Incarcerated people in Alabama filed a class-action lawsuit in federal court Tuesday, challenging what they call “a modern-day form of slavery.” The plaintiffs’ core argument, outlined in a 126-page complaint, is that Alabama is engaging in racially discriminatory punishment for profit by exploiting incarcerated workers. Alabama Gov. Kay Ivey and Alabama Attorney General Steve Marshall are named as defendants. So are fast-food companies and a beer distributor that the plaintiffs say are profiting from the exploitation of incarcerated people. Those incarcerated plaintiffs are joined by two unions for service employees.
Gov. Ivey’s office did not respond to an email message seeking a comment about the class-action lawsuit.
Being incarcerated and forced to work in sometimes dangerous conditions for pennies, or for no pay at all, is not unique to Alabama.
There may be some people who hear of the Alabama lawsuit and believe that the conditions described apply only to that state. However, being incarcerated and forced to work in sometimes dangerous conditions for pennies, or for no pay at all, is not unique to Alabama. Campaigns across the nation, including in Louisiana, California and Arizona, highlight how punishment, profit and race shape American-style incarceration.
Every day, across the United States, people behind bars are forced to work. The Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude except as punishment for a criminal conviction. Many state constitutions do the same. But as I’ve argued elsewhere, the labor exploitation in American prisons goes far beyond even what the Constitution allows.
Incarcerated people are forced to work in dangerous and life-threatening conditions, risking injury or death. Again, that’s not just in Alabama, but across the United States. Incarcerated people working a prison job have drowned in the Mississippi River and died from blunt force trauma after falling off the backs of pickup trucks and been maimed by equipment. They have been forced to work without proper safety gear or training, leading to severe and lifelong injuries. Professor Carlee Purdum has studied the use of incarcerated labor across the U.S. within the context of disasters and emergencies and found that the work can range from sandbagging and clearing debris to “fighting fires, collecting and disposing contaminated animal carcasses and cleaning up hazardous materials.”
How is this possible? First, incarcerated people can be punished if they refuse to work — even if the reason they refuse is out of a concern for their safety. Inside every prison, incarcerated people must comply with the prison’s disciplinary code. Disciplinary codes punish a range of offenses, including, for example, “receiving two food trays,” “disrespect and “refusing an order to participate” in work or educational assignments.
And the punishments can be severe. If you refuse to (or do not adequately participate) in Tennessee, your access to electronic devices, family visitation and commissary is restricted, you may face additional restrictions for Class A offenses, and you are charged a $5 fee if you’re found guilty or plead guilty. People in Tennessee have also reported being punished with solitary confinement, which is so isolating and harmful that Canadian courts have declared the practice unconstitutional.
Circulating a petition or engaging in a work slowdown or strike to advocate for better work conditions can also result in discipline and isolation for everyone in the facility. In response to prior work strikes in Alabama, entire facilities were put on lockdown. Accordingly, each person was confined to their cell (usually the size of a parking space), sometimes with one or more cellmates. Florida makes calling for a work strike inside a state prison a second-degree felony.
Florida makes calling for a work strike inside a state prison a second-degree felony.
In addition to the control and exploitation of incarcerated people, profit is at the center of the Alabama litigation. Alabama has a significant conflict of interest. Through its parole hearings, the state determines who is released from prison and when. At the same time, the state’s financial benefit — through paystub deductions, unpaid labor and fees — increases with the size of the prison population.
What else explains Jerame Aprentice Cole — a plaintiff in the lawsuit who was allowed to work alongside free people in private businesses since 2016 and to visit his family on the weekends since 2021 — being denied parole in 2023?
Could it be that Alabama makes money from the 40% paycheck deduction and assorted fees from people in its work-release program? Plaintiffs note that the Alabama Department of Corrections “currently relies on its incarcerated labor force to perform all manner of jobs necessary to run ADOC’s own facilities.”
Could it be that people who ought to be paroled aren’t getting paroled because Alabama doesn’t have to pay a salary, benefits or pension to incarcerated people who supervise other incarcerated people in solitary confinement, conduct “count,” perform building and electrical maintenance, process new admissions and respond to medical emergencies?
Incarcerated labor can be highly lucrative, and the Alabama plaintiffs claim that their labor generates $450 million annually in benefit to the state and private corporations. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, incarcerated labor produces “$2 billion a year in goods and commodities and over $9 billion a year in services for the maintenance of the prisons where they are warehoused.”
People who work these jobs often return home without the resources for a clean start. People assigned to the fields to farm plantation-style row crops are paid two cents an hour in Louisiana. After working for almost 19 years in the fields and the kitchen while incarcerated in Louisiana, Derrick Fruga came home with a total of $131. Some states, such as Georgia, don’t provide any incentive wages at all.
The Alabama plaintiffs claim that their labor generates $450 million annually in benefit to the state and private corporations.
The last major ingredient of the Alabama litigation is race. In Alabama, as is the case nationwide, racial minorities are an outsized share of the prison population. (If you’re curious why, my colleague Professor Bill Quigley has a quick explanation for you). And in Alabama, according to the plaintiffs, Black people petitioning for release are twice as likely to be denied as similarly situated white parole candidates. Thus, they say, Black people are kept behind bars for the “use and profit” of Alabama, or enslavement by the state.
Race and racism don’t stop at the prison gate. The biases, prejudices, and stereotypes — whether implicit or explicit — are everywhere where people live, work and play. And again and again, incarcerated people like Terrance Winn and Kevin Rashid Johnson describe being treated as if they were enslaved.
To be clear, the opportunity to work, to contribute and to learn while incarcerated is not the issue; rather it is the cruel exploitation of incarcerated people that is harmful. Incarcerated and formerly incarcerated clients of the Promise of Justice Initiative have shared an alternative vision of labor that includes being able to choose a job that benefits themselves and their family and that can be done in a safe working environment. It is our responsibility to eradicate exploitation wherever it occurs, including when it occurs in prisons.
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