In the United States, the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution prohibits slavery and involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for those convicted of a crime.
Toward the end of the nineteenth century the New York State Penal System outlawed private for-profit prisons. Bowing to pressure chiefly from unions and heeding the findings of state-run special committees, the New York state legislature enacted a series of laws from 1888 to 1894 that phased out the lucrative prison contract labor system. With that came the end of nearly a century of exploitive, profitable prison labor that the Correctional Association of New York’s 1885 special committee report found to be “slavery.”
In 2022, Democratic NY Governor Kathy Hochul proposed an amendment to the state constitution to overturn NY’s ban on for-profit prisons. Hochul argues that this change is necessary to benefit prisoners: Hochul claims that private employers would pay higher wages to prisoners and offer more job training. Interestingly, Hochul’s proposed legislation will allow the state to garnish up to 50 percent of the wages received by incarcerated persons under the proposal. (Currently, NY state prisoners enrolled in labor programs receive between $0.10 — $0.65 per hour for their work, depending on the program.)
In 1979, the US Congress created the Prison Industries Enhancement Certification Program, which permits private for-profit corporations to partner with state correctional agencies to use and pay for prison labor, and allows businesses to engage in the transfer of goods made by incarcerated people across state lines, and of course collect profits. Incarcerated individuals are to be paid the prevailing wage—at least the local minimum wage—and receive written assurance that all work will be voluntary. The program is relatively small, employing 4,700 prisoners out of the more than one million people incarcerated in America’s prisons. The program operates with little independent oversight. That lack of oversight has left the program rife with abuse. Participating corporations in other states have frequently been found to ignore wage and payment requirements.
Governor Hochul hopes that NY state will become the thirtieth state to enroll in this federally-run program.
Note Well how this alliance between for-profit business and state-run prisons undermines the efforts of non-incarcerated worker to seek fair wages and safe work environments, and undermines the profitability of small businesses not employing prison labor. That’s a feature; not a bug.
Should you feel the need to peacefully petition Governor Hochel for a redress of grievances — as is your constitutional right — you can call the Governor’s office at 518-474-8390; or use this online message app (here:
www.governor.ny.gov/...); or by OG mail:
The Honorable Kathy Hochul
Governor of New York State
NYS State Capitol Building
Albany, NY 12224
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We used to simply call it slavery. Note Well how New York state seeks to make slavery acceptable as “saving tax dollars”.
