Yes it is slave labor, but it is legal to an extent. From the article:
David Ball, an assistant professor in criminal justice at the Santa Clara University School of Law, says inmate firefighters are part of a long history of prison labour in the US, pointing out that when Congress passed the 13th Amendment in 1865, which abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, it made a specific exclusion for penal servitude by including the phrase "except as a punishment for crime".
> Yes it is slave labor, but it is legal to an extent.
As outright slavery - the treatment of human beings as property - once was.
An argument is often made that if a prisoner is contributing work that is essential to the operation of the prison, that is easier to accept than an economy which relies on prison labor.
There are wildfires in California every single year. That means that every single year, some prisoners - likely nonviolent - will be asked to risk their lives for $1 a day.
$1 a day.
I bet some of those folks only crime was selling weed.
The conversation here about slave labor made me think of my Air Force enlistment. I couldn't even get a sunburn during my enlistment without getting in trouble for "damaging government property."
David Ball, an assistant professor in criminal justice at the Santa Clara University School of Law, says inmate firefighters are part of a long history of prison labour in the US, pointing out that when Congress passed the 13th Amendment in 1865, which abolished slavery and involuntary servitude, it made a specific exclusion for penal servitude by including the phrase "except as a punishment for crime".