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The Convict Leasing Forced Labor System
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this post was submitted on 08 Jul 2024
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Abolition of police and prisons
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Abolish is to flourish! Against the prison industrial complex and for transformative justice.
See Critical Resistance's definitions below:
The Prison Industrial Complex
The prison industrial complex (PIC) is a term we use to describe the overlapping interests of government and industry that use surveillance, policing, and imprisonment as solutions to economic, social and political problems.
Through its reach and impact, the PIC helps and maintains the authority of people who get their power through racial, economic and other privileges. There are many ways this power is collected and maintained through the PIC, including creating mass media images that keep alive stereotypes of people of color, poor people, queer people, immigrants, youth, and other oppressed communities as criminal, delinquent, or deviant. This power is also maintained by earning huge profits for private companies that deal with prisons and police forces; helping earn political gains for "tough on crime" politicians; increasing the influence of prison guard and police unions; and eliminating social and political dissent by oppressed communities that make demands for self-determination and reorganization of power in the US.
Abolition
PIC abolition is a political vision with the goal of eliminating imprisonment, policing, and surveillance and creating lasting alternatives to punishment and imprisonment.
From where we are now, sometimes we can't really imagine what abolition is going to look like. Abolition isn't just about getting rid of buildings full of cages. It's also about undoing the society we live in because the PIC both feeds on and maintains oppression and inequalities through punishment, violence, and controls millions of people. Because the PIC is not an isolated system, abolition is a broad strategy. An abolitionist vision means that we must build models today that can represent how we want to live in the future. It means developing practical strategies for taking small steps that move us toward making our dreams real and that lead us all to believe that things really could be different. It means living this vision in our daily lives.
Abolition is both a practical organizing tool and a long-term goal.
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What happens if you simply refuse to work? Extended sentence? Psychological torture?
Yes.
They'll call it "not qualifying for early release" and such to make it all cool and legal, but yes.
The CO beatings will continue until ~~morale~~ profits improve.
Prison guard says you were behaving poorly and beats you. It goes in your record that you caused problems. The parole board is advised not to give you leniency
Extended sentence sounds like enough psychological torture to me. I spent one night locked up an i know i couldn't take it. Much as i'd like to act tough I'll come clean: id do anything to be free. I gotta scrub toilets for $1/hr? Yes boss
Most people can't take it. But when you have zero choice and zero options, you internalize the screaming and just endure. There's a reason why ex-cons carry a tension in their shoulders for the rest of their lives.
At your parole hearing: "I feel that I should be released. Clearly I am not pulling my weight in the work program. We all know how much it costs per inmate to keep running this prison. I believe it is in your interest to release me to increase your bottom line."
I don't know for sure, but I think that you're charged both to be in prison and for things like food, so if you refuse to work (for awful pay) you'll go hungry. Though likely your room won't be taken, I guess.
Disclaimer: I know almost nothing about the topic and very well may be entirely wrong.
You won't go hungry. They do have to feed you no matter what. I'm not sure what the pay rate is for being a farm worker but it probably puts a little on your commissary account so you can get new socks, ramen, coffee, a candy bar, or other "luxuries".
The truth is that it's so mind numbingly boring in prison that they'll have more volunteers than they need. People are itching for any hint of normalcy and a job is that hint. Others want that extra commissary money because they don't have families to put money on their books. Still others see it as an opportunity to possibly get contraband back to their cell or pass info in and out of the prison.
There's no shortage of volunteers for even the most menial labor from prison.
Thanks for the edification!
Sure thing! It's more complex than I'm letting on and my state doesn't pay for labor but most do. And it's not really volunteering if it's your only opportunity to not be in a gray building for years. It's survival. And to get the "opportunity" to volunteer you have to be really good, which also means keeping the people that aren't good off your back because they'll just blame everyone involved if something goes wrong. And you have to be in good with the guards because if you piss one off they'll make sure that you have infractions that keep you from going out to do something.
I've had both friends and family that have gone to prison so I read up a little on how it works. I'm lucky I didn't go in my misspent youth.
They charge you more than you make, to be sure that you're heavily in debt and likely to return to crime out of desperation at some point shortly after release. Either that or they get rich from your labor, and get even more rich from your family paying the bill. It's absolutely completely fucking insane to charge prisoners to be held against their will in prison, especially considering the prison profits from the prisoner. We live in a fucked up society where our leaders do nothing for us, or our problems, and everything for the wealth of a select few.