Prisoner Exploitation in the United States

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Prisoner Exploitation is one of the most overlooked problems in the U.S. today, a problem that is largely ignored because of the social status & civil dislike of prisoners. The U.S. can be compared to other countries, I.E. China and India in its practices, practices which employ its workers for long hours in small, cramped spaces for long hours with little to no pay, akin to sweatshop labor found in other countries. In the U.S. however, it is not sweatshop labor, U.S. prisoners are forced into Penal Labor, as a form of punishment for their imprisonment. As one of the leading countries in the world in the fight for Human Rights, the U.S. has often been found to be committing many of the same offenses as some of the countries they protest against, including things such as the exportation and importation of its prisoners for work, and the building and designation of private prisoners solely for the profit of the private corporations who fund these prisons.

In the past, we’ve shown to be hypocritical with our voice in other world matters like wartime issues and oil, but this is a domestic problem here at home that needs to be addressed. Currently, instead of being designed as rehabilitation facilities to help imprisoned people and decrease the chance of repeat offenders, it is currently designed to maximize profits for the private corporations funding these prisons & keep them full, instead of functioning as rehabilitation for incarcerated prisoners.
Private Corporations often are able to work through a lot of loopholes with their employment of prisoners too; “they don’t have to worry about strikes or paying unemployment insurance, vacations or comp time” (Pelaez 1). It is an issue that can be likened to the terms of slavery, as “...

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...isoned for non-violent offenses – even going as far as to implement “anti-gang laws” which can be likened to Jim Crows laws as they limit time allowed to be outside, clothes that can be worn etc. To put the statistics together, “Ninety-seven percent of 125,000 federal inmates have been convicted of non-violent crimes. It is believed that more than half of the 623,000 inmates in municipal or county jails are innocent of the crimes they are accused of. Of these, the majority are awaiting trial. Two-thirds of the one million state prisoners have committed non-violent offenses. Sixteen percent of the country’s 2 million prisoners suffer from mental illness.”

Works Cited

Browne, Jaron. "Rooted in Slavery: Prison Labor Exploitation." Welcome to Urban Habitat. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Jan. 2014.
Palaez, Vicky. "Global Research." Global Research. N.p., n.d. Web. 26 Jan. 2014.

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