For nearly a month, inmates across the country have come together to protest modern slavery. It began on September 9th in remembrance of the anniversary of the 1971 Attica prison uprising in New York.
During the Attica prison uprising, prisoners took guards hostage and took control of the prison for four days. Media flooded the prison, and it seemed that inmates would be able to voice their concerns. It seemed that national attention was finally coming to the conditions the inmates were forced to live in.
Just as inmates began speaking out against improper healthcare, nutrition, and abuse things took a turn for the worse. Their demands would not be validated, and negotiations would not take place.
State troopers used helicopters to drop gallons of CN and CS tear gas and stormed the prison heavily armed. They began murdering hostages and prisoners indiscriminately.
Recently, an expose entitled My Four Months As A Private Prison Guard published by Mother Jones has finally brought much needed attention to conditions in private prisons. So much so that the Federal Justice Department made a decision to stop using for profit prisons.
However, mass incarceration in the United States has only increased in recent decades.
As reported by Solidarity,
“Consider the following statistic: Between 1938 and 1971, pre-Attica, the number of Americans incarcerated in federal or state facilities increased by 37,776. In the subsequent 33 years, however, between 1971 and 2004, it increased by 1,235,732.”
Today, inmates in 29 American prisons in 12 different states are taking matters into their own hands. They have done so by organizing a work strike. An estimated 24,000 prisoners have missed work.
The IWOC Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee stated,
“We prisoners across the United States vow to finally end slavery in 2016…We will not only demand the end to prison slavery, we will end it ourselves by ceasing to be slaves.”
When the 13th Amendment abolished slavery it stated,
“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.”
However, the amendment left an exception for people who had been convicted of crimes.
While all races are subject to arrest, African Americans are disproportionately subject to arrest. Additionally, they are given longer sentences for the same crimes than their white counterparts.
Forcing inmates to work for low or no compensation is in fact slavery.
As reported by Mother Jones:
“All inmates who are medically able must do mandatory jobs, such as maintenance, cleaning, and kitchen duties. Inmates may be paid for this work—usually between 12 to 40 cents an hour. But some states, including Texas, Arkansas, and Georgia, do not pay inmates at all.”
Philip Ruiz, and organizer with IWOC spent 10 years behind bars. He was compensated a meager 9 cents a month for his job baking bread. The commissary charged $1 for ramen, and $2 for a single can of soda.
He said:
“You have to save up for six months just to buy some food products. It reminds me of a sweatshop on a huge, much larger level.”
It’s not to say that inmates shouldn’t be provided the opportunity to work while incarcerated. However, they deserve to unionize, be paid minimum wage, and to choose to work.
In Alabama, where prison occupancy is the highest in the nation at 200 percent capacity, inmates have proposed a bill for reform. They’ve proposed the “Alabama Freedom Bill.” The bill calls for the state to reduce its prison population to capacity, by half. It also calls for inmates to be paid a fair wage for their labor.
As of September 24, inmates are not striking alone. At Holman Correctional Facility in Alabama, inmates were joined by prison guards in their work strike.
A prisoner going by the name of Kinetic Justice gave said in an interview:
“It’s official. At 6 o’clock no officers came to work. None came to work. None of the officers came to work… Right now the commissioner is passing out trays. Warden Peterson is pulling the cart. Deputy Commissioner Culliver passing out trays. I can’t believe it… It’s real. No officers came to work.”
Hopefully, the Alabama Freedom Bill will pass and other states will follow suit in the leadership that Alabama has demonstrated.
Featured image from YouTube video.
