New rules from the Federal Communications Commission are putting the brakes on the prison telecom industry’s exploitative practices.
States are looking for new ways to execute people, and now they’re implicating South Carolinians. Whether it be a firing squad, the electric chair, or suffocation by nitrogen gas, South Carolina has its hand in calling for each. In our name, they are forsaking one of God’s most sacred principles, “Thou shalt not kill." For the sake of our souls, we must stop them.
There is a common misconception that private corporations are the primary beneficiaries of forced prison labor due to viral exposés of corporate exploitation by brands like Burger King. However, while private corporations may be the most vile beneficiaries of prison labor given their for-profit interests, federal, state, and local governments are the primary beneficiaries.
When Congress passed the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, they included a crucial exception clause that allows for slavery and involuntary servitude as punishment for crime. This clause has resulted in the forced labor of millions of people in our prisons and jails since, and the first beneficiaries of this labor were private corporations.
As an organization dedicated to decommercializing justice, we call specific attention to the National Prison Strike’s second demand: “An immediate end to prison slavery. All persons imprisoned in any place of detention under United States jurisdiction must be paid the prevailing wage in their state or territory for their labor.”
