Inmates in American prisons are exploited as labor by some of the world’s largest producers of food products, shows a two-year investigation carried out by AP.
The investigation shows how thousands of convicts are forced to work on what used to be a slave plantation in the southern states, today the Louisiana State Penitentiary.
The prison is located in Angola, is referred to as the Alcatraz of the southern states, covers an area the size of Manhattan and currently has around 3,800 inmates, 65 percent of whom are black.
Among other things, the inmates must work with cattle breeding and in the fields. At first without pay, then for a few cents an hour, if they are lucky they can get up to NOK 4 an hour.
At certain intervals, unmarked trucks with cattle roll out from the prison grounds. Via buyers, the cattle eventually end up in a slaughterhouse in Texas that supplies food giants such as McDonald’s, Walmart and Cargill with meat.
Hidden supply chains
AP has spent the last two years investigating hidden supply chains like this and concludes that inmates in American prisons work under slave-like conditions to supply some of the world’s largest and best-known food producers.
Everything from cornflakes and flour to rice, hamburgers, sausages and Coca-Cola can be traced back to work done by inmates. Some of the products are also exported to countries the USA has banned imports from, because they use forced labour.
One of the examples of this is China, from which the US has stopped shipments of cotton because it could be linked to work carried out by prisoners or other forms of forced labour. Cotton harvested by inmates in the US, on the other hand, is exported to China, AP’s investigation shows.
Facts about AP’s investigation
* For two years, the American news agency Associated Press has investigated how inmates in prisons in the United States are forced to work during their sentences.
* AP has interviewed over 80 former and current inmates and family members, as well as employees of the prison service and a number of other sources.
* The journalists have investigated prisons in 50 states and have, among other things, followed buses with inmates to see which companies make use of their labour.
* AP has also analyzed the prisons’ large incomes as a result of their own use or rental of inmates.
* The news agency has also followed goods produced in the prisons and found that they end up with many of the largest food producers in the USA.
* Critics believe it is a matter of forced labor and point out that inmates who refuse to participate are often punished with isolation and denied parole.
(©NTB)
Not illegal
The inmates who contribute to the creation of billions of kroner worth of value must themselves make do with small change, if they receive a salary at all. If they refuse to work, they risk losing the possibility of parole or being placed in solitary confinement.
However, it is not illegal to force inmates in American prisons to work, which has been common since the Civil War in the 1860s.
The 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution states that slavery and forced labor are prohibited, except as punishment for crimes.
Slave plantations
Some inmates today work on the same plantations where slaves harvested cotton, tobacco and sugar cane 150 years ago, which is the case, among other things, in Louisiana, one of the states with the most inmates in the United States.
Willie Ingram was imprisoned for 51 years in Angola and during his sentence had to pick everything from cotton to okra in the fields.
Armed guards on horseback watched over them, they were given little water and sometimes passed out in the heat. Protests were met with violence.
– Then they came, maybe four on a lorry, with covered faces and clubs, and they attacked us out on the field. They hit us, handcuffed us, and hit us again, says Ingram.
Millions behind bars
The number of prisoners in the United States increased dramatically in the 1970s, and blacks were greatly overrepresented among those receiving long prison terms. Today, around 2 million are behind bars, and many of them are put to work.
Prisons in almost every state put inmates to work in agriculture. Although this only constitutes a small part of the many tasks inmates are assigned to, AP’s investigation shows that in the last six years agricultural goods and cattle have been sold for over NOK 2 billion from prisons in the USA.
Large companies that annually sell soybeans, grain and other agricultural goods for thousands of billions of kroner internationally buy directly from prisons, which often outcompete local farmers due to low costs.
AP emphasizes that their estimates are very cautious.
Forced labour
The prisons in the southern states, where inmates are rented out to large and small businesses, have the greatest income, notes AP.
Most critics do not believe that the scheme should be abolished in its entirety, but that all work must be voluntary, that the inmates must be paid better and that they have a right to be treated humanely.
– They are largely forced to work without pay, and in unsafe conditions. They also don’t learn skills that will help them when they are released, says law professor Andrea Armstrong at Loyola University in New Orleans.
In addition to obtaining very cheap labor, private companies that use inmates also often benefit from tax breaks and other favorable financial arrangements.
Requires life
Many inmates are often put to work in industries that struggle to get enough employees and perform some of the dirtiest and most dangerous jobs in the United States.
AP’s journalists have interviewed over 80 current and former inmates, convicted of everything from shoplifting and drug abuse to murder.
Several of them suffered injuries and health problems while working, and female inmates tell of sexual harassment and abuse committed by prison guards.
The journalists also interviewed family members of inmates who lost their lives when they were forced to work during their sentences.
Crushed in machine
Frank Dwayne Ellington was sentenced to life in prison after stealing a man’s wallet in Alabama.
In 2017, while cleaning a machine at a Koch Foods chicken slaughterhouse in Ashland, his arm got stuck and he was pulled into the machine. The head was crushed and the 33-year-old died on the spot.
Koch Foods rejected the family’s claim for damages, arguing that Ellington could not technically be considered an employee. After several rounds in court, the case ended in a secret settlement.
The chicken slaughterhouse was fined NOK 200,000 for having provided insufficient training to inmates who worked for them, as well as for lack of safety at some of the machines.
– They did something wrong, and they had to pay for it, says Ellington’s mother Alishia Powell-Clark.
– Slavery
Calvin Thomas served 17 years in Angola and says that everyone there knew the serious consequences if they refused to work, did not produce enough or took a few steps out of the long line of inmates out on the fields.
– When they (the guards) shot in the air because you broke the line, it meant that you would be locked up, and that you would have to pay for the bullet he fired, he says.
According to Thomas, sometimes it was so hot out in the fields that even the guards’ horses passed out.
– It was simply slavery, you can’t call it anything else, he says.
Absurd
A spokesman for the prison authorities in Louisiana, Ken Pastorick, rejects the descriptions as absurd and maintains that the inmates in Angola are now faring better than before.
In recent decades, the prison has changed from being the most brutal and bloody in the United States, to emphasizing rehabilitation and education to make the inmates better able to return to society, he says.
The salary the inmates receive for working in the prison is also determined by the state authorities, emphasizes Pastorick.
Chopped in time
– I worked with a hoe together with perhaps a hundred other women. We had to raise the picks at exactly the same time and count one, two three, chop, says Faye Jacobs, who worked on prison farms in Arkansas.
She was released in 2018 after more than 26 years behind bars. The only salary she got during those years was two rolls of toilet paper a week, toothpaste and a few menstrual pads every month, she says.
David Farabough, who is in charge of the more than 80,000 acres of agricultural land that the prisons in Arkansas dispose of, believes that the requirement for work strengthens the inmates’ character.
– Many of them come from homes where they never got an understanding of what work is, nor did they ever feel the feeling of having done good work when the day was over, he says.
Billion dollar industry
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) ga i 2022 ut a report which showed that around 800,000 inmates in the USA have been put to work and contributed to over NOK 20 billion in income for the prisons.
In Louisiana alone, there are now over 1,200 businesses that use inmates, but many states will not state which companies are involved.
Curtis Davis served 25 years behind bars and is now one of those fighting to end the widespread use of forced labor in American prisons.
– Slavery has not been abolished, it continues, nothing has changed, he says.
2024-01-31 08:27:11
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