They thought they were going to rehab. They ended up in chicken plants.

[cyclonefence]

3. This was standard treatment of African Americans after Emancipation

Black men convicted of misdemeanors were routinely rented out or even sold to industries in the South, including coal mines, iron works, lumbering concerns and railroads where they served out their prison sentences enduring subhuman living conditions, often shackled day and night, living in filthy barracks with no toilets and no medical attention. U.S. Steel and the Georgia Pacific Railroad are only two of the titans of American industry built on the backs of "freed" slaves. Unpaid labor not subject to limits on working hours or conditions gave these industries immeasurable economic advantages over union-shop industries. Seems like nothing ever changes.