A new lawsuit claims that the prison system in Alabama is engaged in a form of modern day slavery. The state has been leasing out inmates to private businesses and then taking their wages to keep for themselves. Mike Papantonio & Farron Cousins discuss more.
Transcript:
*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.
Mike Papantonio: A new lawsuit claims that the prison system in Alabama has engaged in a form of modern day slavery. The state’s been leasing out inmates to private businesses and then taking their wages to keep for themselves. I’ve got Farron Cousins with me to talk about this. Farron, my thought is, okay, first of all, you got people there that want to get out of the house, right? The idea they want to go do that. They don’t like hanging around their cell all day long. So this gives ’em something to do. But there’s another side to it, isn’t there? Go ahead and pick up.
Farron Cousins: Yeah. What we’re seeing happen in the state of Alabama, which by the way, is making the state about half a billion dollars a year, is they’re doing what’s called convict leasing. So they take these prisoners who, as you say, they wanna work, they want to not sit in jail where they’re at risk of being assaulted or murdered. So they say, yeah, I’ll go work at McDonald’s for you, because that’s one of the places they have a contract. So then they get their paychecks and realize, wait a minute, there’s only a few dollars on here. Where’s the rest of my money? Oh, the state government took it because they, I guess, just felt entitled to it.
Mike Papantonio: They take 40%.
Farron Cousins: Yeah.
Mike Papantonio: Guy says, well, this is a chance for me to get, and it is true. I mean, they did a study on this one time, and the prisoners really like to get away from what they’re doing every day, but when they turn it into slavery and there’s a different side to it too. The other side is some of these guys are wondering, are they holding me here when I should be paroled? In other words, am I being held back from being able to get outta here and get a real job so that these folks can make half, half a billion?
Farron Cousins: Yeah. A year.
Mike Papantonio: Half a billion dollars a year on my work. Typically its fast food, right?
Farron Cousins: Yeah. Fast food. They also do some construction work, obviously, and other things where they’re kind of removed from being directly involved with other people. But you brought up a really great point there. The denying of the parole. Even just not even giving these people parole hearings. There was one woman who was supposed to have a parole hearing back in 2020, and they pushed it down the road years so that she could keep going to work sometimes six days a week.
Mike Papantonio: The other part of it is they’re punishing the people that don’t want to do this. They’ve got all kinds of ways to do that. You know, put you over to bad cell or maybe ship you off to a higher security cell, a higher security prison. They can move around all over Alabama. But it’s got two sides to it. Like I said, I did see an article a while back where these guys say, well, this is good. I get to get out. I don’t necessarily wanna give 40% of my money to the state, but it gives me something to do. But then when it becomes punitive and you’re saying, well, we’re gonna hold back parole because we need these workers. We need slaves. So we’re not gonna give you parole. And oh, by the way, if you don’t participate, we’re gonna ship you to a place where you might be killed in a very, very high security prison.
