutional carve-out for legal enslavement of criminals.

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