Mass Incarceration

Forced Labor Continues in Colorado, Years After Vote to End Prison Slavery  – Bolts
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Forced Labor Continues in Colorado, Years After Vote to End Prison Slavery  – Bolts

Throughout Abron Arrington’s decades-long incarceration in Colorado, he often found himself in solitary confinement—not because he was causing trouble, but simply because he refused to work. He didn’t see the point given he was paid 13 cents an hour and figured his time could be better spent learning physics. Before Arrington was incarcerated in 1989,…

Celebrating Labor Day by Ending Slave Labor
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Celebrating Labor Day by Ending Slave Labor

Slavery’s legacy — from its beginnings to today’s prison-industrial complex — has endured, and an end to slavery requires real reform. Reform has to be brought to our prison system, as many incarcerated individuals do seek out experiences and opportunities to build essential skills needed to find gainful employment after release. But rather than creating…

It’s Nearly Labor Day, and Congress Has a Chance to Abolish Prison Slavery
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It’s Nearly Labor Day, and Congress Has a Chance to Abolish Prison Slavery

Johnny Perez was arrested and incarcerated two days after his daughter was born, a heart-wrenching fact by itself. Perez wanted to be there for his daughter, but he was stuck at a state prison in Coxsackie, New York. He worked hard to save money, but his prison job sewing bed sheets started at 17 cents…

Exploiting Prison Workers for Cheap Sheets
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Exploiting Prison Workers for Cheap Sheets

It took Johnny Perez over four years of making hundreds of bedsheets every day at a factory to reach the top pay tier: about 32 cents an hour, nearly double his starting wage. He was one of the highest-paid workers at Coxsackie Correctional Facility—a textile manufacturer run by the New York State prison system. When…

Human Trafficking: The Silent Pandemic – UWF Voyager
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Human Trafficking: The Silent Pandemic – UWF Voyager

Post-Emancipation Proclamation, the view of many in America is that slavery is an issue in our rearview. Contrarily, there are more individuals in captivity in 2023 than ever before. According to the International Labour Association, 1 in 150 individuals worldwide are experiencing some form of modern slavery. This includes sex trafficking, arranged marriages, forced labor…

10 Largest Prisons in the World
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10 Largest Prisons in the World

In this article, we will discuss the 10 Largest Prisons in the World. You can skip our industry overview and go directly to the 5 Largest Prisons in the World. The prison industry refers to the set of businesses, operations, and economic activities that are related to the management, construction, and financing of prisons. Owing to…

Meet The Start-Up Founder Connecting Arrestees To Free Legal Support
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Meet The Start-Up Founder Connecting Arrestees To Free Legal Support

Founded by Jelani Anglin, Good Call is a tech hybrid taking on mass incarceration in the U.S. by providing early access to legal support. Though currently only 1% of people have access to counsel at the point of arrest, Good Call’s free hotline service connects arrestees to a free attorney and can also update family…

Louisiana systematically keeping people incarcerated past their release date
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Louisiana systematically keeping people incarcerated past their release date

Watch our event with a brilliant panel of activists discussing forced prison labor. Louisiana, the U.S. state dubbed the “world’s prison capital”, has a deep-rooted forced prison labor problem. In addition to this human rights violation, it is the only jurisdiction in the U.S. that is known to systematically keep people incarcerated past their release…

Lawsuit accusing private prisons in Arizona of slavery now before top appeals court
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Lawsuit accusing private prisons in Arizona of slavery now before top appeals court

A lawsuit from civil rights organizations accusing private prisons in Arizona of practicing slavery is now before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals amid a broad left-wing pushback against the use of private prisons and immigrant detention centers. The lawsuit, led by the NAACP, was initially filed in 2020 against the Arizona Department of Corrections,…

“The Lesson Here Is That the System Is Cruel”: Keri Blakinger on Prison Journalism
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“The Lesson Here Is That the System Is Cruel”: Keri Blakinger on Prison Journalism

From 2010 to 2012, Keri Blakinger was incarcerated in state and county correctional facilities for possessing a ​“tupperware of heroin.” Since then, she has gone on to work as a prison reporter at the Houston Chronicle, The Marshall Project and, most recently, the Los Angeles Times. In June 2022, Blakinger published Corrections in Ink, a memoir about…