Inmates sue Alabama, calling prison labor system a ‘form of slavery’

A group of current and former inmates sued the state of Alabama on Tuesday, saying the state’s prison system is a “modern form of slavery” that forces them to work, often for little or no money, for government agencies and private companies.

In the lawsuit, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, the 10 plaintiffs, all of whom are Black, say the state regularly denies parole to incarcerated people so they can be “rented out” to pay hundreds of millions of dollars in generate income. profits for local and government agencies and companies per year.

The lawsuit accuses the Alabama Bureau of Pardons and Paroles of perpetuating its use of incarcerated workers by openly ignoring a 2015 state law that required the company to make evidence-based parole decisions.

Instead, the lawsuit says, the board denies parole to anyone convicted of a violent crime, and disproportionately denies parole to Black people, especially those considered low risk and eligible to participate to the state’s “extremely lucrative” prison work programs.

According to the lawsuit, the system essentially revives Alabama’s infamous practice of “condemned leasing,” in which black workers were forced to work for private companies from 1875 to 1928, which in turn paid significant fees to state and county governments.

Since 2018, about 575 companies and more than 100 public agencies in Alabama have employed incarcerated people as landscapers, janitors, drivers, metal fabricators and fast-food workers, the lawsuit says, reaping an annual benefit of $450 million.

“They are trapped in this labor trafficking scheme,” the lawsuit said. “While they are entrusted to perform work for the state, local governments and a wide range of private employers, some of the same people who benefit from their forced labor have systematically stopped the granting of parole.”

Alimireo English, who is incarcerated at Ventress Correctional Facility, a medium-security prison in Clayton, Alabama, is one of the plaintiffs.

Mr. English, who was denied parole last month, said he oversees a fraternity house of 190 men that was rife with robberies and assaults before he took over and began enforcing the rules. He said he is on call all day and his unpaid labor allows prison administrators to assign limited staff to more unstructured dormitories and release overworked guards.

“They refuse to release us on parole to continue doing our work,” Mr. English said in a telephone interview. “The mentality is, ‘Why would the slave master let the slave go if he can continue to work him for free?’”

The plaintiffs include two unions — the Union of Southern Service Workers and the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union, Mid-South Council — and the Woods Foundation, an Alabama nonprofit that provides investigative services to people with wrongful convictions or excessive sentences . .

The unions argue that the use of incarcerated workers undermines their efforts to organize workers in the fast food and poultry industries and depresses wages and working conditions. The Woods Foundation says it has had to spend additional money and staff time to address “the unfair and unlawful operation of the parole system.”

The defendants include Alabama Governor Kay Ivey, Attorney General Steve Marshall, and Bureau of Pardons and Paroles Chairman Leigh Gwathney; local governments such as the city of Montgomery; and franchisees of McDonald’s, KFC, Wendy’s and Burger King.

The lawsuit accuses the defendants of violating a federal law that protects human trafficking victims, the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment and the Alabama Constitution, which has banned slavery and involuntary servitude as punishment for crimes since the passage of a law. Voting measure 2022.

The lawsuit asks the court to end Alabama’s “forced labor” practices, order the parole system to make reforms and award damages to people who worked in prison work programs in an amount to be determined at trial. are determined.

The defendants named in the lawsuit did not immediately respond to requests for comment Tuesday.

The lawsuit describes a system full of financial incentives to keep people in prison and working. The Alabama Department of Corrections, it says, collects 40 percent of the gross revenues that private employers pay to incarcerated employees, nominally to cover the costs of their incarceration.

The lawsuit calls this a “labor trafficking fee” that forces people to subsidize their own incarceration in prisons that, a 2019 Justice Department report found, had some of the highest murder and rape rates in the country.

The Alabama Department of Corrections also charges inmates fees for basic services, such as $15 a month for laundry and $5 a day for transportation to work, the lawsuit says.

Private companies are required by law to pay inmates the prevailing wage. But in practice, they often earn much less than the free workers who work alongside them, the lawsuit says.

For example, an inmate working for a private laundry service might be paid $7.25 per hour. But when you factor in the 40 percent paid to the state prison system, state and federal payroll taxes and laundry and transportation costs, the inmate earns just $2.06 an hour, the lawsuit says.

Government agencies have also benefited from using incarcerated people to work on roads and major public buildings such as the State Capitol, the Governor’s Mansion, the Alabama Supreme Court and Riverwalk Stadium, home of the Montgomery Biscuits, a minor league baseball team league, the lawsuit states.

When they work for such state and local entities, incarcerated people are typically paid $2 a day, the lawsuit says, the same daily rate that the state of Alabama established for prison labor in 1927.