ACLU Releases Report on the Exploitation of Incarcerated Workers

by Robert J. Hansen

Sacramento, CA – The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) in partnership with the University of Chicago conducted a study of prison labor nationwide and released the report, “Captive Labor: Exploitation of Incarcerated Workers,” yesterday.

The jobs people have in prison look similar to that of the millions of people who work on the outside according to the report.

“They work as cooks, dishwashers, janitors, groundskeepers, barbers, painters, or plumbers; in laundries, kitchens, factories, and hospitals. They provide vital public services such as repairing roads, fighting wildfires, or clearing debris after hurricanes. They washed hospital laundry and worked in mortuary services at the height of the pandemic. They manufacture products like office furniture, mattresses, license plates, dentures, glasses, traffic signs, athletic equipment, and uniforms. They cultivate and harvest crops, work as welders and carpenters, and work in meat and poultry processing plants,” the ACLU said.

The United States incarcerates over 1.2 million people in state and federal prisons with two out of three of these incarcerated people being also workers. These workers produce more than $2 billion a year in goods and commodities and over $9 billion a year in services for the maintenance of the prisons where they are warehoused.

The roots of modern-day labor programs are enshrined in the 13th Amendment that abolished slavery “except as a punishment for crime.”

The ACLU’s research found that the average minimum hourly wage paid to workers for non-industry jobs is 13 cents, and the average maximum hourly wage is 52 cents.

The chief beneficiaries of prison labor are the prison system itself; state, local, and federal governments; and private sector companies that can exploit a captive labor force according to the report.

This is after The California Abolition Act (ACA 3), a measure that would remove the exception allowing involuntary servitude as punishment for a crime, passed through two Senate Committees in the last couple of weeks.

The author of the measure, Senator Sydney Kamlager, said ACA 3 is on the heels of the nationwide abolition movement and seeks to abolish forced labor and involuntary servitude unconditionally in the state of California.

“As it stands the Constitution of our State prohibits slavery and involuntary servitude —’except for the punishment of crime,’” Kamlager said. “Abolition is not conditional.”

Prison labor during COVID-19—at least 802,575 incarcerated people and staff have been confirmed to have been infected with COVID-19.

Meanwhile, incarcerated workers were tasked with manufacturing hand sanitizer, masks, medical gowns, face shields, and other personal protective equipment that they were then prohibited from using to protect themselves.

Incarcerated workers throw away biohazard material during a deep cleaning in a cell pod to prevent the spread

Incarcerated people, recognized as one of the populations most vulnerable to the COVID-19 virus, were on the front line of the COVID-19 response.

They washed soiled hospital laundry, disinfected supplies, and cleaned medical units. Incarcerated workers performed work that put them at the highest level of exposure to the virus.

Like coalition chair and original author of ACA 3, Samual Nathaniel Brown, who was the first inmate to clean a cell after someone who died from COVID-19 in California.

Brown said the current system of involuntary servitude in the prison system compromises rehabilitation at the Capitol on June 1.

“As it stands with slavery as the predominant form of punishment, it is counterproductive to both rehabilitation and public safety,” Brown said. “And quite frankly, it’s immoral.”

If passed before the June 30, 2022 deadline, ACA3 will become a proposition and be placed on the November 2022 ballot for Californians to vote on.

The California Reparations Task Force released a report earlier this month that details the harms done to Black Americans throughout American history.

The report, all 13 chapters, describes the history of the disadvantages dealt with by Black Americans in every aspect of American life.

Politics, housing, business, employment, the criminal justice system, healthcare, environment, infrastructure, and laws contributed to the inequality.

“What we’re asking for is fair, it’s just and it is right, and a nation that does not know how to admit this wrong and act in ways that are practical to show fruits of repentance is on the way to losing its soul,” said task force vice-chair Amos Brown, president of the San Francisco NAACP, told NPR.

The report had recommendations for future deliberation. and supporting ACA 3 is one of them.

“One of which is deleting all language from the California Constitution that permits involuntary servitude as punishment for crime by passing ACA 3,” the report said.

“I hope that people in California and across the United States utilize this report as an educational and organizing tool,” said Kamilah Moore, task force chair, in an interview with NPR. “This interim report far exceeds expectations in substantiating the claims for reparations for the African American or American Freedmen community.”

The ACLU report also highlighted how private companies are benefiting from exploiting prison labor.

Hickman’s Egg Ranch paid Arizona Correctional Industries the most of any company in the fiscal year 2020. It paid more than $7 million to the state prison industries program that year for labor contracts to employ incarcerated workers.

The ACLU’s report said the conditions of labor inside U.S. prisons invoke protections under customary and treaty-based international law against slavery, forced labor, as well as cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.

Other recommendations include access to remedies, work conditions and labor protections, and reentry policies.