Exposed: These are the Corporations Enslaving Prisoners in the United States

Recently, an inmate who has been incarcerated in the United States city of Amarillo in Texas, published a damning article in the independent news analysis outlet, Truth Out.Org, detailing how inmates in prisons across the state have been made to work for long hours without any pay.

Jason Renard Walker titled his article “Unpaid Labor in Texas Prisons Is Modern-Day Slavery.” Walker revealed how Texas prisoners work as electricians, maintenance workers, cooks, janitors, painters and dog trainers. Again, they take care of more than 10,000 head of cattle, raising and processing beef, pork and chicken for sale.

Walker revealed further that inmates also grow 24 different crops, and manufacture soap and clothing. He disclosed some prisoners work up to 12 hours a day without any pay. Prisons officials pocket all the monies these poor prisoners generate.

According to Walker, African-Americans are disproportionately affected by this forced labor at the prisons. It is said the Texas prison population is roughly evenly split, racially. About one-third of its inmates are African-Americans. One-third is whites, and one-third Latino. However, according to a 2015 census in Texas, African-Americans make up only 13% of the state’s population.

What is more concerning with the revelations made by Walker is that prisoners who refuse to comply with this hard labor, are made to stay longer in the prisons. With the forced prison labor, it has made the Texas prison system one of the most self-sufficient and profitable prison systems in the United States.

In light of this revelation made by Walker, activists and investigative journalists have been following up to ascertain the veracity of the claims. It has emerged that Walker’s claims are nothing but the truth. In fact, it was even found that the practice of hard labor at the prisons is not limited to the state of Texas alone.  It is becoming widespread in the United States.

According to the Global Research, the prison system in the United States is a big business for the country’s officials. Statistics show that there are approximately 2 million inmates in state, federal and private prisons throughout the United States. No other society in human history has imprisoned so many of its own citizens like the United States. The country has locked up more people than any other country: a half million more than China, which has a population five times greater than the United States.

To give you further appalling statistics, the United States holds 25% of the world’s prison population, but the country makes up only 5% of the world’s population. The worrying part is that the numbers of inmates are increasing.

Now, listen carefully here. Slavery was made illegal in 1865. However, in the United States, slavery is still legal. The corrupt corporations in the United States corrupted politicians, allowing slavery as a punishment for crimes in the law.

For example, penal labor in the United States, when intended as a form of slavery or involuntary servitude, is explicitly allowed by the 13th Amendment of the Constitution of the country. The 13th Amendment states that “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for a crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

With this big loophole, corporations are taking advantage of cheap labor to exploit inmates. They are enslaving inmates, disregarding their human dignity. Minds.Com has published the list of companies exploiting inmates.

Wal-Mart is one company guilty of using prison labor.  They purchase their produce from prison farms, where inmates often face long hours in blazing heat without adequate food or water.  Other companies that notoriously use prison labor are Victoria’s Secret, AT&T and BP (British Petroleum).

Below is the full list of companies implicated in exploiting prison labor:

Verizon

Starbucks

ConAgra Foods

Procter & Gamble

Nintendo

Microsoft

McDonald’s

K-Mart

GlaxoSmithKline

Eli Lilly and Company

Costco

Chevron

Cargill

Bank of America

Bayer

Caterpillar

Chrysler

John Deere

Exxon Mobil

Johnson and Johnson

Koch Industries

Merck

Motorola

Pfizer

Pepsi

Shell

UPS

Wendy’s

Previously, we were ignorant. Now we know. It is time to take action. If we boycott these companies’ products in protest, they will be forced to stop their despicable activities. Some activists have already started working.

Since Walker published his article, some activists have gathered support, pressing for an end to the exploiting and dehumanizing of prisoners by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Activists have designed T-shirts aimed at raising awareness of the practice. You can click here to purchase some of the T-shirts to help the program. Part of the money spent on the T-shirt purchase will be used to support activities; ensuring inmates who face this forced labor will have basic freedoms while serving their sentences.

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