Came across the following headline on Friday: Appeals court reinstates Vermont prison forced labor case and I don’t think it has shown up anywhere in the Vermont media. The local silence is kind of surprising as it seems newsworthy that the Vermont attorney general’s office will soon be defending the occasionally troubled Department of Corrections against allegations of violating the 13th Amendment prohibiting forced servitude. The lawsuit had been denied from going forward by Federal Judge J. Garvan Murtha (originator of the Entergy Nuclear rulings) but a review panel has now given the go ahead to proceed.
A three-judge federal district court panel found that Finbar McGarry, who had been jailed on domestic disturbance charges (which were eventually dropped) and was waiting for trial in Chittenden Regional Correctional, had been denied the right to argue his claim that he was forced to work in the prison laundry against his will.
For six weeks, McGarry said he was forced to work three days a week for up to 14 hours at a time washing other inmates' laundry at a pay of 25 cents an hour.
The work was hot, unsanitary and resulted in his getting an infection in his neck, McGarry said. If he refused to work, McGarry said prison officials threatened to send him to "the hole," where inmates were confined for 23 hours a day.
Originally the case had been dismissed because, Murtha ruled, McGarry had failed to show the laundry requirement work was akin to African slavery. In the reversal allowing the case to continue, the panel noted that the 13th Amendment was intended “to prohibit all forms of involuntary labor, not solely to abolish chattel slavery." It is significant that the prisoner was awaiting trial and therefore presumed innocent.
[…] the appeals court said Vermont could not treat people in custody pending trial the same way it treats convicted prisoners, such as compelling them to participate in work programs designed to rehabilitate inmates.
The news report said an Assistant Attorney General for the State of Vermont declined comment on the ruling.
Quite a stand for the highest law enforcement official in the first state to abolish slavery.
1) Prison labor is being used throughout the country to skirt minimum wage laws and undercut union labor. This is a problem in its own right. Prisoners should be paid the prevailing wage for their labor. Failing to do so ensures that they leave prison with no savings and nothing to show for their efforts, thus increasing the likelihood of recidivism; while simultaneously guaranteeing that workers outside of prison have a harder time finding work. With a pool of slave labor (25 cents an hour is slave labor in this day and age) to draw from, many companies will, of course, choose to “hire” from the lower cost prison labor pool.
2) Coercion is not rehabilitative. A person forced to work in dangerous, inhumane, and/or unsanitary conditions is not being rehabilitated. That person is being taught that cruelty and coercion are the tools to use in getting what you want. That lesson is very, very dangerous for society, making us all less safe in the long run.
3) Sorrell’s office, once again, is failing to meet the barest minimum standards in protecting the citizens of Vermont. (Hint: prisoners, whether or not they’ve been convicted, are still citizens, and need to be protected, just like those of us who are not in prison.)
did I just dream I was in Texas?
Sorrell is a PIG! How could anyone in the Dem Party vote for this little bastard? If he were a Republican, this site would have gone ballistic on him YEARS AGO!
Nice reasoning:
Because anything less than absolute slavery is A-OK with our Constitution.