Or a pretty serious opportunity, if you get to build/run prisons for a living. Given how corrupt US politics is, I'm sure the two are connected.
http://www.cio.com/article/595304/Prison_Labor_Outsourcing_s...
http://newworkerfeatures.blogspot.com/2010/02/us-prison-labo...
Paying someone who you have in complete physical bondage under $1 an hour is slave labour as far as I'm concerned, even if it is nominally voluntary. At best its unconscionably exploitative. Add to that the fact that the US govt. is legally bound to prefer prison labour over any other for the production of body armour, weapons etc. for the security agencies.
EDIT: Here's another fun stat: america has more black people in prison than in college: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/2223709.stm
Although we in the UK are definitely doing pretty well at emulating uncle sam: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/pop_ups/06/uk_prisons_...
– edit: To add a bit more substance, here is an article about the recent Georgia prison strike and the Thirteenth Amendment: http://prisonlaw.wordpress.com/2010/12/16/prison-labor-and-t...
(Source wikipedia.)
I also recommend reading Norwegian criminologist Nils Christie, on why the US should empty their prisons: http://www.wired.com/techbiz/people/magazine/17-10/ff_smartl...
Slave labor convictions for blacks were very common in the South from reconstruction up until World War II when they fell out of favor. For 70 years from 1870 to 1940 it was quite routine whenever slave laborers were needed for companies to pay local sheriffs to round up blacks on bogus charges such as loitering, convict them in sham trials, and then sell them to corporations to do hard labor 6 days a week 14 hours a day. This is extensively documented in Blackmon's "Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II."
I know that I’m casting a wide net. Prison labor is certainly not the same as slavery as it existed in the US decades ago. I do think, though, that I’m at least somewhat justified in calling prison labor slavery. Prisoners are forced to do it and they are not paid or paid very little. (This is not necessarily a moral judgment. Just because something meets some definition doesn’t mean it’s wrong.)
That seems like quite a stretch and isn't really consistent with the language.
This claim is a little misleading - the absolute numbers are true (or close enough depending on your source) but it compares blacks in all age groups in jail with blacks going to college. If you limit the comparison to college-aged blacks, there are far more blacks in college then prison.
EDIT: I wonder what would happen if you injected the racial makeup of the prison/university management and staff into the calculations.
1. Prison terms often last longer than the average university education.
2. Once you've finished your term in university, there's not much encouragement (regardless of racial group) to continue.
For example: You have a BS in Computer Science, and are now working. Why should you go back for a MS? Or a PHD? Or Post Doc?
18-24: http://www.nsf.gov/statistics/seind00/c4/fig04-06.htm
there are plenty of 30 year olds who go to college
True, but the under 25 range makes up ~70% of college students (IIRC).
Why replace children in a chinese sweatshopa earning 80c an hour with prisoners being paid $1 hour. Wouldn't it be more profitable to replace people being paid $1000/hour with prisoners at $1/hour?
Imprison the bankers, have them continue to work from prison for $1 - use profit to pay off national debt.
Prisons get to extend the sentences of inmates if they test positive for drugs while in prison. Guess whether it's public or private prisons where inmates are on average 8 times more likely to test positive for drug use.
http://www.bop.gov/news/research_projects/published_reports/...