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Comment by Bradlinc | Hacker News Reader

Three things occur to me as I read this article: 1) Toilet paper seems like a necessity. 2) In America, we treat our prisoners horribly. We are going to look back on this in a 100 years with the same disdain we look back on slavery. 3) Though I have a hard day a head of me, my life could be far, far worse.

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> We are going to look back on this in a 100 years with the same disdain we look back on slavery.

We can only hope, but why only in 100 years when 'we' - the people in this thread and a lot of others - already look at it with disdain.

But there's others - lawmakers, the private prison industry, etc - who think this is just fine and dandy, because it fills their pockets and is a legal avenue into a slave labor force (prison labor). It's in their interest to get people in jail.

> slave labor force

Remember kids, slavery is still constitutionally enshrined in the US as a form of punishment. No need to "look back" at slavery!

Slavery is allowed in prison as an exception in the US Constitution. https://www.history.com/news/13th-amendment-slavery-loophole... Do not support UNICOR or UNICOR products if you are not into slave labor. You can not have a fair working environment when your prison guard is your boss. https://www.unicor.gov/

BTW major US businesses use Unicor for backend support/logistics. There were guys denied going to lower level facilities (with better privileges, closer to family, etc) because their forced labor was too valuable.

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