Coalition calls for law to end slavery for all incarcerated New Yorkers
Demonstrators attend the 13th Forward 2023 Campaign Launch at Foley Square in New York City on Dec. 6, 2022. (Source: Twitter/@13thForwardNY)
A coalition of experts and advocates is fighting to pass legislation to end slavery for all incarcerated New Yorkers, 157 years after the ratification of the 13th Amendment.
Adopted into the United States Constitution in 1865, the 13th Amendment abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime.
Despite the "abolition" of slavery, it wasn’t until the 1964 Civil Rights Act and the 1965 Voting Rights Act that African Americans were able to fully exercise their rights as citizens.
Slavery might have become illegal, but as Ava DuVernay explained in her 2016 award-winning documentary 13th, the disproportionate mass incarceration of Black people in America has allowed the legacy of slavery to continue more than 150 years later.
The No Slavery in NY Act is just the first step in the coalition’s efforts. They’re also pushing for another piece of criminal justice reform known as the Fairness and Opportunity For Incarcerated Workers Act.
The latter legislation would "ensure that all workers in New York, including those who are incarcerated, receive basic labor protections, a fair wage, and be protected against forced labor by threat of punishment."
"The current lack of state constitutional protection has allowed New York to build a prison system so dependent on human exploitation and degradation that it is akin to modern-day slavery," a Dec. 5 news release from 13th Forward reads.
Years worth of research and access to information requests by members of 13th Forward have resulted in some damning conclusions about New York’s Department of Corrections and Community Supervision (DOCCS).
Between 2010 and 2021, New York’s prison manufacturing enterprise, Corcraft, sold more than half a billion dollars' worth of products and services. Those profits were reaped while incarcerated workers in the state earned between 10 cents and 65 cents per hour for their work. And that’s before garnishments from fines and legal fees.
According to 13th Forward, the vast majority of incarcerated workers are being paid less than 33 cents per hour.
The coalition also discovered that, since 2017, the DOCCS has made over $7.5 million by relying on incarcerated workers to complete hazardous abatement assignments, like lead-based paint and mold removal.
The COVID-19 pandemic hit New York hard in the spring of 2020. While the United States locked down and implemented travel restrictions, it was business as usual for incarcerated workers, who were forced to bottle hand sanitizer and build 1,400 coffins.
In a Dec. 21 interview, 13th Forward Campaign Leader Lisa Zucker highlighted the harrowing conditions facing more than 1,000 prisoners in the state, with data from the Legal Aid Society, a nearly 150-year-old organization that’s part of 13th Forward.
The Legal Aid Society says many of these inmates are responsible for extremely dangerous jobs, like removing asbestos and industrial manufacturing. Failure to comply with designated assignments can result in punishments, including solitary confinement, losing visitation privileges, and even having prison sentences extended.
Zucker described the prison industrial complex as a system that forces inmates to work while providing no health or safety protections and "paying them pennies."
"It’s really no different than slavery and the exception to slavery that was created in the 13th Amendment," Zucker said, noting similar laws have been passed in seven states, including Alabama and Tennessee.
Inmates fight fires in California, but is it really voluntary?
The enslavement of incarcerated individuals isn’t just a problem in New York. Just look at California, where more responsibility for fighting a growing trend of severe wildfires is being outsourced to inmates.
California’s inmate firefighter programs are also known as conservation camps.
Despite its name, the program isn’t restricted to firefighting; inmates can also be assigned to clear brush and fallen trees, maintain local parks, bag sand, undertake reforestation efforts, and suppress floods.
According to the California government, there were 1,669 incarcerated people housed in conservation camps as of August 2022.
Officials are quick to remind the public that the program is "voluntary" and "no one is involuntarily assigned to work in a fire camp."
Incarcerated firefighters receive just one week of classroom training and a second week of field exercises before being assigned to the frontlines.
Inmate firefighters are paid pennies — $1 per hour from Cal Fire while actively fighting fires, and a daily wage ranging from $2.90 to $5.12 — to risk their health, safety, and lives to help save the West Coast from destruction. In a cruel twist, the inmates have been prohibited from working as firefighters upon release since the camps began in 1915.
In 2020, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed legislation that creates an expedited pathway for formerly incarcerated people who worked in conservation camps to receive an expungement.
While the expungement would open the door to employment opportunities with fire departments, it’s up to camp officials or local county authorities to determine whether the individuals have "successfully participated" in the program, leaving their fate in the hands of the same criminal justice system that locked them up to begin with.
There’s another catch that calls into question the voluntary nature of the program. Inmates are incentivized (a.k.a. coerced) to put their lives on the line to earn time off their sentences.
For each day an inmate serves in the program, they can also get two days off their prison sentence.
It’s not a paycheck being waved like a carrot in front of the faces of thousands of incarcerated people in the United States — it’s a path to freedom. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?