It's Illegal to Import Products Made With Prison Labor. Why Is It Still Legal to Use--

[eridani]

--Prison Labor in America?

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/318-66/36748-its-illegal-to-import-products-made-with-prison-labor-why-is-it-still-legal-to-use-prison-labor-in-america

While the issues have been present for years, they took a bizarre turn in February when President Obama signed the Trade Facilitation and Enforcement Act. This legislation gave U.S. Customs the ability to prohibit, stop and enforce a ban on products coming into the United States that have been made with forced or prison labor. The action was well received by all, and would appear to have been a move in favor of American product, but the mere enforcement of the law calls into question a huge loophole in the entire "Made in USA" discussion.

Here's the rub: Since it is now illegal to import products made with prison labor, why is it still legal to use prison labor in America? Has our own government just issued a non-compete clause for foreign prisoners, or have they issued a free pass for U.S. prison labor to compete on products that are protected under the Berry Amendment as "Made in USA"?

Chauncey the gardener would have a field day with that one. Much like his first ride in an automobile, when he commented that the view from the window "is just like television, only you can see much further."

Our federal government does, in fact, promote, allow and encourage inmates to assemble garments behind prison walls, under a growing and longstanding program called UNICOR. Prisoners earn as little as 23 cents an hour working on assembly lines, and their products often compete for business with legitimate government contractors who operate under under the Berry Amendment (a law that requires U.S. military uniforms to be made in the U.S.). These respectable American companies make apparel and footwear for many branches of the U.S. government and often use the Berry business as an anchor, to help them run their U.S. factories so they can compete in the global marketplace.

[braddy]

1. This might be more complex than you think, I know that I have been puzzled by it all my life.

I saw the chain gangs of my youth and I know that some prisoners want to get outdoors, and I also know that many of them want to work and make money, and learn trades, but.... what about non prisoner workers being pushed out of the market, and what is exploitation of prisoner labor (where are the boundaries and prices).

It is not as neat and easy to decide as it can seem at first.

I do know that a dread would be being in prison, and with no income to buy candy and cigarettes and tuna fish or a radio, or whatever they buy.

[Egnever]

4. Well said

It is quite complicated.

[UtahJosh]

11. No, it's not complicated at all. nt

[lostnfound]

7. Private for-profit prisons get contracts that guarantee certain percentages of young and healthy...

Not just a certain NUMBER of prisoners, but the proportion of those prisoners that are potential slaves, I mean, prisoner-workers.

In some places they are evaluating where to locate prisons based on where the schools are failing.

What seems practical, expedient or "just bidness" is all part of what is bringing the sad vision of a a 'boot stomping on a human face' to fruition, faster.

Profit over people.

[UtahJosh]

10. It's totally neat and easy to decide.

Slave labor is just that.

Look to BETTER countries who treat their prison population like actual humans.

Are you *really* serious about that comment, while still calling yourself a liberal?

[Iggo]

19. It's slave labor.

See? Not that complicated at all.

[emsimon33]

2. K&R

[bbgrunt]

3. that's a great question. It's another factor depressing wages here.

[Sunlei]

18. depresses many jobs. For example state/federal funds pay wildfire workers a very good salary.

Many of those workers are prisoners paid almost nothing and 'for profit' prisons pocket the salary.

And the State/Federal gov. pays private prisons thousands a year by contract to house each prisoner.

What was the fee mentioned in news for Arizona tent city prisons? around $47,000? a year for each prisoner.

Paid by our Federal/state funds, those over stuffed prisons are a goldmine for private prison Corps. Millions a tent in easy money.

[former9thward]

21. Tent city is run by Maricopa County.

Not private.

[Sunlei]

22. That crazy prison takes in california prisoners along with state money. Wonder what

that counties voted in officials spend all that taxpayer money on? Not the prisoners.

edited to add a list of state prisons and 'for profit' prisons so you can see how prisoners are swapped to the 'for profit' prisons to share the state/federal gravy train. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Arizona_state_prisons

That's just state prisons. For Profits also have Federal prisons and Detention Prisons for undocumented people they happen to grab. Woman and children too.

[Sunlei]

5. because USA 13th amendment still allows slavery for prisoners & Corps make full use of USA slaves.

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.

Congress could change this if they wanted to.

[gollygee]

16. +100

It was written that way intentionally. The US never planned to do away with slavery and never did.

[backscatter712]

6. Prison labor should be paid at minimum wage.

Right now, prisoners who work in the US get paid ridiculously low wages. Maybe enough to get a few goodies in the commissary, but that's it.

Really, they should be getting paid the same as people on the outside for the same work.

Prison labor should be used to help the prisoners learn skills, and should also help them get ready for release.

Have them build up some funds that will be ready for them when they're released - once they're out, if they've been building up money, and not having to pay for more than a few goodies in the commissary & such, that will help them get a place to live, find work, and so on.

Better than just dumping them on the street and wondering why they can't get work and end up right back in prison.

[EX500rider]

8. Most people living on minimum wage don't have their food & housing & utilities supplied for them.

[surrealAmerican]

12. ... which should make no difference.

People are payed for their work, not for what their expenses might be.

[EX500rider]

14. Unless the person paying them is the one paying the expenses.

[surrealAmerican]

15. We don't make prisoners pay their own living expenses.

This should be true regardless of their employment while incarcerated.

[Sunlei]

17. should be paid federal minimum so they can help support their families on the outside. No min. wage.

Prison workers/chain gangs are exempted from the law requiring people are paid at least Federal minimum wages.

That's why Corps use thousands of prison workers and that's why thousands work on fire crews.

'For Profit' private managed prisons are paid by our State/Federal money and Corps get slave labor. This is a very high profit gravy train.

That's why our prisons are more full every year.

[eridani]

9. Prison Labor Strike in Alabama: "We Will No Longer Contribute to Our Own Oppression"

http://readersupportednews.org/news-section2/306-10/36757-prison-labor-strike-in-alabama-qwe-will-no-longer-contribute-to-our-own-oppressionq

Despite being held in solitary confinement for years, men known as Kinetik, Dhati, and Brother M, primary leaders of the Free Alabama Movement, have been instrumental in organizing a statewide prison work stoppage in Alabama that began on Sunday, May 1. Currently, the prison labor strike has begun at Alabama’s Holman, Staton, and Elmore Correctional Facilities. St. Clair’s stoppage will begin on May 9, with Donaldson and other correctional facilities to follow soon after. The current plan is for the work stoppage to last 30 days, although the Movement’s leaders said the length of the strike is contingent on the cooperation of legislators in regard to reforming the prison labor system and the conditions of the prisons. The Free Alabama Movement is an activist network of incarcerated men, spanning numerous state prisons across Alabama.

Participants report that, apparently in retaliation against the work stoppage, the entire populations of the striking prisons have been served significantly smaller meal portions this week, a tactic called “bird feeding” that is sometimes used by prison guards to put pressure on prisoners through malnourishment. “They are trying to starve a nigga into compliance,” said one man, who estimated that his meals had been reduced by more than 60 percent of his normal serving size. Prisons that have not begun striking, but are soon scheduled to, like St. Clair, are also allegedly being bird-fed. “The food is always garbage,” said one man, “but it’s usually a lot more than this.”

Additionally, the entire populations of Alabama’s striking prisons–including the general prison population not usually in 23 hour a day segregation–have been placed in indefinite solitary confinement. A statement released by the Alabama Department of Corrections calls this a “lockdown with limited inmate movement” that will persist “while ADOC investigates the situation.” Holman was also placed on lockdown in March following an uprising in which a correctional officer and the warden were stabbed after intervening in a fight, and prisoners briefly set fire to hallways.

[Lee-Lee]

13. Not not does UNICOR get lots of military contracts they get preferential treatment in bidding

So quite literally they are putting American workers in almost every industry that would look for these contracts out of work and the US Government actually will pay more for the good they make.

They have the same policy for sheltered workshops for the mentally challenged, the blind and others and the policy makes more sense there- but for UNICOR it's just wrong.

[KG]

20. I knew, like the sun would come in the east, some shitbags would support the concept of

prison/slave labor