There are things about our food chain that most do not know…..did you know that some food suppliers use prison labor?
That’s right prison labor.
In a sweeping two-year investigation, the AP found that goods linked to the forced labor of US prisoners wind up in the supply chains of a dizzying array of products, from Frosted Flakes cereal and Ball Park hot dogs to Gold Medal flour and Coca-Cola beverages. They’re on the shelves of most supermarkets, including Kroger, Target, Aldi, and Whole Foods. Many of the companies buying directly from prisons are violating their own policies against the use of such labor. But it’s completely legal, dating back largely to the need for labor to help rebuild the South’s shattered economy after the Civil War. Enshrined in the Constitution by the 13th Amendment, slavery and involuntary servitude are banned—except as punishment for a crime. Takeaways from the AP’s investigation:
- People of color are disproportionately affected: Goods tied to prison labor have morphed into a massive multibillion-dollar empire, extending far beyond stamping license plates or working on road crews. The 2 million currently imprisoned are disproportionately people of color. Some are sentenced to hard labor and forced to work—or face punishment—and are sometimes paid pennies an hour or nothing at all. They’re often excluded from protections guaranteed to almost all other full-time workers.
- The businesses that benefit: The AP linked hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of transactions to agriculture-based prison labor in state and federal facilities over the past six years. Those figures include everything from people leased out to work at private businesses to farmed goods and livestock sold on the open market. Reporters also found prison labor in the supply chains of giants like McDonald’s, Walmart, and Costco—and in the supply chains of goods being shipped all over the world, including to countries that have been slapped with import bans by Washington for using prison and forced labor.
- Wide range of jobs: The country’s prison work programs employ around 800,000 people, and the vast majority toil at tasks like maintaining prisons, laundry, or kitchen work. But inmates also are contracted out to private companies in industries with labor shortages, doing some of the country’s dirtiest and most dangerous jobs in poultry plants, meat-processing centers, and sawmills. In Idaho, they’ve sorted and packed the state’s famous potatoes. In Kansas, they’ve worked at Russell Stover making chocolates.
- From the companies: Mammoth commodity traders like Cargill, Bunge, Louis Dreyfus, Archer Daniels Midland, and Consolidated Grain and Barge have been scooping up millions of dollars’ worth of soy, corn, and wheat straight from prison farms. Cargill acknowledged that, adding that “we are now … determining the appropriate remedial action.” McDonald’s said it would investigate links to any such labor, and Archer Daniels Midland and General Mills, which produces Gold Medal flour, pointed to their policies restricting suppliers from using forced labor. Whole Foods responded flatly that it “does not allow the use of prison labor in products sold at our stores.”
- From the prisons: Corrections officials and other proponents note that not all work is forced, and that prison jobs save taxpayers money. They also say workers are learning skills, potentially shaving time off sentences, and given a sense of purpose, which could ward off repeat offenses. “A lot of these guys come from homes where they’ve never understood work and they’ve never understood the feeling at the end of the day for a job well done,” said David Farabough, who oversees Arkansas’ prison farms.
This is messed up!
Cheap labor and no price decreases just more profit while the consumer foots the bill.
I know it is for a fact…. I had a relative that was sent to one of these private ‘workhouses’ where they put him to work in a leading chicken packing planet one of the larger ones in the South…..he was paid $1.10 an hour and by the time everybody took their part of the paycheck he was lucky to have $5 a week to buy essential and pay his restitution.
It is a great way for the private prison system to make lots of money with very little pay out in return….plus the state pays them for housing an inmate.
Think about that when going to the market….never mind most could care less.
I Read, I Write, You Know
“lego ergo scribo”
Leasing out prisoners ? In 2024 ? Astonishing and beyond corrupt and inhuman exploitation.
I agree chuq
Is just me or is it every time there is something, blacks are always disproportionally affected?
Not you….it is almost a constant in this society. chuq
I did know this, chuq. And the reason is I watched a TV political debate where a Conservative minister was advocating that the same thing should happen in the UK. He quoted the American examples to argue his case. (It didn’t happen though)
Best wishes, Pete.
This is nothing short of slave labor. chuq
If you can’t do the time, don’t do the crime.
A very right wing statement…..has little to do with the crime more about exploitation. chuq
My cousin Butch has been employed in that system for years so I know all about it…and, oh by the way, there is nobody in prison who is guilty—LOL —they get what they deserve … a country-club atmosphere where they are wined and dined and coddled at taxpayer expense….hard labor is good enough for them.
You are describing white collar jails…..nobody gets a free ride in Mississippi and these people are profiting off of slave labor. chuq
Might as well give them something constructive to do while incarcerated…gets them out of the boredom of their constant confinement, gives them a change at getting some fresh air and healthful sunshine sometimes …probably increases their sense of community while with working with others …should be a source of pride for jobs well done …they are fortunate their situation is not a shawshank redemption kind of experience— or worse, a chain gang.
Try going to Angola or the Mississippi prison they are the Shawshank…..there are no excuses for exploitation….period. chuq
They have a roof over their head, food i their stomachs ad productive wor to do– why does aybody think they are being mistreated…after all they made the decisions that led them to where they are….Prisons are for punishment; they are not meant to be comfortable.
And they are not intended to be slave camps either. chuq
and they are not slave camps…https://www.auschwitz.org/en/history/life-in-the-camp/the-order-of-the-day/
Thanx so much for the Jewish history…..they are if it is happening to you. chuq
Did you ever notice how “People of Color” always have one kind of problem or another. It seems like every time I turn the knob on a talking head radio problem they are talking about some ethnic group having this unresolved problem or the other…As a nation we have already given all these people almost everything in benefits and considerations and yet they still want more and more. They hve even managed to wheedle reverse discrimination out of the government in the form of such outrageous things as affirmative action… I am getting sick of hearing about their endless problems and demands. Aren’t you by now? It isn’t my fault that my ancestors were assholes and I am tired of paying for their assholery.
I see the problems daily down here so no I am not sick of them being pointed out to people that have no idea. chuq
We could always release them and put them to work at fast food restaurants or on supervised highway clean up crews or some other gainful employment and pay them minimum wage …put them all on ankle monitors …let them roam free if they promise to report for their monthly evaluations….or —take them off slave labor and put them in isolation for the remainder of their sentences. (With a TV and some books of course.)
That is what most are prepared for….minimum wage….I am sure you are serious and I will let that go. chuq
People do not get into prison by accident… they go there because they choose to go there which is evidenced by the choices they make and the actions they take…of course if you go into a prison and talk to the inmates, you will soon discover that there is not a guilty person in their company. And I know for a fact that there are advanced educational programs and resources in prisons so an incarcerated person can raise themselves up by their bootstraps if they do desire. So no more prison horror stories please. The states do the very best they can with what little money the right wing assholes allow them to operate on.
We can debate the pros and cons of imprisonment but the article was about the money being made off inmate labor. chuq
Labor is always a commodity in business that is absolutely necessary to maintain the stability of the bottom line… Basic Business 101 in any school textbook. Yes, labor is for the purpose of generating profits.
Since you are missing my point I think this has run its course. chuq
I have not missed your point…I just do not always agree with your points…and by the same token, you are always welcome to disagree with me if I make a point that you disagree with… but since I am such a self-proclaimed master at everything, a legend in my own mind, I fail to see how that would even be possible….LOL