Thread by @conarck

THREAD: Florida prison labor dates back to the days of emancipation. Some things hardly change. Teams of incarcerated men — disproportionately black — have long been used to prop up Florida's rural economies. Our findings so far: gatehousenews.com/workforced/hom…

For the last century, able-bodied state prisoners assigned to work squads have had two options: work for no pay, or go to confinement. And for those 100 years, they've had largely the same complaints: not enough food, corrupt and cruel guards, unsanitary living conditions...

At Lancaster Work Camp, former prisoners described being forced to work in the heat without protections, a lack of nutritious food, scabies running rampant through dorms, men covered in filth forced to sit on their bunks and spread grime onto their beds without showering.

Florida's prison work squads can do dangerous, back-breaking work, without the kind of protections free workers enjoy. For one thing, former prisoners said complaining or filing grievances only leads to retaliation. Officers write ~1,750 DRs/ year for “refusing to work.”

Injuries on outside work squads outpace those of average prisoners. About 3.5 percent of the inmate population are on the squads, but they account for 20 percent of reported injuries. Those injuries are likely underreported due to prisoners’ fears of retaliation.

So who benefits from the labor? Mostly the state, and countless rural municipal and county departments that tap into the sprawling labor pool of forced, unpaid workers. public.tableau.com/shared/X9ZHY3N…

“There’s no way we can take care of our facilities, our roads, our ditches, if we didn't have inmate labor,” a former Gulf County commissioner said. “We could not tax our citizens enough...” public.tableau.com/views/Workforc…

Most Florida counties that use prison labor are rural and starved for tax revenue. Three of the top five — Union, Gadsden, and Gulf — have about 77,700 residents combined, or .3 percent of the state population.

public.tableau.com/views/Workforc…

The work squads are filled with low-custody prisoners nearing release who were not convicted of sex offenders. They are deemed to pose the least public safety risk, but they are still forced to work for no pay, no vocational certificates, and no help once they get out.

FDOC says it is teaching the men valuable job skills.

@samswey: “If that were the goal, how is the type of work that folks are overwhelmingly doing aligned with that? If you are picking up vegetables or doing trash pickup, how is that going to reintegrate you into society?”