Convict leasing for agriculture—a system that allows states to sell prison labor to private farms—became infamous in the late 1800s for the brutal conditions it imposed on captive, mostly black workers.
Federal and state laws prohibited convict leasing for most of the 20th century, but the once-notorious practice is making a comeback.
Under lucrative arrangements, states are increasingly leasing prisoners to private corporations to harvest food for American consumers.
Under lucrative arrangements, states are increasingly leasing prisoners to private corporations to harvest food for American consumers.
Win-win, right?
The US has become increasingly anti-immigrant over the past decade so we don’t want them coming in and pickin’ no fruit. With our huge prison population* just waiting to be tapped, everyone comes out ahead.
Pete
“While the United States represents about 4.2 percent of the world’s population, it houses around 20 percent of the world’s prisoners.”
“How about, we not incarcerate non-violent offenders?”
you mean someone who scammed investors out of 200 million get off with a $10,000 fine and six weeks probation?
Or someone who stole your identity and that of 1000 others to rip you off for half a million, put your house in your name and borrowed $250,000 on it…don’t go to jail?
Nope. Bernie Ebbers and his fellow ilk should rot in jail for decades. If they want, pick fruit for 35c an hour and get to use it to buy snacks at the prison snack bar. Or get a magazine delivered each month.
I have a friend who worked with the gov’t on a program to put LEDs in government facilities to replace energy hog existing lighting. The “LEDs” had to be US made…no one made 150w equivalent LEDs here so he arranged to have ‘LED’ parts made overseas shipped here and ‘assembled’ by US workers (prison labor) for a few dimes an hour. Yeah, ‘cheap prison labor’ but of course, the company had to pay the overhead for guards, for a special secure facility’ and only non-violent trusted inmates got the job. The gov’t charged the company 2 bucks an hour for labor. Still a good deal. And thousands and thousands of energy hog 150w floods were replaced with 20w LED equivalents saving taxpayers a lot of bucks.
Prisons are not fun places - inmates are usually bored to death…looking for something do to other than waiting for breakfast, lunch and dinner to be served.
The US has become increasingly anti-immigrant over the past decade
I have not observed this at all.
I’ve seen Americans becoming more concerned about ILLEGAL immigration.
It seems that we don’t like having large numbers of foreign criminals running around the country doing who-knows-what. And, by definition, every illegal immigrant is both foreign and a criminal. Some of them are criminals who violate other laws in addition to violating immigration law.
However, the large majority of those illegal immigrants do NOT violate any other laws, and would much rather be here legally. Meanwhile, they don’t seem to have a hard time finding low-end jobs which are still much better jobs than they could get in their home countries, indicating that we need them.
The obvious solution is to make such changes to immigration laws, border-patrol and immigration-agency funding, or whatever else, as are needed to get those want-to-be-legal immigrants here LEGALLY, while cracking down hard on illegal immigration and those who enable it.
Unfortunately, it’s much easier to do nothing while screaming at “the other party” for doing nothing.
It seems that we don’t like having large numbers of foreign criminals running around the country doing who-knows-what. And, by definition, every illegal immigrant is both foreign and a criminal. Some of them are criminals who violate other laws in addition to violating immigration law.
True.
Those illegals were only here when a very large number of American employers criminally hired them. With penalties now employers are not hiring. In reality the illegals have mostly left the country. We have a labor shortage. But fewer American criminals if we forget the past.
