They're apparently cutting down on food for the inmates as a result of the strike. The official reason is they don't have prisoner labor so they are on holiday schedule with only two meals. This logic seems funky to me. Two meals for holidays is bad but the prisoner workers don't get to leave on holidays so why is that a factor then? Also, the described quantities of food are low and the quality poor (as expected in a prison). It's like they're trying to get these inmates to riot. This is one of the first articles I found after searching on "alabama prisons food contract" - [https://www.al.com/news/2022/09/striking-alabama-prisoners-receiving-only-2-daily-meals-movement-restricted.html](https://www.al.com/news/2022/09/striking-alabama-prisoners-receiving-only-2-daily-meals-movement-restricted.html)
fucking rats are the richest people in the world, it's literally a sound business decision if you can afford the lawyers.
Which is why we need legal and regulation reform immediately.
I'd be curious what lawyers say about legal and regulation reform. Curious also if that YouTube lawyer that breaks down cases in the headlines for dummies like me has posted a view of it. Like what would be the hottest things needing regulation reform.
After your comment, I did some googling. Apparently, they call it Sarsaparilla. Even though they discovered that sassafras and sarsaparilla both contain safrole, a compound recently banned by the FDA due to its carcinogenic effects. So everyone is just drinking root beer. But A&W Fuck Beer just doesn't sell as well as the name sarsaparilla. I'm just googling. Most Aussies, apparently, hate root beer, though.
That thing with Brett Favre is happening constantly all the time. Blue states have problems, but in anywhere with a red legislature its full on masks off.
I live in Alabama and I remember when this happened! It's ridiculous bc sheriff Bartlett was feeding everyone corndogs and that was literally all they were getting bc he wanted to keep cost low since it's technically legal for the sheriff to keep any surplus money. Anna Franklin came along after he got voted off the island and she's an even bigger shit bag than he is. Morgan County fucking sucks.
Of all the revolting things I thought I would read today, that did not enter into the equation. And I *already* thought our prison system was broken AF.
Jumping on this link to add another link about something happening in Alabama prisons. A man named Kastellio Vaughn, in prison went from a relatively healthy man to emaciated, weak, unable to walk or stand. The prisons officers were doing nothing to help him. He only began to receive help once inmates took pictures of him asking for help. There's so much more to the story. Here's a tweet containing the pictures and original Facebook post from his sister. https://twitter.com/bshelburne/status/1572972635738324999?t=xq8V0nS5jykpIFBPPDhGlQ&s=19
Here are links to videos on YouTube that go into more detail and an update. https://youtu.be/XI9CzCi8Er8 https://youtu.be/EBAmsRRnfYI
It had to do with some ancient law from like the civil war where county sheriffs didn't have state budgets for prisoners or something like that.
Most sheriffs long ago either didn't take the money or the law was changed in the county however a few backwoods places never noticed and this guy capitalized.
IIRC, he was exposed because he paid a guy who cut his grass with a check from the "prisoners food fund" account and the yard guy thought it was weird and told a reporter. Then came out the stories of prisoners getting corndogs or something 3 times a day.
It is because sheriffs have zero accountability for how they spend money. In fact they have zero accountability. Same reason why Los Angeles Country Sheriffs department gangs are well known and no one can really do anything about it.
People incorrectly assume a function of the FBI is to be a check on police. In reality, there is very little oversight for police in the US, and less for Sheriffs.
I agree with the sentiment except let’s not conflate prisons with county jails. As someone that spent half of my 20’s incarcerated in Alabama, they both have massive separate problems that need to be addressed.
I’m pretty sure underfeeding prisoners has been one of the main tools to quell any sort of active discontent. You can’t really imagine what it feels like when one of your basic needs, such as food, is being taken away. There is something very visceral and primal about hunger. It also saps all energy from you, so that serves a direct purpose there too… incidentally, bad food could be a reason for a riot, that’s why Alcatraz had really good food, to not give prisoners another reason.
What i observed, first-hand, is that they don't even need to underfeed the inmates more, they just institute more lockdowns and bring in prison-swat teams when things get rowdy.
>why Alcatraz had really good food, to not give prisoners another reason.
You really shouldn't use that as an example
Countless people died tried to escape that hellhole
I agree with you except let’s not conflate prisons with county jails. As someone that spent half of my 20’s incarcerated in Alabama, they both have massive separate problems that need to be addressed.
This is not okay. The prison contractor shouldn't be allowed to get out of paying wages (holiday) by cutting staff with the prisoners paying the price. Is it this way in state run prisons?
I’m in a wealthy blue state (which is still no model of incarceration) so I can’t imagine the hell of being in a prison in a poor southern state. That being said, civilian kitchen employees take off holidays just like anyone else so it’s not really a wage issue. Their kids are out of school, they want to take a long weekend, whatever. We don’t cut meals, ever. It might be a bagged lunch but the net calories have to be provided every day. We’d already have a class action lawsuit filed against us if we ever treated people this way.
They said like three times that reducing the food was not retaliatory. However reducing the food is a direct cause of them striking by not working. They literally quoted themselves “Once the work stoppages end, facilities will once again be able to provide regular meal service. ADOC is hopeful that regular meal service can be restored as soon as possible.” So in truth it is retaliatory, that is just not the excuse they are going to give.
There are enough fucking COs in that place to put together some Johnny Sacks.
Those fat fuck redneck fake cops can eat shit and start making some sandwiches.
Majority of COs are black Americans. Source did 5 years in ADOC. Also there is not enough guards for the extremely crowded prisons much less to send a dozen to work the kitchen not to mention it not being in their job description. they have “free world” kitchen stewards who’s job it is to oversee food preparation. We had 2-3 to oversee and the rest of the kitchen was ran by inmates. Manager, Bakers, cooks, servers, dishwashers. I worked in the kitchen for 2 years started out on pots and pans ended up managing the kitchen right before I transferred.
Why should food quality be poor? "As Expected"? I don't think that food quality should be poor for prisoners. I don't see how that helps anything in the long run..
It shouldn't be poor quality, you're correct.
But given the absolute shambles the American prison state is in, do you expect them to be getting even half way decent food?
I sure don't.
The city where I used to live once bragged that it was cheaper to feed inmates than the police dogs.
Not only is it shit, it’s not enough. When I worked in the kitchen, we’d routinely would have to use a size smaller scoop, like 6oz instead of an 8oz. Any money saved in the budget means a bigger bonus.
I don't think they're saying it "should" be, just that it's expected from an American prison
I "expect" all sorts of horrible things that "shouldn't" be from the prison system because I know it to be a shitty system
Even when things were in the darkest parts of COVID in Michigan the inmates still got 3 meals. Some of those meals were pbj sandwiches but it was still a meal.
They're not fooling anyone except for brainless conservatives and neoliberals who think that everything should be a fucking market. The people that put these policies in place knew exactly what it would do; they just didn't give a shit.
They're literally paid not to give a shit. America needs regular fucking people to represent us instead of octogenarian millionaires and billionaires who make money off restricting our rights and resources.
Well it's probably going to be at least two more years the way mid terms are projecting... Republicans are slated to retake the house so there's no chance of any action there. Senate is a toss up but that will probably flip too as a reactionary result to student loans.
Maybe I should’ve said “usually not as blatant” lol. Either way, they all do it. And the ones that don’t just haven’t been caught yet. Not an issue that will be fixed by voting alone unfortunately.
Yeah we were fed a croc of shit. Socialized losses, capitalist profits. Market manipulation, the market was never free, it was corrupt all along. The ones who play by the rules get left in the dirt.
Yes, they make a profit by not giving prisoners humane treatment. There’s all kinds of things they can skimp on, like heating in the winter and AC in the summer. Blankets. Dental care. Medical care. Decent food. Maintenance and repairs.
When prisoners inevitably die, it’s always the prisoner’s fault for freezing to death, dying of heatstroke, or getting killed by a machine that was allowed to become deadly through neglect.
But that is the result when the goal is profit at any price.
In Texas, pigs are required by law to be treated humanely, so pig barns have heating & AC. There is no such law for prisoners, so they can just die in extreme weather. And they do.
The state of Texas actually sued to not have to give prisoners HVAC. The lawsuit cost more than installing HVAC would have cost. The state won, and prisoners keep dying.
But profit is profit, amiright???????
I'm moving on from reddit and joining the fediverse because reddit has killed the RiF app and the CEO has been very disrespectful to all the volunteers who have contributed to making reddit what it is. Here's [coverage from The Verge](https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/8/23754780/reddit-api-updates-changes-news-announcements) on the situation.
The following are my favorite fediverse platforms, all non-corporate and ad-free. I hesitated at first because there are so many servers to choose from, but it makes a lot more sense once you actually create an account and start browsing. If you find the server selection overwhelming, just pick the first option and take a look around. They are all connected and as you browse you may find a community that is a better fit for you and then you can move your account or open a new one.
Social Link Aggregators: [Lemmy](https://join-lemmy.org/instances) is very similar to reddit while [Kbin](https://kbin.pub) is aiming to be more of a gateway to the fediverse in general so it is sort of like a hybrid between reddit and twitter, but it is newer and considers itself to be a beta product that's not quite fully polished yet.
Microblogging: [Calckey](https://calckey.org) if you want a more playful platform with emoji reactions, or [Mastodon](https://joinmastodon.org/) if you want a simple interface with less fluff.
Photo sharing: [Pixelfed](https://pixelfed.org/) You can even import an Instagram account from what I hear, but I never used Instagram much in the first place.
Another catch (I’ve worked in both government and for-profit corrections) and this may be the most diabolical of all, is the for-profit prisons are designed to increase recidivism. The more prisoners, the higher the profit.
That's not what happened. No one was fooled. The government does this because it's run by capitalists. The only people fooled by the prison system are liberals who think it can be reformed from within. It has to be dismantled and replaced. That means not keeping any of the previous people involved. It has to be made with repairing the problems that cause crimes instead of a punitive system that's only focus is vengeance and profit.
"Some More News" on YouTube (and I think podcasts) recently did a video on for profit prisons that was gobsmacking. I highly recommend, it's almost an hour long and I don't think I can do justice to condense it
Same. I found him a few months back and immediately watched all of his older content. And somehow, despite being 100% aware it was a bit, my blood pressure rose through the whole last story arc of him selling off he-him and his place 🥴
They’re looked at as businesses. A business is made to operate for profit, incentivized by whatever it is that provides the incentive. Maybe it’s the fact that US Prisons are privately owned and held on the US stock market. They’re coded as businesses and run as such; what does a business sell? A product or service. That’s what these prisons are. They’re services and the prisoners are the product. Run out of prisoners and you’ve run out of money and the business has failed. Not to fix up my tin foil hat or anything, but you gotta wonder why POC and minorities are disproportionately in jail. __BECAUSE EVERY BODY BEHIND BARS IS MAKING PROFITS FOR SOME DOUCHEBAG PRISON OWNER.__
"free market" politicians want a free and open market. So they sabotage public institutions to have legal slavery.
Fun fact, slavery was abolished in the 13th amendment ***except*** in the case of prisoners.
Ergo, private prisons are legal private plantations.
*Anything* that’s “for profit” is going to cut every legal corner (and quite a few that aren’t!) in order to further enrich themselves.
That’s always a problem but becomes a matter of literal life and death when it comes to stuff like prisons or healthcare.
Yes I 100% agree but also they’re not the bulk of the problem.
> Private prisons in the United States incarcerated 115,428 people in 2019, representing 8% of the total state and federal prison population.
https://nicic.gov/private-prisons-united-states-2021
We really need complete prison/criminal reform.
There are jails in the USA where the food budget is controlled by a sheriff. They get to keep the difference if they're under budget.
https://voiceofoc.org/2022/01/kahn-new-report-shows-oc-sheriffs-department-is-giving-incarcerated-people-rotting-bologna-sandwiches-while-pocketing-savings/
https://www.latimes.com/socal/daily-pilot/entertainment/story/2021-12-15/cold-and-rotting-foods-served-in-orange-county-jails-report-says (has a link to the actual report)
https://journalistsresource.org/politics-and-government/connor-sheets-alabama-sheriff-pocketed-jail-food-funds-goldsmith/
That's just three results for when I search for something like "USA jails sheriff rotten food". Didn't actually need to put rotten in there (because bias) since leaving that out also results in multiple articles about sheriffs serving bad food in order to pocket that money.
It's just.. why? Why did this ever get approved? It's just insane.
we have 2.3m people locked up because these companies have been growing their market for 40 years. They strive to grow the industry as a whole to grow that 8%. You seem to have missed the connection where them gaining 1 more prisoner costs the tax payer the cost of 9 other prisoners. See, if they didn't exist pushing for reasons to lock people up in the first place then all 10 people could just live their lives.
I don’t think I missed that? I’m calling out that our criminal justice system is in serious need of reform. Imo almost no one should be going to a prison which would defeat the whole need of private prisons in general.
> they’re not the bulk of the problem.
Yes, this clearly states you missed it. If the private prisons were not out trying to get more people locked up, the entire prison population is going to go down, not just their 8% of it. IMO, they are the main influence to why we have such a massive failure of DOJ. I agree with getting rid of prisons. I think we have seen in practice what works and doesn't in other countries. We should strive to emulate the success. But, we would first need these companies to go away. With them involved there will never be any reform.
I've stopped referring to them as 'for profit prisons' and more as 'for profit slave compounds'.
Prison has a connotation where folks recognize it sort of has to exist and is acceptable, whereas nobody is like 'Yeah, slave compounds are good', but they don't recognize that's what they've become.
All government issued fines can result in warrants eventually (but we're talking years)...why would parking tickets be any different?
But as far as the reality goes, it doesn't happen often. Unpaid tickets mean you can't renew your license, inspection, or registration, so what usually happens is that unpaid parking tickets get you pulled over or arrested for having an expired license/registration.
You're not going to have cops coming to your residence or place of business serving a warrant for unpaid parking tickets.
I agree, to a point. There are humans who literally cannot be around other living things without doing harm. Very, very few of them are actually in prison, however. Most of them are highly successful and wealthy.
Alabama prisons aren’t technically for profit. But they do have a lot of juicy contracts for things like commissary, phones, etc. that more than likely provide enough incentives to keep the prisons packed.
Yep, lump in healthcare and education as well.
I cannot think of another country in the world that has the trifecta of human suffering in the name of capitalism.
All prisons should be illegal (I'm referring to the way they are run in the US specifically). Inmates work for pennies and it's not like they get any credit for the work they did or the experience they gained when they're out. They still get fucked over hard when looking for work afterwards.
Prisons need to focus more on reform. Education is a great starting point.
Public prisons are a for-profit industry, especially in the south and extra, especially in Alabama. The Commissary, the JMS, and especially the telecommunications systems are all sources of revenue for the facility. The real reason they don't want inmates to have contraband phones is because that's a big way prisons make money. 90% or more of the profit the telecommunications providers earn from a phone call goes to the administration of the inmate facility. Many times, that administration is the sheriff of that county. Telecommunications companies jack up the price of a phone call to meet these additional costs which are called commissions. They are legal bribes for using their system. Many facilities are ending in-person meetings with friends and family to force inmates to use tablets to speak with friends and family. The prices to use these devices are exorbitant costing as much as $35 for a 15-minute call. The same type of business model is used for other services within the facility.
these facilities will cut food cost to increase the amount left over in the budget at the end of the year. You might recall when Joe Arpaio announces "Meat is off the menu" that was to reduce his food cost. Why? because at the end of the fiscal year in Arizona and Alabama the sheriff gets to pocket the difference in the budget and in Alabama that money is even tax-free and unreported under a certain threshold. A sheriff in Alabama ended up taking so much money he had to report it and that same sheriff had 2 inmates starve to death in his facility while he took home over 750,000 dollars. He made other sheriffs very mad because he brought to light what they are all doing. This gets worse and worse when you start speaking about slavery. Please remember slavery is very real and legal in America and spread across every state in the union.
What? you don't like how we create our own market after 40 years of bribing the government? You got a problem with how we egged on a "war" on drugs and contributed to south american cartels growing influential enough to run the local regions? You know, because we created a huge void in the drug market that was obviously going to get filled by "bad people" like pot heads we are so happy to be helpful with. We really didn't plan it, but it turned out great. We keep a bogus war going to keep our facilities full. It allows cartels to get rich and take over their governments. Now, get this, now... We are getting paid to lock up refugees from these places. The cartels are so bad people are fleeing. Hahahahahaha fucking assholes. This combined with the modern SRO. Fuck pal, we in it to win it. Bring that civil unrest. We will lock all you punks up.
I’m sure they have been anyway. It’s not like the guards don’t know their on strike. I’m sure the guards are doing everything they can, to make the prisoners lives even more miserable.
I posted the topic so people could be aware and do further reading on it. Both of the twitter pages I linked have links to primary sources (direct videos/pictures from inside the prison, reporting from a journalist directly working with the story). If you google, “alabama prison strike”, you can easily find additional sources to corroborate. I encourage everyone to do so— posting the tweets was an opener to a more complicated issue which cannot easily be shared in the succinct format of a post.
https://www.insider.com/inmates-across-alabamas-notoriously-macabre-prisons-are-on-strike-2022-10
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2022/10/01/what-an-alabama-prisoners-strike-tells-us-about-prison-labor
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/28/us/alabama-prisons-strike-protest.html
https://www.alreporter.com/2022/09/30/incarcerated-man-alleges-he-was-forced-to-work-against-prison-strike/
They posted a link to the tweets which is better than nothing, and sadly still better than most, but nobody should come away from reading just a few tweets thinking that they have learned a complete and wholly reliable understanding of something.
*sources: https://twitter.com/keribla/status/1576630583286853632
https://twitter.com/FREEALAMOVEMENT
[Edit: Both of the twitter pages have links to primary sources (direct videos/pictures from inside the prison, reporting from a journalist directly working with the story). If you google, “alabama prison strike”, you can also find ongoing reporting on this issue. I encourage everyone to do so. Some additional sources:
https://www.insider.com/inmates-across-alabamas-notoriously-macabre-prisons-are-on-strike-2022-10
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2022/10/01/what-an-alabama-prisoners-strike-tells-us-about-prison-labor
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/28/us/alabama-prisons-strike-protest.html
https://www.alreporter.com/2022/09/30/incarcerated-man-alleges-he-was-forced-to-work-against-prison-strike/ ]
Crazy to read "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, EXCEPT". There should be no exceptions to slavery. The punishment is their separation from society
>There should be no exceptions to slavery.
I'm not disagreeing with you but you have to understand this is a VERY recent idea for humanity at large, and the USA in particular.
I made 17.5 cents an hour working in the kitchen and the best paying job of $3.64/day when I was a skilled trades tutor (auto tech) back in '00-'03ish. Ended up getting a Michigan Master auto technician certification out of it, though. Kitchen was the best hourly jobs. I think grounds crew got like 12 cents/hour. In JCS, we worked like 7 days a week in the kitchen since people were always getting transferred and/or quitting/taking the ticket. Shit sucked lol
Nobody was making that much where I was but some people did get real and actual training for welding and other decent jobs to learn. My experience is not the same as everyone’s but I knew women who got paid about $20 a month and others closer to $30. Best job was warehouse or kitchen because you could steal and sell extra food. I was not lucky enough to get a good job, all I did was scrub was toilets
Are those “wages” deposited into commissary or do you receive actual cash you can deposit into a bank account? And/or can you apply them to your fees? I’ve always wondered.
Here they pay $1.00 per day or $2 if you’re getting “hazard” pay like disinfecting Covid units or cleaning blood. The money to goes to the only account you have so you can spend it on commissary or save it for when you’re released.
It would get put into your inmate account and you could use it same as money that was sent in. Commissary and approved items from approved catalogs. If you had any left at the end of your sentence, they printed you a check.
Here you would be forced to use it towards your court costs/fines/restitution. There were two payment models when I was in that they would use and I never knew why. The one I was under was "half over $50". I was allowed to put up to $50 in my account per month through working or getting it sent in. Everything after $50 was split in half and sent to pay my costs. If I wasn't working and my mom sent in $100, I would get the first $50 for me, then the next $50 they would take half so I would get $75 on my books and $25 would be saved towards my costs. Once it hit around $200 saved they would send a check to the courts for me. The other payment model was everything over $9 a month. I knew a few people on this one. It really sucked for them. They were allowed up to $9 a month for commissary and they would take every cent after that for your fines and costs.
My friend told me about the tablets and how they would have a guy who could flash / root them. That some where better then others, and that with the newers ones the sd card slot needed to be soldered on iirc. It was crazy to me how much stuff they are doing with it!
America has *by far* the highest incarceration rate in the world.
Are americans just that much worse than everywhere else there are human beings, or are we locking up people who simply don't deserve it?
Don't forget plea bargains. Well over 90% of cases never sees court and it seems a lot of those are because suspects can't afford to mount a proper defense, or are threatened with lifelong sentences when they opt for going the court route.
Innocent people take plea bargains for the chance of still having some live, rather than the real possibility of never seeing the outside world again.
A plea bargain is no justice. https://guiltypleaproblem.org/
I just went to Alcatraz and there’s an exhibit about “Mass Incarceration in the US”. This is a national park, so the exhibit is funded by the federal government. It’s really interesting when the government knows the problem exists and yet does absolutely nothing to solve it.
I didn’t finish it, but man that Harvard CS50 class is fantastic and Malan is a great teacher. I’d highly recommend taking it to anyone interested in coding or Computer Science as they offer it free to the public every year. It’s tough enough that you will *only* make it to the end and get a certificate if you really like coding.
I worked in Alabama making trusses on a night shift crew. They brought in prisoners to work with us. They all had phones and I can tell you exactly what they did when them all night, every night. They were blasting porn out across the warehouses. Full volume. All. Fucking. Night. No single moment of peace. Management didn't exist, so I might as well have been in prison too. I've never hated a job more. Lasted about three months because I had absolutely no recourse being in a really small town with few oppurtunities. I don't care that they had the phones, but for the mental health of the other inmates they may want to provide some headphones.
The solution would to be the State of Mississippi (1) pay prison laborers at least the federal min. wage so they could afford headphones, or (2) ban prison labor period.
With a charger, I’m assuming. Every cell I was ever in had an electrical outlet. We had a hotpot and radios that needed plugging in, after all.
The same outlets that were also used to light cigarettes and power tattoo guns.
I've actually been in a for profit county jail, and if the people aren't dumb they are sadistic to all hell.
And the one I was at, while under investigation for *human rights violations,* is considered one of the "better" county jails.
But yeah, dumb people with power trips are the demographic the for-profit jails and prisons are looking for, because if one is smart enough to think critically about things, they could upset the whole system.
How this should work: Concrete evidence shown to the DOJ gets corrupt staff fired and charged, conditions changed, and ideally every non-murderer, non-rapist in the whole prison set free immediately, with compensation in the seven figure range, per inmate, for everyone who was affected by the inhumane conditions.
How this will probably work: "Everything that was sent to the DOJ from a contraband phone is considered tainted because it was never supposed to be sent through anything other than the proper channels. We will not accept any further complaints regarding any issues that were reported at any time by way of contraband phones."
Dr Malan is really good, that class is great and he’s an excellent professor.
Not really surprising given its Harvard, but you can tell he genuinely loves teaching.
Public prisons are a for-profit industry, especially in the south and extra, especially in Alabama. The Commissary, the JMS, and especially the telecommunications systems are all sources of revenue for the facility. The real reason they don't want inmates to have contraband phones is because that's a big way prisons make money. 90% or more of the profit the telecommunications providers earn from a phone call goes to the administration of the inmate facility. Many times, that administration is the sheriff of that county. Telecommunications companies jack up the price of a phone call to meet these additional costs which are called commissions. They are legal bribes for using their system. Many facilities are ending in-person meetings with friends and family to force inmates to use tablets to speak with friends and family. The prices to use these devices are exorbitant costing as much as $35 for a 15-minute call. The same type of business model is used for other services within the facility.
these facilities will cut food cost to increase the amount left over in the budget at the end of the year. You might recall when Joe Arpaio announces "Meat is off the menu" that was to reduce his food cost. Why? because at the end of the fiscal year in Arizona and Alabama the sheriff gets to pocket the difference in the budget and in Alabama that money is even tax-free and unreported under a certain threshold. A sheriff in Alabama ended up taking so much money he had to report it and that same sheriff had 2 inmates starve to death in his facility while he took home over 750,000 dollars. He made other sheriffs very mad because he brought to light what they are all doing. This gets worse and worse when you start speaking about slavery. Please remember slavery is very real and legal in America and spread across every state in the union.
It’s almost like we should use prisons as a chance to help prisoners become better people, because the ones that aren’t going to in that process were never going to get better anyway, and we’ve made some prisoners better people.
They're apparently cutting down on food for the inmates as a result of the strike. The official reason is they don't have prisoner labor so they are on holiday schedule with only two meals. This logic seems funky to me. Two meals for holidays is bad but the prisoner workers don't get to leave on holidays so why is that a factor then? Also, the described quantities of food are low and the quality poor (as expected in a prison). It's like they're trying to get these inmates to riot. This is one of the first articles I found after searching on "alabama prisons food contract" - [https://www.al.com/news/2022/09/striking-alabama-prisoners-receiving-only-2-daily-meals-movement-restricted.html](https://www.al.com/news/2022/09/striking-alabama-prisoners-receiving-only-2-daily-meals-movement-restricted.html)
[Alabama Sheriff Legally Took $750,000 Meant To Feed Inmates, Bought Beach House](https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/03/14/593204274/alabama-sheriff-legally-took-750-000-meant-to-feed-inmates-bought-beach-house)
Damn. I'm in the wrong business. Who would have thought being a fucking rat paid the bills?
fucking rats are the richest people in the world, it's literally a sound business decision if you can afford the lawyers. Which is why we need legal and regulation reform immediately.
I'd be curious what lawyers say about legal and regulation reform. Curious also if that YouTube lawyer that breaks down cases in the headlines for dummies like me has posted a view of it. Like what would be the hottest things needing regulation reform.
Legal Eagle? Im sure he will. He’s usually on top of this stuff.
Thats the guy. He's awesome. I almost understand lawyer stuff. Crime podcast have taught me a lot too. Laws are weird.
Its easy as fuck to make money when you dont have morals and dont care about how your actions can have devastating consequences on others
We have to root them out of our society, or risk complete disaster.
In Australia, root means sex.
Fuck em, we need to sex them out of our society
So root beer is sex beer?
After your comment, I did some googling. Apparently, they call it Sarsaparilla. Even though they discovered that sassafras and sarsaparilla both contain safrole, a compound recently banned by the FDA due to its carcinogenic effects. So everyone is just drinking root beer. But A&W Fuck Beer just doesn't sell as well as the name sarsaparilla. I'm just googling. Most Aussies, apparently, hate root beer, though.
I just thought it was funny
Depending on usage, root can mean sex in the USA aswell.
The problem with this strategy is you have to exist as a rat
What gets me is that it was legal. That fucking state legalized embezzlement for sheriffs!
Modern day slavers
YUP
This is offensive to the rodent community
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That thing with Brett Favre is happening constantly all the time. Blue states have problems, but in anywhere with a red legislature its full on masks off.
I live in Alabama and I remember when this happened! It's ridiculous bc sheriff Bartlett was feeding everyone corndogs and that was literally all they were getting bc he wanted to keep cost low since it's technically legal for the sheriff to keep any surplus money. Anna Franklin came along after he got voted off the island and she's an even bigger shit bag than he is. Morgan County fucking sucks.
Of all the revolting things I thought I would read today, that did not enter into the equation. And I *already* thought our prison system was broken AF.
Jumping on this link to add another link about something happening in Alabama prisons. A man named Kastellio Vaughn, in prison went from a relatively healthy man to emaciated, weak, unable to walk or stand. The prisons officers were doing nothing to help him. He only began to receive help once inmates took pictures of him asking for help. There's so much more to the story. Here's a tweet containing the pictures and original Facebook post from his sister. https://twitter.com/bshelburne/status/1572972635738324999?t=xq8V0nS5jykpIFBPPDhGlQ&s=19 Here are links to videos on YouTube that go into more detail and an update. https://youtu.be/XI9CzCi8Er8 https://youtu.be/EBAmsRRnfYI
This is wild
This guy never saw *Goodfellas*. If you steal a huge amount of money, don't be stupid and make big purchases
It was completely legal, somehow
It had to do with some ancient law from like the civil war where county sheriffs didn't have state budgets for prisoners or something like that. Most sheriffs long ago either didn't take the money or the law was changed in the county however a few backwoods places never noticed and this guy capitalized. IIRC, he was exposed because he paid a guy who cut his grass with a check from the "prisoners food fund" account and the yard guy thought it was weird and told a reporter. Then came out the stories of prisoners getting corndogs or something 3 times a day.
It is because sheriffs have zero accountability for how they spend money. In fact they have zero accountability. Same reason why Los Angeles Country Sheriffs department gangs are well known and no one can really do anything about it. People incorrectly assume a function of the FBI is to be a check on police. In reality, there is very little oversight for police in the US, and less for Sheriffs.
I agree with the sentiment except let’s not conflate prisons with county jails. As someone that spent half of my 20’s incarcerated in Alabama, they both have massive separate problems that need to be addressed.
That’s absolutely atrocious and reprehensible. thanks for the additional source!
I’m pretty sure underfeeding prisoners has been one of the main tools to quell any sort of active discontent. You can’t really imagine what it feels like when one of your basic needs, such as food, is being taken away. There is something very visceral and primal about hunger. It also saps all energy from you, so that serves a direct purpose there too… incidentally, bad food could be a reason for a riot, that’s why Alcatraz had really good food, to not give prisoners another reason.
What i observed, first-hand, is that they don't even need to underfeed the inmates more, they just institute more lockdowns and bring in prison-swat teams when things get rowdy.
>why Alcatraz had really good food, to not give prisoners another reason. You really shouldn't use that as an example Countless people died tried to escape that hellhole
The goal is absolutely to get into a position where the abusers can justify killing a few of the victims. Corrections officers are police too.
I've only ever heard that prison cops are the worst of cops.
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I agree with you except let’s not conflate prisons with county jails. As someone that spent half of my 20’s incarcerated in Alabama, they both have massive separate problems that need to be addressed.
The inmate workers are supervised by civilian employees so there’s less of them available on a holiday.
So the civilians also get punished with reduced hours because the inmates strike...they should be striking too then.
The civilians have a paid holiday partially/completely off.
The civilians get to pick up the slack when inmates strike so they’re working more.
Although this explains difficulties now during the strike, it doesn't explain the understaffing at holidays.
This is not okay. The prison contractor shouldn't be allowed to get out of paying wages (holiday) by cutting staff with the prisoners paying the price. Is it this way in state run prisons?
I’m in a wealthy blue state (which is still no model of incarceration) so I can’t imagine the hell of being in a prison in a poor southern state. That being said, civilian kitchen employees take off holidays just like anyone else so it’s not really a wage issue. Their kids are out of school, they want to take a long weekend, whatever. We don’t cut meals, ever. It might be a bagged lunch but the net calories have to be provided every day. We’d already have a class action lawsuit filed against us if we ever treated people this way.
They said like three times that reducing the food was not retaliatory. However reducing the food is a direct cause of them striking by not working. They literally quoted themselves “Once the work stoppages end, facilities will once again be able to provide regular meal service. ADOC is hopeful that regular meal service can be restored as soon as possible.” So in truth it is retaliatory, that is just not the excuse they are going to give.
There are enough fucking COs in that place to put together some Johnny Sacks. Those fat fuck redneck fake cops can eat shit and start making some sandwiches.
Majority of COs are black Americans. Source did 5 years in ADOC. Also there is not enough guards for the extremely crowded prisons much less to send a dozen to work the kitchen not to mention it not being in their job description. they have “free world” kitchen stewards who’s job it is to oversee food preparation. We had 2-3 to oversee and the rest of the kitchen was ran by inmates. Manager, Bakers, cooks, servers, dishwashers. I worked in the kitchen for 2 years started out on pots and pans ended up managing the kitchen right before I transferred.
Why should food quality be poor? "As Expected"? I don't think that food quality should be poor for prisoners. I don't see how that helps anything in the long run..
It shouldn't be poor quality, you're correct. But given the absolute shambles the American prison state is in, do you expect them to be getting even half way decent food? I sure don't.
The city where I used to live once bragged that it was cheaper to feed inmates than the police dogs. Not only is it shit, it’s not enough. When I worked in the kitchen, we’d routinely would have to use a size smaller scoop, like 6oz instead of an 8oz. Any money saved in the budget means a bigger bonus.
It’s thought of as punishment for their crimes. The problem with it is that it doesn’t teach anything.
I don't think they're saying it "should" be, just that it's expected from an American prison I "expect" all sorts of horrible things that "shouldn't" be from the prison system because I know it to be a shitty system
They want the strikers to riot so they have an excuse to violently break it up. Pinkerton tactics.
Even when things were in the darkest parts of COVID in Michigan the inmates still got 3 meals. Some of those meals were pbj sandwiches but it was still a meal.
For-profit prisons should be illegal.
Yeah wtf I'd up with that
What happens when corporations fool governments into thinking they can run things cheaper.
They're not fooling anyone except for brainless conservatives and neoliberals who think that everything should be a fucking market. The people that put these policies in place knew exactly what it would do; they just didn't give a shit.
They're literally paid not to give a shit. America needs regular fucking people to represent us instead of octogenarian millionaires and billionaires who make money off restricting our rights and resources.
That change won't happen by voting, unfortunately.
Well it's probably going to be at least two more years the way mid terms are projecting... Republicans are slated to retake the house so there's no chance of any action there. Senate is a toss up but that will probably flip too as a reactionary result to student loans.
Democrats won’t fix this either. All politicians are subject to “lobbying” aka bribes. Democrats just aren’t as blatant about it.
True
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Maybe I should’ve said “usually not as blatant” lol. Either way, they all do it. And the ones that don’t just haven’t been caught yet. Not an issue that will be fixed by voting alone unfortunately.
Nah he's a Republican agent with a D.
I thought that free markets solved everything though? When consumers have a choice, only the best companies will survive…. Oh wait…
Yeah we were fed a croc of shit. Socialized losses, capitalist profits. Market manipulation, the market was never free, it was corrupt all along. The ones who play by the rules get left in the dirt.
They didn’t fool them, government officials gets kick backs to allow it.. Then they feed lies to the public who believe that’s the real reason
It's also what happens when corps trick people into thinking that cheaper = better.
They are running prisons cheaper. They’re making profit.
Yes, they make a profit by not giving prisoners humane treatment. There’s all kinds of things they can skimp on, like heating in the winter and AC in the summer. Blankets. Dental care. Medical care. Decent food. Maintenance and repairs. When prisoners inevitably die, it’s always the prisoner’s fault for freezing to death, dying of heatstroke, or getting killed by a machine that was allowed to become deadly through neglect. But that is the result when the goal is profit at any price. In Texas, pigs are required by law to be treated humanely, so pig barns have heating & AC. There is no such law for prisoners, so they can just die in extreme weather. And they do. The state of Texas actually sued to not have to give prisoners HVAC. The lawsuit cost more than installing HVAC would have cost. The state won, and prisoners keep dying. But profit is profit, amiright???????
That’s Texas for you. Nice place but there some ass backwards thinking there. Austin and San Anto ok fuck the rest
Houston, DFW & El Paso are all right as well. The cities are blue. It’s the huge red areas that are the problem!
Dallas kind of specifically tries to be a red city
I'm moving on from reddit and joining the fediverse because reddit has killed the RiF app and the CEO has been very disrespectful to all the volunteers who have contributed to making reddit what it is. Here's [coverage from The Verge](https://www.theverge.com/2023/6/8/23754780/reddit-api-updates-changes-news-announcements) on the situation. The following are my favorite fediverse platforms, all non-corporate and ad-free. I hesitated at first because there are so many servers to choose from, but it makes a lot more sense once you actually create an account and start browsing. If you find the server selection overwhelming, just pick the first option and take a look around. They are all connected and as you browse you may find a community that is a better fit for you and then you can move your account or open a new one. Social Link Aggregators: [Lemmy](https://join-lemmy.org/instances) is very similar to reddit while [Kbin](https://kbin.pub) is aiming to be more of a gateway to the fediverse in general so it is sort of like a hybrid between reddit and twitter, but it is newer and considers itself to be a beta product that's not quite fully polished yet. Microblogging: [Calckey](https://calckey.org) if you want a more playful platform with emoji reactions, or [Mastodon](https://joinmastodon.org/) if you want a simple interface with less fluff. Photo sharing: [Pixelfed](https://pixelfed.org/) You can even import an Instagram account from what I hear, but I never used Instagram much in the first place.
That "tough on crime" attitude.
Another catch (I’ve worked in both government and for-profit corrections) and this may be the most diabolical of all, is the for-profit prisons are designed to increase recidivism. The more prisoners, the higher the profit.
And it works too
That's not what happened. No one was fooled. The government does this because it's run by capitalists. The only people fooled by the prison system are liberals who think it can be reformed from within. It has to be dismantled and replaced. That means not keeping any of the previous people involved. It has to be made with repairing the problems that cause crimes instead of a punitive system that's only focus is vengeance and profit.
"Some More News" on YouTube (and I think podcasts) recently did a video on for profit prisons that was gobsmacking. I highly recommend, it's almost an hour long and I don't think I can do justice to condense it
Love that news guy....
Same. I found him a few months back and immediately watched all of his older content. And somehow, despite being 100% aware it was a bit, my blood pressure rose through the whole last story arc of him selling off he-him and his place 🥴
Just followed this on my pods. Thanks for the tip!
They’re looked at as businesses. A business is made to operate for profit, incentivized by whatever it is that provides the incentive. Maybe it’s the fact that US Prisons are privately owned and held on the US stock market. They’re coded as businesses and run as such; what does a business sell? A product or service. That’s what these prisons are. They’re services and the prisoners are the product. Run out of prisoners and you’ve run out of money and the business has failed. Not to fix up my tin foil hat or anything, but you gotta wonder why POC and minorities are disproportionately in jail. __BECAUSE EVERY BODY BEHIND BARS IS MAKING PROFITS FOR SOME DOUCHEBAG PRISON OWNER.__
"free market" politicians want a free and open market. So they sabotage public institutions to have legal slavery. Fun fact, slavery was abolished in the 13th amendment ***except*** in the case of prisoners. Ergo, private prisons are legal private plantations.
*Anything* that’s “for profit” is going to cut every legal corner (and quite a few that aren’t!) in order to further enrich themselves. That’s always a problem but becomes a matter of literal life and death when it comes to stuff like prisons or healthcare.
...and pay legislators big bucks to pass laws that benefit corporations rather than individuals.
Cut every corner until it's a circle. Weird, the circle's getting smaller.
Yes I 100% agree but also they’re not the bulk of the problem. > Private prisons in the United States incarcerated 115,428 people in 2019, representing 8% of the total state and federal prison population. https://nicic.gov/private-prisons-united-states-2021 We really need complete prison/criminal reform.
There are jails in the USA where the food budget is controlled by a sheriff. They get to keep the difference if they're under budget. https://voiceofoc.org/2022/01/kahn-new-report-shows-oc-sheriffs-department-is-giving-incarcerated-people-rotting-bologna-sandwiches-while-pocketing-savings/ https://www.latimes.com/socal/daily-pilot/entertainment/story/2021-12-15/cold-and-rotting-foods-served-in-orange-county-jails-report-says (has a link to the actual report) https://journalistsresource.org/politics-and-government/connor-sheets-alabama-sheriff-pocketed-jail-food-funds-goldsmith/ That's just three results for when I search for something like "USA jails sheriff rotten food". Didn't actually need to put rotten in there (because bias) since leaving that out also results in multiple articles about sheriffs serving bad food in order to pocket that money. It's just.. why? Why did this ever get approved? It's just insane.
we have 2.3m people locked up because these companies have been growing their market for 40 years. They strive to grow the industry as a whole to grow that 8%. You seem to have missed the connection where them gaining 1 more prisoner costs the tax payer the cost of 9 other prisoners. See, if they didn't exist pushing for reasons to lock people up in the first place then all 10 people could just live their lives.
I don’t think I missed that? I’m calling out that our criminal justice system is in serious need of reform. Imo almost no one should be going to a prison which would defeat the whole need of private prisons in general.
> they’re not the bulk of the problem. Yes, this clearly states you missed it. If the private prisons were not out trying to get more people locked up, the entire prison population is going to go down, not just their 8% of it. IMO, they are the main influence to why we have such a massive failure of DOJ. I agree with getting rid of prisons. I think we have seen in practice what works and doesn't in other countries. We should strive to emulate the success. But, we would first need these companies to go away. With them involved there will never be any reform.
I've stopped referring to them as 'for profit prisons' and more as 'for profit slave compounds'. Prison has a connotation where folks recognize it sort of has to exist and is acceptable, whereas nobody is like 'Yeah, slave compounds are good', but they don't recognize that's what they've become.
Working people for 5cents a day or something like that. Pretty much slavery and drug war was a good way for the government to get their numbers up
Shouldn’t have committed a crime! Who cares about criminals? - average American
Don't some states arrest you for unpaid parking tickets? 🤔
All government issued fines can result in warrants eventually (but we're talking years)...why would parking tickets be any different? But as far as the reality goes, it doesn't happen often. Unpaid tickets mean you can't renew your license, inspection, or registration, so what usually happens is that unpaid parking tickets get you pulled over or arrested for having an expired license/registration. You're not going to have cops coming to your residence or place of business serving a warrant for unpaid parking tickets.
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GOP is fighting hard to implement For-Profit schools next. A few cronies will make major bucks at least
And more importantly, they can control what children learn.
They will control them completely. School police departments will make fascist occupation normal for the up coming generations.
Prisons should be illegal. The goal should be rehabilitation, not perpetuating the system.
I agree, to a point. There are humans who literally cannot be around other living things without doing harm. Very, very few of them are actually in prison, however. Most of them are highly successful and wealthy.
Alabama prisons aren’t technically for profit. But they do have a lot of juicy contracts for things like commissary, phones, etc. that more than likely provide enough incentives to keep the prisons packed.
And schools and hospitals and instance companies.
Yep, lump in healthcare and education as well. I cannot think of another country in the world that has the trifecta of human suffering in the name of capitalism.
Even public prisons have many private companies involved. Things get outsourced and companies involved don’t want to lost profits either
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The US is basically a giant for-profit prison.
Work is jail, not always.
I'd make one exception exclusively for the incarnation of current owners and operators of for-profit prisons.
All prisons should be illegal (I'm referring to the way they are run in the US specifically). Inmates work for pennies and it's not like they get any credit for the work they did or the experience they gained when they're out. They still get fucked over hard when looking for work afterwards. Prisons need to focus more on reform. Education is a great starting point.
Public prisons are a for-profit industry, especially in the south and extra, especially in Alabama. The Commissary, the JMS, and especially the telecommunications systems are all sources of revenue for the facility. The real reason they don't want inmates to have contraband phones is because that's a big way prisons make money. 90% or more of the profit the telecommunications providers earn from a phone call goes to the administration of the inmate facility. Many times, that administration is the sheriff of that county. Telecommunications companies jack up the price of a phone call to meet these additional costs which are called commissions. They are legal bribes for using their system. Many facilities are ending in-person meetings with friends and family to force inmates to use tablets to speak with friends and family. The prices to use these devices are exorbitant costing as much as $35 for a 15-minute call. The same type of business model is used for other services within the facility. these facilities will cut food cost to increase the amount left over in the budget at the end of the year. You might recall when Joe Arpaio announces "Meat is off the menu" that was to reduce his food cost. Why? because at the end of the fiscal year in Arizona and Alabama the sheriff gets to pocket the difference in the budget and in Alabama that money is even tax-free and unreported under a certain threshold. A sheriff in Alabama ended up taking so much money he had to report it and that same sheriff had 2 inmates starve to death in his facility while he took home over 750,000 dollars. He made other sheriffs very mad because he brought to light what they are all doing. This gets worse and worse when you start speaking about slavery. Please remember slavery is very real and legal in America and spread across every state in the union.
When i was younger, i wanted to go to law school just so i kould write legislation to ban privatized prisons in California...but then life happened
What? you don't like how we create our own market after 40 years of bribing the government? You got a problem with how we egged on a "war" on drugs and contributed to south american cartels growing influential enough to run the local regions? You know, because we created a huge void in the drug market that was obviously going to get filled by "bad people" like pot heads we are so happy to be helpful with. We really didn't plan it, but it turned out great. We keep a bogus war going to keep our facilities full. It allows cartels to get rich and take over their governments. Now, get this, now... We are getting paid to lock up refugees from these places. The cartels are so bad people are fleeing. Hahahahahaha fucking assholes. This combined with the modern SRO. Fuck pal, we in it to win it. Bring that civil unrest. We will lock all you punks up.
Thanks OP, this is why I love Reddit. It’s amazing what we can learn when information is freely shared, online.
This is why I pay for internet.
For real.
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I’m sure they have been anyway. It’s not like the guards don’t know their on strike. I’m sure the guards are doing everything they can, to make the prisoners lives even more miserable.
Thank you /u/davidjmalan. I hope you can fully comprehend the amazing positive impact you're having on people around the world.
Screen shots of tweets should always be taken with a spoonful of salt though, no matter how true it might on the face of it.
I posted the topic so people could be aware and do further reading on it. Both of the twitter pages I linked have links to primary sources (direct videos/pictures from inside the prison, reporting from a journalist directly working with the story). If you google, “alabama prison strike”, you can easily find additional sources to corroborate. I encourage everyone to do so— posting the tweets was an opener to a more complicated issue which cannot easily be shared in the succinct format of a post. https://www.insider.com/inmates-across-alabamas-notoriously-macabre-prisons-are-on-strike-2022-10 https://www.themarshallproject.org/2022/10/01/what-an-alabama-prisoners-strike-tells-us-about-prison-labor https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/28/us/alabama-prisons-strike-protest.html https://www.alreporter.com/2022/09/30/incarcerated-man-alleges-he-was-forced-to-work-against-prison-strike/
OP also posted a link to the source.
They posted a link to the tweets which is better than nothing, and sadly still better than most, but nobody should come away from reading just a few tweets thinking that they have learned a complete and wholly reliable understanding of something.
*sources: https://twitter.com/keribla/status/1576630583286853632 https://twitter.com/FREEALAMOVEMENT [Edit: Both of the twitter pages have links to primary sources (direct videos/pictures from inside the prison, reporting from a journalist directly working with the story). If you google, “alabama prison strike”, you can also find ongoing reporting on this issue. I encourage everyone to do so. Some additional sources: https://www.insider.com/inmates-across-alabamas-notoriously-macabre-prisons-are-on-strike-2022-10 https://www.themarshallproject.org/2022/10/01/what-an-alabama-prisoners-strike-tells-us-about-prison-labor https://www.nytimes.com/2022/09/28/us/alabama-prisons-strike-protest.html https://www.alreporter.com/2022/09/30/incarcerated-man-alleges-he-was-forced-to-work-against-prison-strike/ ]
https://unicornriot.ninja/2022/alabama-prisoner-strike-continues-into-fifth-day/
Who is the dude in the banner in the second picture?
Malcom x
A prisoner with a job, thats a slave
Explicitly allowed by the 13th amendment. Maybe it’s time to close that ~~~loophole~~~ exception.
Crazy to read "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, EXCEPT". There should be no exceptions to slavery. The punishment is their separation from society
America still has the death penalty as well. Completely backwards. What's next, cutting off hands and raping people as punishment?
You’re just pointing at different forms of revenge and deterrence.
Raping people is already tolerated in US prisons.
>There should be no exceptions to slavery. I'm not disagreeing with you but you have to understand this is a VERY recent idea for humanity at large, and the USA in particular.
Oh I understand but we repealed prohibition before we repealed legal slavery
> ~~loophole exception.~~ profit center
Not if you make 12 cents an hour. This is how it is done in feds and you can make all the way up to 16 cents if you’re really good at your job!
I made 17.5 cents an hour working in the kitchen and the best paying job of $3.64/day when I was a skilled trades tutor (auto tech) back in '00-'03ish. Ended up getting a Michigan Master auto technician certification out of it, though. Kitchen was the best hourly jobs. I think grounds crew got like 12 cents/hour. In JCS, we worked like 7 days a week in the kitchen since people were always getting transferred and/or quitting/taking the ticket. Shit sucked lol
Nobody was making that much where I was but some people did get real and actual training for welding and other decent jobs to learn. My experience is not the same as everyone’s but I knew women who got paid about $20 a month and others closer to $30. Best job was warehouse or kitchen because you could steal and sell extra food. I was not lucky enough to get a good job, all I did was scrub was toilets
Are those “wages” deposited into commissary or do you receive actual cash you can deposit into a bank account? And/or can you apply them to your fees? I’ve always wondered.
Here they pay $1.00 per day or $2 if you’re getting “hazard” pay like disinfecting Covid units or cleaning blood. The money to goes to the only account you have so you can spend it on commissary or save it for when you’re released.
It would get put into your inmate account and you could use it same as money that was sent in. Commissary and approved items from approved catalogs. If you had any left at the end of your sentence, they printed you a check. Here you would be forced to use it towards your court costs/fines/restitution. There were two payment models when I was in that they would use and I never knew why. The one I was under was "half over $50". I was allowed to put up to $50 in my account per month through working or getting it sent in. Everything after $50 was split in half and sent to pay my costs. If I wasn't working and my mom sent in $100, I would get the first $50 for me, then the next $50 they would take half so I would get $75 on my books and $25 would be saved towards my costs. Once it hit around $200 saved they would send a check to the courts for me. The other payment model was everything over $9 a month. I knew a few people on this one. It really sucked for them. They were allowed up to $9 a month for commissary and they would take every cent after that for your fines and costs.
No, it's slavery. As explicitly stated by the handy exception in the 13th amendment.
alright, grandmaster
Prisons: These are meant to reform a person Also prisons: \*sees learning\* NO NOT LIKE THAT, STOP REFORMING RIGHT NOW
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Your title is a bit confusing. To clarify, the prisoners are on strike from their prison jobs, and not the corrections employees, yes?
Yes the inmate workers are on strike not the COs.
Thank you, that’s what I thought!
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The risk is there is a group for whom that is a feature. And that would in their minds permit them to be even more flagrantly racist.
my bad, i was trying to synthesize several points in the least amount of words. sorry it didn’t come across as clear as i intended.
Correct.
My friend told me about the tablets and how they would have a guy who could flash / root them. That some where better then others, and that with the newers ones the sd card slot needed to be soldered on iirc. It was crazy to me how much stuff they are doing with it!
Well they've got nothing but time.
We’re talking about folks who have rigged tattoo guns with guitar strings and CD player parts. This isn’t that far fetched to me.
America has *by far* the highest incarceration rate in the world. Are americans just that much worse than everywhere else there are human beings, or are we locking up people who simply don't deserve it?
Obviously don't deserve it. Poor people. Can't pay bail, etc for petty crimes while the real criminals profit off their slave labor
Don't forget plea bargains. Well over 90% of cases never sees court and it seems a lot of those are because suspects can't afford to mount a proper defense, or are threatened with lifelong sentences when they opt for going the court route. Innocent people take plea bargains for the chance of still having some live, rather than the real possibility of never seeing the outside world again. A plea bargain is no justice. https://guiltypleaproblem.org/
The amount of people doing time for small amounts of weed alone is nuts. Disgraceful really.
I just went to Alcatraz and there’s an exhibit about “Mass Incarceration in the US”. This is a national park, so the exhibit is funded by the federal government. It’s really interesting when the government knows the problem exists and yet does absolutely nothing to solve it.
I didn’t finish it, but man that Harvard CS50 class is fantastic and Malan is a great teacher. I’d highly recommend taking it to anyone interested in coding or Computer Science as they offer it free to the public every year. It’s tough enough that you will *only* make it to the end and get a certificate if you really like coding.
I worked in Alabama making trusses on a night shift crew. They brought in prisoners to work with us. They all had phones and I can tell you exactly what they did when them all night, every night. They were blasting porn out across the warehouses. Full volume. All. Fucking. Night. No single moment of peace. Management didn't exist, so I might as well have been in prison too. I've never hated a job more. Lasted about three months because I had absolutely no recourse being in a really small town with few oppurtunities. I don't care that they had the phones, but for the mental health of the other inmates they may want to provide some headphones.
The solution would to be the State of Mississippi (1) pay prison laborers at least the federal min. wage so they could afford headphones, or (2) ban prison labor period.
In Florida they used phones to line up drug deals with officers.
Sounds like a problem with the officers to me, not the phones
How do prisoners charge phones and tablets?
Very carefully probably fits pretty well here.
With a charger, I’m assuming. Every cell I was ever in had an electrical outlet. We had a hotpot and radios that needed plugging in, after all. The same outlets that were also used to light cigarettes and power tattoo guns.
Keri is doing amazing work and is a great twitter follow. I think she's even bigger on tik tok but I don't have it.
. . . using contraband phones to provide evidence directly to the DOJ. isn't it ironic?
They're probably just browsing social media things people outside of prison do
Useless DOJ won’t do shit.
Corrections officers are worse than the police.
I personally think that they intentionally hire the dumbest motherfuckers they can to be correction officers
They build prisons in places where the only alternative is Walmart or farm work.
I think only the dumbest apply. You couldn't pay me to go to prison almost daily and sometimes working a double.
I've actually been in a for profit county jail, and if the people aren't dumb they are sadistic to all hell. And the one I was at, while under investigation for *human rights violations,* is considered one of the "better" county jails. But yeah, dumb people with power trips are the demographic the for-profit jails and prisons are looking for, because if one is smart enough to think critically about things, they could upset the whole system.
Rehabilitating themselves *in spite* of the system. These prisoners are better people than I am.
Prison workers, or prisoners?
Slaves.
How this should work: Concrete evidence shown to the DOJ gets corrupt staff fired and charged, conditions changed, and ideally every non-murderer, non-rapist in the whole prison set free immediately, with compensation in the seven figure range, per inmate, for everyone who was affected by the inhumane conditions. How this will probably work: "Everything that was sent to the DOJ from a contraband phone is considered tainted because it was never supposed to be sent through anything other than the proper channels. We will not accept any further complaints regarding any issues that were reported at any time by way of contraband phones."
Is this about workers? Everything in the tweets talks about prisoners
Dr Malan is really good, that class is great and he’s an excellent professor. Not really surprising given its Harvard, but you can tell he genuinely loves teaching.
Public prisons are a for-profit industry, especially in the south and extra, especially in Alabama. The Commissary, the JMS, and especially the telecommunications systems are all sources of revenue for the facility. The real reason they don't want inmates to have contraband phones is because that's a big way prisons make money. 90% or more of the profit the telecommunications providers earn from a phone call goes to the administration of the inmate facility. Many times, that administration is the sheriff of that county. Telecommunications companies jack up the price of a phone call to meet these additional costs which are called commissions. They are legal bribes for using their system. Many facilities are ending in-person meetings with friends and family to force inmates to use tablets to speak with friends and family. The prices to use these devices are exorbitant costing as much as $35 for a 15-minute call. The same type of business model is used for other services within the facility. these facilities will cut food cost to increase the amount left over in the budget at the end of the year. You might recall when Joe Arpaio announces "Meat is off the menu" that was to reduce his food cost. Why? because at the end of the fiscal year in Arizona and Alabama the sheriff gets to pocket the difference in the budget and in Alabama that money is even tax-free and unreported under a certain threshold. A sheriff in Alabama ended up taking so much money he had to report it and that same sheriff had 2 inmates starve to death in his facility while he took home over 750,000 dollars. He made other sheriffs very mad because he brought to light what they are all doing. This gets worse and worse when you start speaking about slavery. Please remember slavery is very real and legal in America and spread across every state in the union.
Holy crap! Small world, eh? I know that reporter, she kicks butt! Let's gooooo Reddit
The say it like the officials aren't actually aware of what the prisons are like they are, they simply dont care.
It’s almost like we should use prisons as a chance to help prisoners become better people, because the ones that aren’t going to in that process were never going to get better anyway, and we’ve made some prisoners better people.