Prison & Punishment for Crimes

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23 Cents an Hour? The Perfectly Legal Slavery Happening in Modern-Day America

If you thought slavery was outlawed in America, you would be wrong. The 13th amendment to the Constitution states that “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.”

In plain language, that means slavery in America can still exist for those who are in prison, where you basically lose all of your rights.  (You don’t gain a lot of your rights back when you get out of prison, either, but that is a different story.) So, given the country’s penchant for rapacious capitalism, it may not come as a surprise that there is much of the American prison system that exploits American prisoners much like slaves.

In fact there is large-scale exploitation in American prisons benefiting American corporations and the military-industrial complex. UNICOR, better known as Federal Prison Industries, or FPI, is a government-owned corporation that employs inmates for as little as 23 cents per hour, to provide a wide range of products and services under the guise of a “jobs training program.” In theory, this is supposed to give inmates skills that will prepare them for the workforce upon release.

 

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#SocialJustice Tweets 6.29
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#SocialJustice Tweets 6.29

#PoliceBrutality #DeadlyForce #BlackLivesMatter Tweets 6.25
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#PoliceBrutality #DeadlyForce #BlackLivesMatter Tweets 6.25

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Three Los Angeles Sheriff Deputies Convicted

In February 2011, Gabriel Carrillo came to the Los Angeles county jail to visit his brother. He had a cell phone, and mouthed off to the deputies when told that it was a misdemeanor offense to bring a cell phone into the visitation room.  Deputy Pantamitr Zunggeemoge arrested Gabriel, and took him into a break room where there is no video.  Zunggeemoge handcuffed Gabriel, and confiscated the cell phone.
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#MassIncarceration #NewJimCrow Tweets 6.16
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#MassIncarceration #NewJimCrow Tweets 6.16

#BlackLivesMatter Tweets 6.11
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#BlackLivesMatter Tweets 6.11

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Kalief Browder

Kalief Browder (1993-2015), an American student, was arrested in 2010 at age 16 for stealing a backpack. He spent three years at Rikers Island, New York’s main prison – without ever having been found guilty. He spent over a thousand days in prison, over 700 in solitary confinement.


In the US Constitution, the Sixth Amendment states:
“the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial”
But in the Bronx, Browder’s part of New York, there are not enough judges or money to carry out the Constitution.
About 96% of those accused of a felony in the Bronx plead guilty in exchange for a shorter sentence. There is no trial. Those who maintain their innocence – and whose families’s cannot afford bail or who are held without bail – are sent to prison where they can wait up to five years.

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#KaliefBrowder #BlackLivesMatter Tweets 6.10
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#KaliefBrowder #BlackLivesMatter Tweets 6.10

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U.S. Addicted to Enslavement for Profit

by Vicky Pelaez

 

The prison industry in the United States: big business or a new form of slavery? The prison industry in the United States: big business or a new form of slavery? by Vicky Pelaez Human rights org…anizations, as well as political and social ones, are condemning what they are calling a new form of inhumane exploitation in the United States, where they say a prison population of up to 2 million – mostly Black and Hispanic – are working for various industries for a pittance. For the tycoons who have invested in the prison industry, it has been like finding a pot of gold. They don’t have to worry about strikes or paying unemployment insurance, vacations or comp time. All of their workers are full-time, and never arrive late or are absent because of family problems; moreover, if they don’t like the pay of 25 cents an hour and refuse to work, they are locked up in isolation cells.

 

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Sourced through Scoop.it from: moorbey.wordpress.com