this post was submitted on 16 May 2024
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Blas Sanchez was nearing the end of a 20-year stretch in an Arizona prison when he was leased out to work at Hickman’s Family Farms, which sells eggs that end up in the supply chains of huge companies like McDonald’s, Target and Albertsons. While assigned to a machine that churns chicken droppings into compost, his right leg got pulled into a chute with a large spiraling augur.

“I could hear ‘crunch, crunch, crunch, crunch,’” Sanchez said. “I couldn’t feel anything, but I could hear the crunch.”

He recalled frantically clawing through mounds of manure to tie a tourniquet around his bleeding limb. He then waited for what felt like hours while rescuers struggled to free him so he could be airlifted to a hospital. His leg was amputated below the knee.

Nationwide, hundreds of thousands of prisoners are put to work every year, some of whom are seriously injured or killed after being given dangerous jobs with little or no training, The Associated Press found. They include prisoners fighting wildfires, operating heavy machinery or working on industrial-sized farms and meat-processing plants tied to the supply chains of leading brands. These men and women are part of a labor system that – often by design – largely denies them basic rights and protections guaranteed to other American workers.

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[–] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 94 points 3 months ago (2 children)

...when he was leased out to work at Hickman's Family Farms

I love how the article opens with this, because leasing people like property is totally cool and fine in America, because old piece paper said it is ok.

[–] Frozengyro@lemmy.world 32 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It's a family farm, so it's okay.

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 18 points 3 months ago (1 children)

We're helping small business owners

[–] Olgratin_Magmatoe@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

* to enrich themselves at the cost of others

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 12 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Prisoners can be used as slaves. It's right there in the constitution.

[–] Rentlar@lemmy.ca 8 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Yeah. I know. I'm saying that it's crazy to me (as a non American) that slavery is viewed as normal in 2024, because the US Constitution says it's OK to buy, sell, lease people if they committed a crime.

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 7 points 3 months ago

Oh, I don't disagree at all.

And the fact that they get sent to private companies takes it from merely barbaric to absolutely grotesque.

[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 5 points 3 months ago

We can still ban it, it’s just not constitutionally prohibited

[–] refalo@programming.dev 2 points 3 months ago (1 children)

and what if they don't do what they want?

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 1 points 3 months ago (4 children)

A quick Googling suggests bread and water for food, solitary for a month, and showers once a week.

No idea how this backwards-ass hole ever became a superpower.

[–] PM_Your_Nudes_Please@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

No idea how this backwards-ass hole ever became a superpower.

Well I’m sure the cheap slave labor helped.

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[–] Asafum@feddit.nl 64 points 3 months ago (3 children)

Slavery never ended. A carveout for slavery is still legal slavery. We haven't ended slavery in America at all, just changed the legal method of obtaining a slave and making it so only corporations get to have slaves.

We're such a fucking disgusting sorry excuse for a country.

(For those "JuSt LeAvE tHeN" I wish I could, but any country worth a damn has strict immigration requirement$ I don't meet...)

[–] Num10ck@lemmy.world 11 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (3 children)

i wonder which other countries do the same?

looks like its poland, brazil, rwanda, belarus, vietnam, egypt, myanmar, mongolia, china, mali, zimbabwe, turkmenistan, russia, libya, eritrea, north korea.

[–] Asafum@feddit.nl 14 points 3 months ago

Sound like those are also shitty countries that still have legal slavery that needs to end... :/

[–] astreus@lemmy.ml 10 points 3 months ago

Kinda like the Imperial measurement system, if you are being compared to Myanmar then perhaps stop?

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Weird that you left off France, the UK, Germany, Canada, Japan, and Korea.

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[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 10 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago)

just changed the legal method of obtaining a slave and making it so only corporations get to have slaves.

The Arkansas Governor's mansion was staffed by prison inmates for over a century. A lot of the post-80s privatization has resulted in convicts becoming corporate chattle. But for a long while we had a more traditional fascist take of public sector slave labor.

[–] astreus@lemmy.ml 4 points 3 months ago (3 children)

There's a reason the average black male spends 1/3 of their life in prison in America.

And then has the right to vote taken away when they get out....

[–] OsrsNeedsF2P@lemmy.ml 7 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

This is so obviously bullshit, but I looked it up anyways. The closest source I could find was this page which claims a black male born in 2001 has a 1 in 3 chance of going to prison.

So yea. Don't lie, it discredits your cause.

[–] astreus@lemmy.ml 3 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

Lol it's a lyric from dead prez, wouldn't get bent out of shape about it. Literally written in 2000 - I can't even find stats that old 🤷

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[–] Emma_Gold_Man@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 3 months ago

It's the new 2/3 compromise.

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[–] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 56 points 3 months ago (1 children)

But what happens if they are hurt or killed?

What do you guys at the Associated Press think was the point of the drug war?

[–] infinitevalence@discuss.online 26 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Oppression, economic disenfranchisement, implicit slavery, oh yeah and racism.

[–] CarbonIceDragon@pawb.social 16 points 3 months ago (1 children)

It's not even implicit slavery, the amendment that makes slavery unconstitutional explicitly makes an exception for criminal punishment.

[–] kandoh@reddthat.com 4 points 3 months ago

And just coincidentally the US has 25% of the world's prisoners while being only 3% of the world's population

[–] Diplomjodler3@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago (1 children)
[–] infinitevalence@discuss.online 5 points 3 months ago (1 children)

As a middle-aged white guy you can take my privilege out of my cold dead hands /s

[–] Lavitz@lemmings.world 3 points 3 months ago

Challenge accepted

[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 40 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Fun fact: the amendment that outlawed slavery also legalizes slavery.

[–] 100_kg_90_de_belin@feddit.it 8 points 3 months ago (2 children)

There is no US without slavery.

[–] Klear@lemmy.world 4 points 3 months ago

Just move it to the third world like the rest of us already for fuck's sake.

[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 2 points 3 months ago

Something about changing the past. We’ve got top men working on it though.

[–] tsonfeir@lemm.ee 28 points 3 months ago (3 children)

The US really wants slavery again.

[–] girlfreddy@lemmy.ca 48 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (2 children)

It never totally went away.

The Thirteenth Amendment (Amendment XIII) to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime. Source

[–] UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 8 points 3 months ago

The last correct take Kanye had.

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[–] DaleGribble88@programming.dev 16 points 3 months ago* (last edited 3 months ago) (1 children)

Friendly reminder that chattel slavery didn't end in the United States until almost ww2, and ~~some places still illegally enslaved black families continously since the civil war up until the 1980s~~. (EDIT: I thought that I remembered an old AP article online about this from the 1980s about a police raid at a farm compound somewhere in Alabama. However, I cannot find the original source for this claim, so I am retracting it. From what I remember of the story, this family had basically just kept their slaves hidden away on their small plantation during reconstruction, then just kept them hidden away from the rest of society by not allowing them to leave the compound. Someone finally escaped during the 1980s, was discovered, and eventually taken into police custody. This eventually led to the raid on the compound and the AP article that I remember.)

Then obviously prison slave labor is still an ongoing issue.

[–] bhmnscmm@lemmy.world 3 points 3 months ago (1 children)

Do you have any more information about illegal slavery until the 1980s? I'm not doubting it, I've just never heard that and would like to learn more.

[–] DaleGribble88@programming.dev 1 points 3 months ago

I guess not. I thought that I remembered an old AP article online about this from the 1980s about a police raid at a farm compound somewhere in Alabama. However, I cannot find the original source for this claim anywhere! So either all evidence of this event has been scrubbed from the internet, or I have misremembered the event. I consider one of these more likely than the other.

From what I remember of the story, this family had basically just kept their slaves hidden away on their small plantation during reconstruction, then just kept them hidden away from the rest of society by not allowing them to leave the compound. Someone finally escaped during the 1980s, was discovered, and eventually taken into police custody. This eventually led to the raid on the compound and the AP article that I remember.

I remember doing a lot of research into neoslavery right around when this video from Knowing Better and this video from All Gas No Brakes came out. Both videos talked a lot about slavery after the Civil War (The AGNB video was more indirect, but an interviewee in the video name-dropped a lot of stuff that I was ignorant about), which is what piqued my interest. I guess that I must be conflating a couple of different events despite my vivid memory of the article. If anyone else remembers reading the article, or the event occurring (because again, 1980-something is not that long ago), please let me know!

[–] NatakuNox@lemmy.world 6 points 3 months ago

The US want to cut out the whole fake justice system portion that illegally targets poor and minorities, and jump straight to slavery again FTFY

[–] astreus@lemmy.ml 24 points 3 months ago

Same thing that happens when other slaves are hurt or killed on the job.

Not a hell of a lot.

[–] AnUnusualRelic@lemmy.world 17 points 3 months ago

If they are killed, they probably die.

Disclaimer: I'm not a lawyer.

[–] kandoh@reddthat.com 16 points 3 months ago

Slavery is enshrined in the US Constitution so probably nothing

[–] BigTrout75@lemmy.world 14 points 3 months ago (2 children)

You get another prisoner? Sorry didn't read the article.

[–] Blackmist@feddit.uk 3 points 3 months ago

Don't think you need to with a question as obvious as that.

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[–] Sir_Kevin@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 3 months ago

Considering the medical system in America totally fucks everyone, I would assume prisoners would also be fucked.

[–] woodenskewer@lemmy.world 11 points 3 months ago

Hickman’s Family Farms: our workers may not be cage free, but the chickens are.

[–] Moose@moose.best 6 points 3 months ago (2 children)

Can prisoners deny work placements? Like do they get any say in this? I'm guessing there would be some sort of retaliation which is why they accept them, that or there's a promise of a shorter sentance or something.

[–] Drusas@kbin.run 8 points 3 months ago

They can, but performing work is one of the things that is taken into account when determining whether or not a prisoner has had "good behavior", and "good behavior" can get a prisoner's sentence reduced.

So, effectively, they are coerced into accepting work placements.

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