MIM NOTES No. 190  July 15, 1999

Forced labor: Is it 1999 or 1849?

On June 14, the Alabama Department of Corrections was back in 
Federal Court asking for permission to handcuff prisoners to 
hitching posts in the sun. Used against prisoners who refuse to 
work in demeaning jobs and for slave wages, the practice was 
halted last year because prisoners were left for hours without 
water or restroom breaks. (The prisoners must remain standing in 
the sun and can not sit while handcuffed to the post.)(1)

The DOC was ordered to come up with a way to make the hitching 
posts constitutional. Their answer? Videotape the posts, to ensure 
that the breaks are given.(1)

June 14 was the first day of the hearing, but Judge Myron Thompson 
said he was inclined to let the DOC try the "new" method out for a 
few months. The Judge, while ruling in favor of prisoners last 
year, didn't "want to be a supercommissioner determining what's 
good policy for the future." That job, apparently, is going to be 
left to the Department of Corruptions.(1)

That prison labor is slave labor when work is a mandate and not a 
choice should be clear from stories like the above. But it's not 
that clear to everyone. The previous issue of MIM Notes reported 
on the efforts of Bristol Country Sheriff Thomas Hodgson's efforts 
to bring back chain gangs in Massachusetts. 

In mid-June the chain gangs went into effect, although not without 
debate. New Bedford has told the chain gangs they aren't welcome, 
and the town of Dartmouth scheduled a public debate between the 
Sheriff and Amnesty International on the subject. Some legislators 
are talking of outlawing the practice as inhumane.

Hodgson ran for office on an anti-prisoner platform, but in 
Massachusetts it wouldn't fly politically to openly claim that the 
purpose of chain gangs was public humiliation. Instead Hodgson 
talks about building teamwork and the members being volunteers. 
Amnesty International's Joshua Robenstein took the teamwork 
argument to task in the Boston Globe: "If the sheriff is looking 
to nurture a sense of teamwork, why doesn't he teach them 
synchronized swimming."(2)

And it's hard for Hodgson (although he's trying) to claim that the 
prisoners on the chain gangs are volunteers, since it's already 
public that the spots come with extra food and better cells.(2)

Eventually the tables will be turned on the slave masters in 
Alabama and Massachusetts and across Amerika. Just look at last 
week's paper: "After months of negotiations, 16 German companies 
that profited from Nazi-era slave labor announced details of a 
promised compensation fund."(3) Who ended up in the Nazi's prisons 
and concentration camps? People who by identity and action 
violated the Nazi view of the world. Gee, whose prison policy does 
that sound like?

MIM does not expect to win reparations for prisoners within the 
u.s. courts, although some small legal battles can be won. Instead 
we build for revolution knowing that the only way to defeat 
imperialism is by overthrowing it. 

Notes: 
1. Boston Globe June 15, 1999 p. A19. 
2. Boston Globe June 17, 1999 p. B1, B7. 
3. Boston Globe June 11, 1999 p. A13.