Prisoners should learn job skills that will facilitate them prepare for release instead of being forced to work, sometimes picking triple-digit crops for pennies an hour or nothing at all, Sen. Cory Booker said at a hearing of the House Judiciary Subcommittee Senate on the subject of prison working Tuesday.
America incarcerates more people than almost any other country in the world – nearly 2 million – and they are disproportionately people of color. Those who refuse to work could be punished, up to and including being placed in solitary confinement, Booker noted. And those injured or killed often lack access to most of the basic rights and protections guaranteed to other American workers.
“Our prisons should reflect the best of us, they should reflect our values,” the New Jersey Democrat said. “And they should, I firmly believe, be places that are not just for punishment, but also for rehabilitation and building pathways to reparation.”
While most incarcerated workers now facilitate maintain correctional facilities, others are hired out to private companies or participate in work release programs. Companies like McDonald’s, KFC, Walmart, Cargill and Tyson Foods have profited from the multibillion-dollar industry, The Associated Press has found in an ongoing two-year investigation into how prison workers quietly get into the supply chains of some of America’s largest recognized companies and brands .
Booker, chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Criminal Justice and Counterterrorism, spoke at a hearing that examined ways to reshape prison labor, from voluntary job design and wage increases to protecting workers from injury and abuse.
Republican Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas disagreed, saying prisoners were threatening people housed in threatening facilities where “idleness is the beginning of all vices.” He added that prison work is a way for inmates to give back to the society they have wronged.
“And if that means scrubbing toilets, mopping floors or picking up trash,” he said, “then so be it.”
In the early 19th century, American prisoners were used for labor, but after the Civil War, the practice increased with the passage of the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which contained a loophole. It ended slavery for all but those convicted of a crime. After emancipation, black men were rounded up for decades—often for petty offenses—and forced to work under brutal conditions during the convict leasing era. It filled the coffers of industrial giants like U.S. Steel and Tennessee Coal, Iron and Railroad Company, while helping to rebuild the South’s broken economy.
Andrea Armstrong, a law professor at Loyola University in New Orleans, said incarcerated prison workers are sometimes assigned threatening tasks with little or no training, which in some cases can lead to painful and lifelong, debilitating injuries and even death.
That, she said, was never part of her punishment. She listed a number of prisoners who had suffered preventable deaths while working behind bars, while highlighting the AP’s work.
“Refusing to work in dangerous conditions could even lead to new criminal charges and new penalties in some states,” she said. “And we, the general public, have no idea because this forced labor takes place in spaces where there is a lack of oversight, transparency and accountability.”
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