Since the late nineteenth century, prison labor has become an integral part of the United States economy. While some convicts are given support and maintenance jobs in prisons, others are tasked with manufacturing goods or providing services to private corporations, non-profit firms, and state and government institutions. These inmates receive little or no payment for their services. According to research, over 2.2 million inmates have been imprisoned in federal, for-profit, and state prisons (Goodridge et al. 6).
Penal labor is empowered by the 13th Amendment of the constitution. Although this amendment eradicated slavery in 1865, it also created a loophole regarding involuntary servitude for convicts. The 13th Amendment permits forced labor among prisoners, and this has been monetized by private corporations and government entities. Skilled prison labor can be valuable for inmates because it rehabilitates inmates and prepares them for re-entry into society. However, the prison work programs need to be voluntary and pay genuine wages to the prisoners. The 13th Amendment allows for the abuse of the American prison system.
Since the 13th Amendment was enacted, the criminal legal system has often been used to source labor from convicted offenders for little or no pay. After the civil war, black codes were passed in the southern states creating new categories of offenses that mainly targeted African Americans. Black people were arrested for minor crimes such as walking next to a railroad, not showing proper respect, or even assembling after dark. The black codes led to the mass incarceration of African Americans (Goodwin 933). The states then forced the prisoners to work on plantations, coal mines, railroad sites, and other industries through a practice called “convict leasing.” These states and private businesses gained financial incentives from the labor of the prisoners who were never paid (Wade-Olson 16). Until the mid-1950s, many states routinely coerced chain gangs of prisoners to engage in public work projects with no pay. Therefore, it is evident that the 13th Amendment created an opportunity for prison systems to exploit labor from prisoners.
The abuse of America’s criminal legal system manifests through the award-winning documentary The Farm: Angola, USA. The documentary exposes the plight of prisoners living in the Louisiana State Penitentiary, which is the biggest American Maximum Security prison. In the documentary, prisoners are forced to work in kitchens, fields, or manufacturing warehouses. In some cases, the inmates are not compensated for their labor, while in other instances, they earn a meager salary of two cents per hour (Benns). In some extreme cases, as long as medical personnel clears the inmates, they are coerced to work failure to which they are punished, including being put under solitary confinement. The exploitation of prisoners’ labor in Louisiana depicts the situation in other prisons throughout the country. Hence, under the 13th Amendment, convicts lack a constitutional right to be free of coerced servitude.
Some federal programs promote the abuse of the prison system. Due to tremendous corporate lobbying, Congress passed the Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program (PIECP) in 1979 (Goodwin 969). This program permits private companies to use prison labor to produce commodities that are then sold to the public, resulting in massive profits for the participating enterprises and immense government revenue. Some of the companies linked with benefiting from inmates’ labor include McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Verizon, Starbucks, Walmart, Nordstrom, AT & T, and Target (Goodwin 962).
For instance, studies suggest that Wendy’s and McDonald’s restaurants have used inmate labor to process frozen foods and that Verizon uses prison labor to offer telecommunication services. Thousands of corporations in the country are making skyrocketing profits from cheap prison labor. Hence, by permitting involuntary servitude in prisons, the 13th Amendment leeway for big corporations and government agencies to continue exploiting inmates’ labor.
State prisons maintain extensive systems for free or cheap prison labor. In most prisons, the inmates perform support and maintenance jobs such as cooking, laundry, and washing dishes. The wages for such jobs range from 14 cents to $2 per hour. Nevertheless, research indicates that states such as Arkansas, Texas, Alabama, Florida, and Oklahoma do not offer any payment for convict labor (Hatton 21).
A study indicates that the state of California has been using inmate labor to fight fires for several years. The prisoners are paid a dollar per hour any time they assist in putting out wildfires. The Californian inmates also work on infrastructural programs for local communities and the state. Consequently, California’s work programs help the state save about $100 million annually (Helmick). In addition, some reports indicate that inmates also work as staff in the state capitols and governor’s households in several states. For example, Hillary Clinton reported that during her years as the First Lady of Arkansas, she had a household staff loaned to her from the state prison (Epps). Therefore, states exploit prisoners for cheap labor because it is allowed in the constitution.
For-profit prisons have been linked with extorting labor from inmates and detained migrants. In this case, the CoreCivic and GEO Group are the biggest beneficiaries of prison labor in private prisons (Goodwin 974). Most of the inmates in private prisons work for for-profit companies in jobs such as carpentry, plumbing, horticulture and landscaping, painting, electrical trades, computer applications, and masonry. The inmates are paid as low as $0.16 per day (Goodridge et al. 18).
Research indicates that for-profit prisons have begun to source forced labor from detained immigrants. In this case, a group of immigrants in California sued the GEO Group for wage theft and coerced labor. According to the lawsuit, the immigrants who were held at the Adelanto ICE processing facility were paid a dollar a day for their labor. The GEO’s policies stipulate that all detained asylum seekers are obliged to work or face sanctions such as solitary confinement or a delay in their immigration process (Pounds). Thus, private prison systems generate massive labor from inmates and detained immigrants.
The Federal Bureau of Prisons has created the Federal Prisons Industries (UNICOR) program that utilizes prison labor to produce a broad range of commodities. The program oversees the processing and selling of diverse products to federal institutions. Under this project, prisoners are compensated less than a dollar for work done in an hour. According to research, in 2016, UNICOR generated over $500 million in sales, but only a tiny portion of the cash was paid to the inmate workers. Additionally, studies suggest that UNICOR runs approximately 83 factories with over 12,000 convicted workers who earn as low as 23 cents an hour (Love & Vijay).
Such prisoners work at call centers or manufacturing sites to produce military items like uniforms, body armor, and war supplies. In this case, research indicates that in 2013, federal inmates made military uniforms worth at least $100 million. Most of the exploited laborers are African- Americans and Hispanics. Numerous studies have linked the mass incarceration of African Americans to the enormous demand for cheap inmate labor. Therefore, despite the abolishment of slavery, it is still legal within the criminal system.
There are minimum regulations regarding prison labor, leaving the treatment of convicts at the discretion of federal and state prisons as well as private corporations. As a result, there are no laws directing how inmates’ labor should be used or how much it should be worth. Due to this massive loophole created by the 13th Amendment, many inmates are underpaid and have almost no rights concerning their employment. This has encouraged private institutions and federal and state organizations to continue extracting free or cheap labor from the prisoners. Many prisoners are forced to work against their will for fear of severe punishment like solitary confinement, stripping off clothes, or being put in restraint positions (Goodwin 964). Nevertheless, even after working under inhumane conditions, they only get a small portion of their wages.
The higher percentage of their salaries is channeled to the prison systems to finance the prisoners’ room and board and victims’ compensation (Hatton 21). Therefore, limited policies regarding prison labor allow increased exploitation of inmates.
However, there is renewed optimism that the punishment clause may be abolished from the constitution. In December 2020, Congressional Democrats, including Senators Jeff Merkley, Bernie Sanders, Ed Markey, and Chris Van Hollen, presented a joint resolution to eliminate the punishment clause from the 13th Amendment. The proposal was supported by a coalition of criminal justice and activist groups such as Human Rights Watch, Color of Change, Constitutional Accountability Center, and Amnesty International (Epps). Nevertheless, the proposal would need to be passed by a two-thirds majority in both Congress houses. It would then require the approval of three-quarters of the states for it to be enacted as federal law. The supporters of this proposal emphasize that its aim is not to prevent convicts from working but to guarantee that work programs become voluntary and offer fair payments.
In conclusion, the 13th Amendment allows for the abuse of the American prison system. This is because it permits the forced labor of convicted persons. As a result, state, federal, and private businesses have taken advantage of this regulation to exploit the massive cheap labor for profits. The growing demand for prison labor has been connected to the mass incarcerations witnessed in most parts of the country, mainly targeting people of color.
Inmates are coerced to produce goods and services for public use and perform maintenance jobs in prisons for little or no pay. Failure to complete the required jobs results in severe forms of punishment such as solitary confinement. Due to the minimal regulations regarding prison labor, the state and federal institutions can continue to manipulate the prison system to source inmates’ labor. Nonetheless, there is renewed optimism that the punishment clause in the 13th Amendment may soon be abolished. This is because some Congressional Democrats presented a proposal to remove the clause from the amendment. These leaders maintain that although prison work programs are fundamental in rehabilitating convicts, they should be voluntary and offer fair wages.
Works Cited
Benns, Whitney. “American Slavery, Reinvented“. Atlantic. 2015. Web.
Epps, Garrett. “The War Over the 13th Amendment and Modern Day Slavery“. Constitutional Accountability Centre. 2021. Web.
Goodridge, Julie et al. “Prison Labor in the United States: An Investor Perspective”. Northstar Asset Management. 2018. Web.
Goodwin, Michelle. “The Thirteenth Amendment: Modern Slavery, Capitalism, and Mass Incarceration.” Cornell Law Review, vol. 104, no. 4, 2019, pp. 899-990. Web.
Hatton, Erin, editor. Labor and Punishment: Work in and out of Prison. University of California Press, 2021.
Helmick, Alex. “Hundreds of the Firefighters Battling Sonoma Fires — Inmates“. KQED. 2017. Web.
Love, David, A. & Vijay, Das. “Slavery in the US Prison System“. Aljazeera. 2017. Web.
Pounds, Marcia, H. “Detained Immigrants Forced to Work for $1 a day, Lawsuit Claims.” Sun-Sentinel. 2019. Web.
Wade-Olson, Jeremiah. Punishing the Vulnerable: Discrimination in American Prisons. Praeger, 2019.