How Slavery Survived & What Prison Labor Reveals About America

Slavery didn’t vanish—it moved behind prison walls. We pull back the curtain on the 13th Amendment’s punishment clause, the economics of captive labor, and why a system built on coercion and deprivation keeps people cycling back inside. Through lived experience, we examine the gap between “justice” on paper and daily life in state facilities where field squads work in brutal heat or freezing cold, wages range from pennies to nothing, and essentials like calls and email cost a premium. 

Did you know that to send emails prisoners have to buy STAMPS! Like its the USPS. 

Video available on Youtube 

Music By Jesse Alxander

Transcript

Recommending The Alabama Solution

Federal Vs State Prison Conditions

Why Prison Labor Matters

SPEAKER_03 0:17

What's up, everybody? Today we're gonna be talking about slavery. Yeah, I know. A white dude talking about slavery. Just give me a chance, and I think you'll understand. But before I even jump into the video that we're about to start watching, right? I wanted to let you guys know. See if you can see my boy down there on the left, Tyler. He's about to let us know what's going on. I wanted to let you guys know that uh there's this documentary on HBO called the Alabama Solution, and I highly recommend watching it if you're interested in anything revolving around how the judicial system works and what we do with prisoners. And it's saddening to see. You'd watch this and hope that it was Epstein and Ghlaine that go through this bullshit, but it's not. It's the prisoners that get DUIs or that are stuck there for the stupid things that are the ones that get the shit end of the stick. It's kind of crazy. Because they look at all federal prisons, because that's where they go. Federal prisons are all most of them are all very nice. They have grocery stores, grocery stores that they can go to whenever they want. Well, in prison where I was, we only got to order on a certain day, and if you missed that day, you were shit out of luck. So these federal prisons are tennis courts and music rooms and just wild shit. So Tyler, my friend, I believe watched this documentary called The Alabama Solution and then he wanted to dig a little deeper. So let's see what he's talking about. I really am excited to dive into this because this is something that really it means a lot to me. I actually am thinking about getting some excons together and figuring out a way that we could make these prisons better and hold them accountable for the things that they are doing. And if you will un if you watch that documentary that I'm talking about, you'll understand exactly what I mean when I say hold these people accountable because they're not being held accountable. People are going out in body bags daily, and it's a sad, sad thing to see. So let's dive into this video and see what's going on.

SPEAKER_09 2:49

It's incarcerated cities in America to see if they knew that slavery is still legal in America. You know, it's still legal to enslave someone if they commit a crime in the United States of America.

SPEAKER_14 2:58

You know what?

SPEAKER_09 2:59

I think we're all slaves. Do you know about that exception? Wow, I know that. Yes, I do know that. Did not know that.

SPEAKER_16 3:06

The way the government is going, yeah, I would believe it, yeah.

SPEAKER_13 3:12

Doesn't surprise me at all.

SPEAKER_16 3:13

No, I'm not surprised.

SPEAKER_13 3:15

That is um disturbing.

SPEAKER_16 3:17

Isn't that crazy?

SPEAKER_08 3:18

Wow. Wow.

SPEAKER_09 3:19

Yeah. Crazy, right? No, it's funny. It's like weird. You support slavery? No comment, buddy.

SPEAKER_08 3:25

Yeah. Have a great day. We're in 2025. You know, you should be able to do that.

SPEAKER_03 3:29

What's crazy is that these people, some of these people, I believe, probably have even been to prison. And I'm not saying because they're black or anything like that, or they know someone that's been to jail. And when they're there, they don't even realize that they're doing slave labor. That they're the reasons that the prisons are are running. They're the reasons that the state is able to well, certain states are able to keep doing and moving the way they move. Because a lot of the labor comes from these prisoners. Cheap labor. If you can get someone to do work for you for two dollars an hour, who wouldn't take that? That's crazy. A Mexican wouldn't even think about taking that type of fucking money. That's absolutely absurd. So, like, we we gotta figure out something to to do to change this whole slavery thing. Because it's it's it's wild. But it's wild, it's wild.

SPEAKER_01 4:35

No, no, no. Shouldn't even be a thought in mind, ever.

Public Reactions To Slavery’s Exception

SPEAKER_17 4:38

I'm not saying they should, but it will happen. And if it do, and people don't fight back, that's on them. Do you think that slavery ever ended in America?

SPEAKER_16 4:45

No, it just transformed. It's never changed. It's always been that way. If you knew the process of how Indigenous service went and then how it formed slavery, you'd understand that this is what's going on now. Just not just black people anymore. So, like everyone displayed. Everyone, man. Not just couple people of color, it's everyone now, and everyone's starting to feel it.

SPEAKER_08 5:05

I think that should be ratified, it should be uh change for sure.

SPEAKER_16 5:08

No, it shouldn't be legal to enslave somebody if they commit a crime.

SPEAKER_09 5:11

Is there any crime that would warrant whiplashing in the fields like plantation style?

SPEAKER_08 5:16

No, absolutely not.

SPEAKER_09 5:17

No matter the crime, no matter. Even like a child rapist, uh well. See, that's where the thing is now. And that's the problem right now.

Work Credits And Coerced Labor

Smuggling, Corruption, And Accountability

SPEAKER_03 5:25

It's because right now they got the whole thing with Epstein and Jelaine Maxwell, Ghlaine Maxwell. And what piqued me was because I was watching my boy Osman, right? Watching my boy Osmond. My boy Osman says, Well, these prisoners get them to do all the work, and they should be working for free, and they should be doing the time, the and paying for their crimes, which I agree with. These sick motherfuckers, like Jelane, Ghlaine and Epstein and all that other shit, like yes. But you understand that Jelaine Maxwell was moved to a uh minimum security prison. And minimum security federal prison is the cushiest shit in the world. Yeah, they have to do 85% of their time, which is different than you doing regular prison time, because prison time you can get your time almost cut in half sometimes, but even more. If you do good time and you work, you get work credits too. So they incentivize you to want to work. Because work credits take away time from your prison sentence. So wouldn't you want to work regardless of the money? And some people who are in prison don't have any resources on the outside, so they have to work, and that two dollars a day that they get is the only thing that they have to rely on when it comes to buying food, commissary, soap, anything that the necessities that you need on a daily basis, that's the only way that they're getting them, is through this two dollars a day that they work, right? And there are jobs there are that are considered shit jobs, and then there's jobs that are great jobs. And once you get let out of that prison to go do things on the outside, right? That's considered like a good thing for most prisoners. They're like, damn, I alright, now I get to go outside. And also, and if they're in a hustle, which most people have hustles, they have people they'll tell them the day before where they're going, code words, try to leave it, blah, blah, blah. They'll cut a tennis ball open, leave some drugs in the tennis ball, maybe some tobacco, and while they're picking the stuff up, blah blah blah blah blah, the cops not looking that way, they pick up the tennis ball, blah blah, and that's how they're able to get some stuff in, besides the number one reason that they get stuff in through the cops. And again, watch that HBO documentary, and you'll see not only are the cops killing prisoners and getting away with it, they're bringing in everything that you could possibly think of. If you're wondering, how the hell does that get into prison? Well, the best thing I ever heard is that we don't leave. Prisoners don't leave. Who gets to go home at the at the at the end of the night and come back the next day? So, I mean, I was in prison during COVID. It was a shutdown. There was no one going in and out besides the cops, the nurses, and the people that worked there. And we were still getting drugs in. There were still drugs, there were still cell phones. How? How? I don't know. It just bothers me, bro.

SPEAKER_13 8:56

Way heavy. Murder? Yeah, I mean, those guys, I don't know. If you come Yeah, I mean, I just yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_09 9:02

Even if you're a heinous criminal who commits a terrible crime. Uh no, there's no slaves. Shouldn't be any slaves.

SPEAKER_08 9:07

I mean, I think all crimes are different levels. I mean, you're getting dealt with in there by other inmates. Justice happen happened on its own. Whipping like that? We're going back a hundred years or something right there.

SPEAKER_14 9:16

The crime and the time should matter.

SPEAKER_16 9:18

No forced labor. No. And the severity of their crime should matter in how much time they get. Like I said, that people are getting more time than they deserve for small things that are like as much as a gram a week.

Field Work, Zero Pay, And Dehumanization

SPEAKER_03 9:30

Where I draw the line is that if there's corporate. I got five years with a two-year stip, meaning I had to do two years for violating my probation with a DUI. I was told by the judge that they did not want me, someone like me living next to their daughter or relative. But yet I was offered jobs to go clean or go outside of the residence to go clean or make furniture for the officers that were working there. We had a furniture department at one of the prisons that I worked at, right? I was very I I asked someone that worked there, like, what is that for? We build furniture for who? Like, I don't understand. And they said, Well, the orders come in and it goes us goes out to certain people who have put in specific orders for furniture. And I'm like, still, that makes no sense. It's well, so honestly, it's mostly the cops. Cops come in and be like, Oh, I need a new cabinet. Can you make it? They'll give them the things, and then the prisoner that before in a courtroom is disgusting. They don't want to touch, they don't want to see, they don't want to be living in the same neighborhood as them. But they have no problem with you building their furniture and delivering it to their house. I heard the inmates, they load them into the truck, and guess they don't want to pay movers and stuff, so they have the inmates guess come to their fucking house and put the furniture in their house, right? And I know that you think that, like, nah, that's not true, because a cop would not want to give away where they live. But this would be the cool cops, the cops that were bringing shit in that had the connections, that knew that I got so-and-so that I'm bringing in drugs to every week, and they rely on me. And if anything happens to me, because this guy's a lifer, he's a lifer in prison. So if anything happens to me, big dog over inside that's got my shit, everything, he's going to take care of the person who ratted out that cop. That's just how it is. So the cop feels safe because now he's part of one of these gangs that are being run from inside of the prison. And you may not believe anything I say, but I am tell- I didn't believe how prisons were run or how things they say happened. I didn't believe that it happened, and it does. I've seen some stuff that blew my mind. Still, to this day. If someone touches me from like hits my shoulder from behind, I freak out. You know, I freak out. I there are things that still stick with me to this day because of the things I've seen and happen to other inmates.

SPEAKER_05 12:47

Then that's your problem.

SPEAKER_09 12:48

And then they can't keep the job once they get released from prison due to the felony status, oftentimes. Yeah, it's not good.

SPEAKER_00 12:53

I feel like the federal prison system is just like a lot of people. I can't find a job for sure. That's why I do this specifically. Due to like the laws that are being passed, it's hard to make change. The oligarchy that holds the power is making it harder for us to reach the change.

SPEAKER_18 13:06

Through Roger 13th and 14th Amendment created two citizenships within the United States. That's one citizenship. You're born a United States citizen. You're not under the rule of the United States government that exists today, it's a corporation. And we're employees of this corporation or what? You're a slavery to that corporation. Right, you gotta have an income tax. You're a slave under that.

SPEAKER_17 13:25

Let's make sure that we're not putting ourselves in a position to become slaves. But when you have predators out there, it's not a choice. The gazelle doesn't choose to get eaten by the lion. You lock up.

SPEAKER_01 13:34

He said the gazelle. He's a chillade when he got the gazette. One of my best friends. But you're trying to shake back, you know, I do it. I'm the supporter for that.

SPEAKER_14 13:42

I'm not an immediate family, but I I know somebody who has people who got like long sentences for very, very minimal.

SPEAKER_09 13:52

How has that affected their life? Forever. Forever? Forever. Go to jail as a rap. Talking to the people of New Orleans prison. You go to prison, Texas. Home to five out of the nine women's prisons and jails in Texas. Meet up with Marcy Simmons, who spent 10 years working the fields out here after stealing 300,000 from prison tree. As I was getting B-roll of one of these women's prisons before the interview, perfect example of the overcriminalization of Americans unfolded before my very eyes.

SPEAKER_08 14:25

This is El State Property.

SPEAKER_17 14:27

Private property or the state of Texas, they try to get rise out of you. Genuine confusions.

SPEAKER_09 14:33

As I filmed the outside of a prison funded by the tax dollars of Americans in a public parking lot, filming that which was in plain view, I quickly learned as to how little we really know about what goes on inside the prison walls. So we're trying to get some b-roll on the outside of the prison. Are we within our legal First Amendment rights to film on the outside of the prison? State property is part of public property.

Transfers, Transport Vans, And Ad Seg

SPEAKER_02 14:55

Stop filming.

SPEAKER_05 14:56

State property is still part of public property as long as it's publicly accessible.

SPEAKER_02 15:00

Yes, man. Can you try to find me uh Valley? I have two guys uh refusing to leave.

SPEAKER_05 15:05

That's not fair.

SPEAKER_09 15:06

Well, we're not leaving. We're trying to get some clarity on the actual line itself. We're not gonna argue. This is constitutionally protected ability to to film in the exterior of the prison, right?

SPEAKER_02 15:17

Yeah. But not on state property on the other side of that stop sign.

SPEAKER_09 15:21

That's that's unconstitutional.

SPEAKER_03 15:22

State property is well now he's actually kind of right because when you get released from prison, your parents or whoever is picking you up, you have to walk a certain distance away from the prison. Or away from yeah, away from the prison in order for them to pick you up. Because I don't know why. But it's a thing. Especially if you don't have anyone picking you up, they make sure that you like you they walk you off of the state lines. And it's a it's a pretty long walk because the perimeter of a prison you would think you would want it to be big enough to hold a bunch of people, and if they try to escape that they have multiple things that they would have to go past in order for them to be able to escape. So it's a huge piece of land, and even though that there may not be buildings or fences on that land, it could still be the property of this particular prison, if you understand what I'm trying to say. Well, let's see.

SPEAKER_02 16:37

Okay, what business do y'all have on state on this state property?

SPEAKER_09 16:40

Uh First Amendment expression journalism.

SPEAKER_02 16:42

You gotta have an appointment.

SPEAKER_09 16:43

No, we don't have an appointment, but we're not trying to come on the inside of premises. We're on the outside, no?

SPEAKER_02 16:47

You're too close to the gate. I got me here. We don't know. It's true. That's true. I can't even get a rise out of anyone.

SPEAKER_09 16:55

We prefer if you're out of the shop.

SPEAKER_02 16:56

No, no, no, no. We're not gonna be doing that because you don't want to get prisoners on the camera either. You gotta give them respect, man. Yeah, because you don't know.

SPEAKER_09 17:06

That's not possible. I agree with that. I agree with that 100%. You're misunderstanding the whole point. We're trying to get some beer on the outside of the prisoner. Yeah, but you can't prisoner's faces, bro. That's not the transparency and the ability for any journalists to gain access and understand what's even happening.

The Cost Of Communication Inside

SPEAKER_03 17:21

Unless they agree to it. Yes, which we are going to. She's right. You need you need authorization to film in a regular town. You need you need to get permits. But there's another video that well, two more, by my boy Tommy G, who Tommy is allowed inside of Atlanta's prison, which is considered to be or Atlanta's jail, and it's considered to be a really like shitty place. But they have a new warden, and he wants to be very open, and he wants to show everybody what's really going on, and in order to fix the things, he wants people to give their opinions and show them what's really going on, and maybe we can have a group discussion about how to make things better for prisoners in that particular prison and others, which I cannot wait to watch because Tommy's G G's Chommy G's videos are great. And if you know them, you know what I'm talking about. So we're going to be diving into that one video he goes to Atlanta's prison and like just asks questions, hangs out with the prisoners, and then there's another one where he does 24 hours inside of the same prison. And you can tell he's scared, and I can't wait to watch it. I've been waiting to watch these videos in this order so that we can get a kind of understanding for how it starts and how it ends, you know, and this is kind of in the middle, but people don't understand that these same prisoners that are pedophiles and murderers that they don't want you like they don't want you commute uh associating with citizens and they don't want you getting close to them without permission and all this other stuff, but yet they'll allow you to work outside of the governor's mansion picking flowers and doing the gardening because it saves that person a lot of money on her gardening and her bills. So she's paying two dollars an hour to these criminals instead of do you get what I'm trying to say? Said sickening, sickening, sickening.

SPEAKER_09 19:48

So I'm gonna public property, no?

SPEAKER_11 19:50

Sir, I'm gonna have to ask y'all to leave. You can't be here filming, okay?

SPEAKER_09 19:54

So what we're trying to understand is if you're just making this up or if we're actually in violation of some Texas penal code. She's not making it up, dude. My rules.

SPEAKER_11 20:02

I'm just telling you y'all need to leave, okay?

SPEAKER_02 20:08

I'm not touching you, man. You don't have authorization to be reported here.

SPEAKER_05 20:11

They're sitting on the floor.

SPEAKER_09 20:13

In the prison truck or like cattle.

SPEAKER_03 20:17

Oh, that's not don't even get me started on the vans, bro. That they transport you on. It's disgusting. It's a dog kid.

SPEAKER_07 20:27

And if they ask you to leave, you need to leave. I need your mushrooms and your driver's lessons.

SPEAKER_05 20:31

Oh, yeah, sir. As far as uh secure area, it would be a question of publicly accessible.

SPEAKER_03 20:36

Look at dude, look at this guy right here. Look at this guy. That's a mustache, bro. That's some that's a fantastic mustache. That takes some time to get done. I know it takes me some time to do the beard, but damn, that mustache is like twisted to the perfect amount of evil. You know what I'm saying? That's the perfect amount of evil in that mustache.

SPEAKER_07 21:05

This is a penitentiary that houses very violent criminals. We have killers, rapists, murderers, we have everything in here. And they have family members in the world that will come out here and play the same card. Yeah. When we have people here, we don't know who's gonna be. That's a maximum security prison, man. Why would you come here to mess with these people?

SPEAKER_06 21:22

We're not here to mess with anyone, though. That's that's they're not here, they're actually here to help their operations and put a light on the situation.

SPEAKER_03 21:30

Am I right?

SPEAKER_09 21:34

So are we violating Texas Kennedy? All I'm asking is, are we? Well, he looks like authority.

SPEAKER_07 21:40

For you to get in your car and leave.

SPEAKER_03 21:42

That mustache gives him so much authority. It's crazy.

SPEAKER_09 21:45

I'm confused. We saw the prisoners, a bunch of convicted felons in a van being shipped in and out of the prison. You just experienced the wrath of a small Texas town, big hat, no cattle, quite literally, zero transparency. The sheriff of the town himself showed up within five minutes and big dogged us. We have five top cars coming.

SPEAKER_05 22:05

The same people that are elected to protect the constitution and to uphold the constitution and serve the public are utilizing that against you.

SPEAKER_09 22:12

My guess is they're they're not supposed to be shuttling prisoners in and out of that freely without change. And all that? It was a publicly. Oh, didn't it have changed? There's no gates. There's no security. And they're saying that's a maximum security prison. That's crazy. I bet you a lot of things can go missing, or a lot of abuses can go unnoticed out here in these small towns. After nearly getting arrested myself for filming these prison walls in plain view, to understand what really goes on inside of them, let me introduce you to someone who lived there. I'm here with Marcy, formerly incarcerated for how many years?

SPEAKER_12 22:42

I was locked up for 10 years here in Gainesville for a theft charge.

SPEAKER_04 22:46

I also want you to meet George. I went to prison three different times. And I was an addict and I didn't have the money. And I would uh target fast food joints and I would wait until they close, and then I would uh throw down on whoever was taking the trash out, and I'd walk them back inside, and more often than not, they had the safe open, and they would give me the money and I'd leave. Yes, I did 27 total. I was an addict. I got out the army at like right at 19. Um, in South Texas at a dance to go see a girlfriend. I leave the dance, I've been drinking. I get pulled over, so I get a little mouthy with the cops. He didn't like it, he took me to a jail. He puts me in a tank of men who'd been convicted and were awaiting transfer to prison. And I found out later he told him to take care of it. I was beaten, I was raped pretty well all night. Uh, kicked out the next morning and said go home. So you're beaten and raped. Yeah, totally. Yeah. And where are we right now?

SPEAKER_12 23:30

We are in one of the fields. Dude, I think that there's actually this was potatoes here uh that I used to work at. I worked out here uh in the fields just about my entire incarceration.

SPEAKER_09 23:40

Ten years straight, how many hours a day did you work and how much were you paid per hour?

SPEAKER_12 23:44

So in Texas, incarcerated folks are paid zero dollars an hour. What?

SPEAKER_09 23:48

Um are you forced to to work in the fields?

Heat, Cold, And Basic Dignity

SPEAKER_12 23:51

Yeah, you absolutely have to work. I'm not really against over working, but I'm against people doing kind of needless work. Yeah, day one, you get here and they assign you a job, and the next morning you get up and go to work. So day two, uh in Big Girl Prison, right here on the Dr. Lane Murray unit, I was out in the fields. And so what that looks like is your strip searched uh before going to work. And then they'll say like three hoe, because side note, it's called the hoe squad. Yeah, the ho. I'm sure they are they call you hoe in the dirt, but of course it was used derogatory, like hoes line up, hoes get over here. It was really degrading.

SPEAKER_09 24:28

So it's dehumanizing from the get-go.

SPEAKER_12 24:30

For sure, 100%. You hike uh to a field and you've got officers on horseback and they're armed, um, they're shouting directives at you day two in prison. You don't know what the hell's going on. You're scared, it's really nerve-wracking. Uh, you get out here, and if it's August, it's 105 degrees out here in Texas, and it's not air conditioned in the dorm, and so you're already weak. And if you've been in county jail and the air conditioning, you're really weak because of the heat. Uh, and you're out here doing um field labor, which is really similar to plantation work. Any old plantation movie that you might have seen, that's what this kind of work looked like.

SPEAKER_04 25:10

People used to cut their tendons so as to not go out to work in the fields. I got taken from a nice AC job working in the hospital to the fields because I was like, See, did you hear him say I got a nice AC job?

Solitary Confinement And Trauma

SPEAKER_03 25:21

Then he goes from working in the fields because there's some jobs that prisoners look. I'm sorry, I I got up for a second to grab this. I wanted to read you something because I wrote this down I think yesterday. So when I started, this is how this is to the how many prisons that I have been to, starting with let's say, all right, so let's see if I can find it. So sorry, I had you look at my notes. So I started at Kraft, which is a intake prison where they decide which prison you go to. Supposed to go to Jones Farms. Jones Farms was gonna go through a closure just like Kraft was. So instead of going to Jones Farms, I was sent to Southern State. From Southern State, I went to Southwoods for a month. For Southwoods, I went to Northern State, France's sake, for 260 something days. From there, I was shipped to Bayside. From Bayside, I got in trouble again for something stupid, and I was sent from Bayside to Yardsville AdSAG. Yardsville AdSAG is or was a juvenile detention center, but they turned it into an ad sag holding area. So and this place had no cable, nothing. It was the worst. I think I did over 120 days there. Then from there I moved to Southwoods. From Southwoods, I went to AdSeg again in Northern State, and then from Northern State, I was sent to Southern. So yeah, I think I did eight. It was eight in total, if I count it correctly, prison transfers within two years and seven months, so almost three years in prison. Absolutely crazy. And every time they transport you, it's in this dog kennel van, which is the size of a work truck, and inside the back of that work truck, they put a metal cage inside of it with chairs, and they separate it down the line, down the middle, so they can fit four people on this side, four people on the other side. Sometimes they'll try to squish in more into the back of a white grape truck, if you understand what I mean. You know, those trucks everyone says, Oh, those are the pedos going in there. Well, yeah, that kind of truck put in a cage, separated in half, and then eight people trying to fit in the back of that bitch, with two cops sitting in the front with air conditioned. It's the older ones don't even have air conditioned that go into the back. And you're in there for anywhere up to from an hour to four to five hours. Lucky if you have a cool enough cop to let you take a bathroom break or to stop and grab food. And usually that's a no. Unless you get one of the transport cops who are known for transportation, so they know how they know the struggle. They're not real COs, they're just transportation liaisons. So some of them are cool, but most of the time you're shit out of luck.

SPEAKER_04 29:04

Showing backing up their allegations. You're beating up some dude, right? Yeah. And they'll do that on time for much minor stuff. I was put in the fields for a lot of stuff. I got put in the fields because I mouthed off at the guard one time because I stepped on the other line in the hallway. So they went ahead and put me back in the fields.

Recidivism And Failed Rehabilitation

SPEAKER_03 29:18

You stepped on the other line, dude. There's sometimes in prisons, there's lines. In Bayside, they have this one line that's red, and it's dedicated to all the cops that were killed, or COs that were killed in action. And if you were to step on that line, they beat the shit out of you. This is Bayside Prison. 100%. Ask anyone that went to Bayside five, ten years ago. Body bags constantly, always someone leaving in a body bag. Once a day, or once a once every other day, you'd get a helicopter, and you knew that helicopter was coming to pick up somebody to bring them to intensive ward or to the crematorium.

unknown 30:01

No.

SPEAKER_04 30:02

Yeah. Entails you to get down on the ground. I mean, what rights do you have?

SPEAKER_09 30:05

You do it to get shot. And this is Bianca Tylek, a Harvard educated leading expert in the prison industry and founder of the non-profit Worth Rises, working to dismantle the prison industry and the exploitation of those it touches. Oh, real quick. Have you ever gotten in a car crash that wasn't your fault or gotten hurt at work? Your injury could be a good thing. Tyler, stop. You become Morgan and Morgan's clients, they'll fight to get you the compensation you deserve. And as America's largest personal injury.

SPEAKER_03 30:34

Go ahead. Give it, give me, jump ahead. You know what I'm saying? Personal injury lawyers. Mine screwed me over, so maybe Morgan and Morgan is better. Who knows? Who fucking knows these days, my friend?

SPEAKER_15 30:49

Prison is already the punishment. Slavery should never be a punishment.

SPEAKER_09 30:53

And are people picking cotton? Are they fighting fires? Is there crazy work?

SPEAKER_15 30:57

So, like, I'm just thinking about the city. Yeah, they're fighting fires. Those California fires, most of them in this country. We have people in all types of jobs. And a lot of them die. There's a massive um area of uh prison work. In fact, there's some really um crazy reporting right now about sheriffs that are using incarcerated people on their own properties.

SPEAKER_10 31:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_15 31:19

Using the people in his gym to like man his own farm.

SPEAKER_09 31:24

What?

SPEAKER_12 31:25

So we would work um anywhere from six to eight hours a day. Um I think they cut that down to half days now. It was a long day. Doing very manual labor, doing things like picking potatoes, hicking corn, cutting grass with a with a hoe.

SPEAKER_09 31:41

So who was your equivalent of the master? The the prison warden? Who did you serve?

SPEAKER_12 31:46

Yeah, we served the people cutting grass with a hoe.

SPEAKER_03 31:52

By a hoe. No sir. I'm sorry, I'm sorry.

Who Profits From Prison Labor

SPEAKER_12 31:57

Culturally similar to plantation days, and you had two lead hoes, and we would be at the front of the line and we would be keeping things organized. We would be keeping the ladies on task, and quite frankly, sometimes even participating in degrading them.

SPEAKER_04 32:12

I spent 27 years in prison. Total, I got 100 bucks, I think. Because the 27 years you earned$100. Out of the 20, of the 140,000 who work in maybe in Lockhart, they got a couple of private firms that do lease, do pay individuals for working. But if there's 140,000 people, there's 139,000, 800, whatever, thousand. That no, don't get a penny. No, I I never got a penny. I worked 13 years in the fields. I worked as a library clerk, clerk in the law library. I worked as a kitchen commissary clerk. I washed pots and pants for three months because they got mad at me because I wrote a grievance that was kind of effective. So they transferred me jobs from my job as a library into the kitchen. None of them did I ever get paid.

SPEAKER_09 32:56

Were you obligated to work those jobs? Do you have to work in prison like you did?

SPEAKER_04 32:59

If there is a job that needs to be done, that's the thing. They will find somebody to do it.

Mental Health Care Gaps

SPEAKER_03 33:05

Because I was in prison, and the first job I got was maintaining our trailer because we lived in trailers, and I didn't understand what that meant. And they said, no, you got the easy job. You don't have to do anything, you just get paid to just sleep, basically. So my job was literally doing nothing, and I got two dollars an hour because there were no jobs left to do. At this point, the prisons were overcrowded, so overcrowded, so that they did that whole thing during COVID where they released like I think it was over 3,000 prisoners just in New Jersey or 1,500 just in New Jersey that were getting out within the next year. So they let a bunch of them out. So yeah, like they the jobs that need to get done, if you do not, if you refuse to do them, you're gonna get put in a solitary confinement, you're gonna get days taken off of your good time. Cause work, because work credits too, they that they give you incentive to work, but it's not money. It's like, hey, you want to get out early and see your family, then this is the situation. But then, like he just said, he was working for the person that said how horrible of a human being he is, but yet they're allowed to work on the grounds of that person. They're not afraid for their family, or they're not afraid for the daughters that they wouldn't let my I would not let my daughter live next to someone like you. That's what I was told. But yet they're offering and giving jobs to people ten times with ten times worse charges than a dui and violation of probation. These jobs outside on the grounds and just so that these people don't have to pay for absorbent like labor. They can just pay for for criminal labor. Bro, the the loopholes, they're amazing at loopholes. These rich people are amazing at loopholes. And once you learn the loopholes for yourself and start seeing how the rich stay rich, they get rich, and it stays that way, you start to get a sense for damn, like it's if it's not illegal and they're doing it, why can't I do it? Start using their loopholes for you, and that's what we need to get everybody on board with is how to understand that we could be using the same loopholes that they use, but you gotta understand how it's done and do it the right way.

SPEAKER_04 35:58

Now, having more time, see. Of course I want to do it. I don't want to sit around my damn ass all the damn time, but I want to do something that's fulfilling, not necessarily spiritually, right? But something that I learned something from, and I think that's most prisoners want that.

Abolition, Reform, And Alternatives

SPEAKER_12 36:09

32 degrees we're not working in the field. You'd hear any blood freezing. Exactly. So we're at the back gate and we can hear the officers' radios, and they do these every hour temperature checks on the radio. And we're at the back gate, lined up, cold as hell, ready to go to work. No issued thermals. I mean, just in these state-issued clothes that are thin, the air's hitting our skin. And um, we hear on the radio that it's 31 degrees. And we started cheering. Like we were really excited to go back in. And I remember the boss, the lieutenant, he looked over at the other boss and said, I didn't hear anything, did you? And they rolled that gate and we came on out here and we were picking cabbage. It was frozen, and it had been raining. So our boots and bottom of our legs were wet, our socks were wet. They issue these little cotton gloves in the mud. They're not gonna stay on your hand. You finally just have to put the gloves down. And we're just picking cabbage, which the people around me, their lips are blue, snots running down our faces and frozen. And I remember feeling ice on my eyelashes um and thinking they really don't give a sh about us. You brought up tampons, and so I need to say, working in the field is absolutely insane when you're on your menstrual cycle. There's no restroom. They have a porta potty that they carry on a tra on a trailer, and tractor pulls it, comes around once every four hours. Not everybody gets to use it. So I might be on a squad with 35 other women. They'll say, deuce it up, restroom break. We all line up, the trailer's there. I would remember like waving my tampon in the air because you're trying to show the boss like I need to go, like this is uh important for me to go, because they're only gonna pick five or six.

SPEAKER_09 37:48

But is the 13th Amendment that allows for the enslavement of criminals in violation of the Eighth Amendment that protects Americans against cruel or unusual punishments?

SPEAKER_04 37:57

13th Amendment ended slavery, right? However, there's a clause in there that says except for someone who's been duly convicted. If you have been convicted in the United States of America, according to the Thirteenth Amendment, you can still be enslaved. So a lot of people don't realize that.

SPEAKER_09 38:10

That's the silver lining of the Thirteenth Amendment, right?

SPEAKER_04 38:12

Right. A lot of people don't realize that, and it was very likely a result of backroom bargaining between large corporations. Who has vested interests? Back in the day, it was Abraham Lincoln, they wanted the southern states on board, right? And but what happened was is now these black people who we freed, now we're gonna get them out on the street and we're gonna pass black codes and we're gonna arrest them and we're gonna police them harder and then we can reincarcerate them. And re-incarcerate them and use their labor now, but now we're not slaves, now they're prisoners.

SPEAKER_09 38:41

Bianca 1865, the prison free prisoners. Yes and no.

SPEAKER_15 38:46

There were certainly millions of people that were free during that time. But unfortunately, what happened at that time was also that the institution of slavery moved behind prison walls.

Separating Violent And Nonviolent Offenses

SPEAKER_04 38:56

There's quite a few organizations out there that go to prison to say, hey, we'll hire some of your people and we'll pay them a dollar an hour or whatever, right? And then they'll go out and sell those goods for whatever they sell them out in the free world, right? And and then here's the rub. Once I leave prison, Whole Foods won't employ me.

SPEAKER_09 39:09

Why won't they employ you?

SPEAKER_04 39:10

Because they have restrictions against people who've been incarcerated working for us.

SPEAKER_09 39:13

They'll hire you when you're in prison, but you're you're no longer viable once you're free. Exactly.

SPEAKER_15 39:18

So the average somebody gets incarcerated, right, is 14 cents an hour. And in seven states, it's ac Wow, Jersey.

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SPEAKER_03 39:29

I cannot believe I'm saying this. You're on the top paying for prisoners? That's crazy. Two dollars an hour? I think it's sometimes three. I know in jail in prison it's a dollar. I mean in jail it's like a dollar fifty. Maybe less. Maybe like fifty cents. I'm not even sure. But I know in prison it's like two. So Jersey is leading leading the charge. Well, we did lead the charge on the bail reform, and I believe I think that that was a great, great move for jail and prison in general, because if we're gonna follow that constitution that says criminals are not considered to be slaves. Or slave labor, like the labor they do is not considered slave labor. If that is the case. What are we doing? It doesn't make any sense. If you're innocent until proven guilty, you should be innocent until that charge that you are said to be have committed, you should be innocent until proven guilty, should you not? So you being held on bail doesn't make sense. It's counterintuitive to that whole thing about innocent you're innocent till proven guilty. How if uh how is a poor person supposed to bail out of jail? And you know, and sometimes trials take years, years upon years. Courts are very, very slow. It takes them a long time to get to you, regardless if it's a full prison or not. It's just the way the system works, bro. It takes about a month to get your first two weeks to a month to get your first real I guess you would say, you know, real like appointment with the judge to see what's going on. And then if one of their lawyers if the prosecutor doesn't show up, or if someone's not there, you could be waiting downstairs in transport because you get transport to the court uh to the court for your court date, and sometimes you may not even get called up. You're like, why what's going on? You wait the whole day till four o'clock, you show there, show up there at like 10, waiting to get called. Four o'clock comes around, court closes. What happened? Oh, they moved your court date to another day. It happens all the time. What do you have to say? What can you personally do about it, especially if you don't have anyone on the outside fighting for you? What can you personally do about it? And it's a scary, it's a scary thing for a lot of people that are in there with nobody. And I I I thank God I had some I had my family by my side by with me every step of the way. And I've seen people without it, and it's a struggle. So they have to do these jobs, they have to go out there in the cold and in the brutal heat and do labor that when they are free wouldn't even be able to get a chance to do that job. But as prisoners, they're expected and demanded to do these jobs. Do you get what I'm saying? It's it's ass backwards. It always has been, and we gotta make that shit face forward a little bit, at least in my opinion. But that's besides the case, right?

SPEAKER_15 43:26

Let's majority of states do pay something, but we're talking about pennies. People will work for two straight weeks and their checks will be 30 bucks.

SPEAKER_10 43:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_15 43:36

Right? And with that, they are expected to support themselves in prison. It is a really, really big common misconception, right? That prison is a free ride. Far from it. The cost of communication, the cost of commissary, of food, of hygiene products, of medical copies, these are all things that people in prison actually pay. In prison, they have recently introduced emails, and people have to buy stamps to send an email. This is like a physical, you know, piece of mail that's going like UPS, USPS, right? Like we are talking about an email at 50 cents an email.

SPEAKER_03 44:13

They had a the the global telink who ran. the telephone calls in in prison they were found out to be overcharging everybody that was using their phone so you're supposed to it was supposed to be like a dollar for the first for the first like for the phone for the phone call and then every minute after that first minute was like supposed to be 10 cents or something I'm giving out a a random number but it was supposed to be a low number right found out that people's accounts because you have to put money on the phone before you can actually use it. So someone puts money on the phone for you or you put money on the phone yourself by buying one of these cards through commissary you type it in on the phone when you you have your phone time and it gives you puts minutes into your account right so when you go to make these phone calls you don't really know how much time you have left the only indicator is that automated person or thing on the on the phone telling you you have 45 minutes left of talking time you know and it comes to find out they were overcharging for every minute. So everyone was running out of their phone time very fast. No one had any idea why years later comes to find out global tell link had to pay a huge settlement out to all these prisoners I was even one of them but but it was like a two dollar check because it's a civil a c a class action so you got thousands of prisoners that have are are using global telink because global there's only two at least in Jersey that I know of global it's global telling and one other company that the prisons can choose to deal with the phone calls the emails and stamps basically all the communication the tablets that you get it's either global telink or another company. And Global Tellink got caught overcharging prisoners for phone calls which is absolutely ridiculous. And the prisons had to cut re-sign a contract because their contract was over with Global Tell Inc. And guess what? They re-signed with Global Telling they didn't pick the other company they re-signed with Global Tell Inc.

SPEAKER_09 46:26

Wonder why it's all lobbying slavery if they compensate you and if they compensate you is there a certain amount that qualifies it as I guess this is some form of employment by the state what is slavery in your opinion in the context of imprisonment?

SPEAKER_04 46:42

Slavery means that you are coerced daily into eating when they tell you to eat, working where they tell you to work behaving in a way that is conducive to furthering the aims of the institution and if you don't do those things they can have you beaten, they can have your good time taken away they can have you thrown in solitary is there an argument that you're working to pay the costs of what the taxpayer is paying to keep you in prison after you've committed let's say a heinous crime is that a reasonable argument or do you say hell no? It's not unreasonable. If I'm a taxpayer and you commit a heinous crime my first thing is I don't want you to do it again.

SPEAKER_10 47:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 47:13

And I want to ensure that person who you committed it on if it was violent heals. Or is a system that I have if they're gonna make you work then okay. But I want you to work or something or I want you treated in a way that allows you to address whatever trauma or anger whatever you had so that you don't hurt anybody else. But I was rehabilitation I have visions of doing some really ugly to these dudes. I understand punishment I understand the need for revenge the desire for revenge that's not gonna help me heal our American prison they come out wanting they come out angrier.

SPEAKER_03 47:48

Prisoners come out angrier because of this the injustices done to them. Do you understand? It's not it's like that's why it's a revolving door. It's because these motherfuckers get angry at the way that they were treated and it's it's a just a self-repeating cycle because if they have that anger and they want revenge they're gonna find a way to get it and that what does that what does that cause another criminal act another act of violence and where do they wind back up in the same spot doing the same thing you could say it's insane it's insanity but I think these prisons have an obligation to reform and we're not doing that.

SPEAKER_09 48:36

Designed in such a way to rehabilitate criminals or is it simply a system to punish offenders, traumatizing them further and increasing the likelihood of them reoffending after their release. Real quick I'd be like go on down the road you fuck if you want to support our boots on the ground base crazy journalism that is not bought and paid for by corporate interests along with exclusive DLC content that YouTube will give this video a like uncensored early access to all my videos before they go off on YouTube. Go subscribe at patreon.com slash Tyler Olivero just because it's it really needs we need to put a spotlight on this assault and sexual assault common the threat in a female prison for sexual violence is from staff not from each other.

SPEAKER_12 49:20

Different dynamic thereby I think a hundred percent we had to be weary of who was working we had to pay attention if we knew the officers that would creep around the shower area or come around at night there shouldn't be allowed the male officers should not be allowed to work in a prison not to make eye contact with the prison rape elimination act that's supposed to offer um protection I guess for incarceration where they had to implement an act.

SPEAKER_09 49:46

Yeah absolutely very common day one you're fighting people multiple times how does it evolve you get some respect eventually or is it just fighting nonstop until you build an alliance with some the violence is usually early on and it's again to see what you're gonna do, whether you're weak, whether you're gonna be a victim measuring you up.

SPEAKER_04 50:03

If you get with a gang or with a clique or with whatever right then it may be a little different because at that point the gangs may be called out as a group to do some stuff right I would jump on dudes looking at me wrong.

SPEAKER_09 50:13

What the f you looking at did you ever end up in solitary confinement?

SPEAKER_12 50:16

I'm a disruptor out here and I was a disruptor in there and I ended up in solitary confinement lots of times. The first time I went to solitary was for hugging there was a lady that was crying over her mail she was sitting in the floor and I kind of bent down and hugged the top of her shoulders uh and they saw it on camera. They came and got me it was like the SWAT team coming in yeah handcuffed me marched me to solitary I was there for two but if it was a male prisoner it would be perfectly fine. That's enough time to have permanent psychological damage I'm sure right yeah absolutely absolutely it was wild in there nothing to do but like read graffiti on the wall um which is and those cells were hugely disgustingly dirty. Sometimes you would see blood or even feces like on the walls.

SPEAKER_03 50:58

Solitary confinement all right my mom doesn't understand why I am so I'm a clean freak and why I am not the same person I am as when it as when I went in and I know I'm not either it's scary. It really does it puts a strain on you like mentally physically I used to perform in front of thousands of people literally I used to be on stage four or five times a week and just leaving my house gives me an in this anxiety and fear in my chest and I never used to be like that. I don't know why I know it has a huge huge reason it has it has to do with my time in prison and especially the uh how long I spent in adseg which is not leaving your room and only taking a shower three times a week and that's the only time you got to leave your room especially it was COVID. So even if you weren't in adseg during that time it was basically ad seg because everything was shut down no in no visits no nothing even for people who weren't in trouble or weren't in ads everything was shut down you weren't even allowed to play basketball nothing because they didn't want the pathogens being passed back and forth. If you are around someone that caught COVID everyone that came into contact with him or lives in this vicinity of that person they're getting sent to quarantine and it's just the way the prison system works especially and hey if they don't have enough officers to work that day guess what you're not coming out of your cell even if it's a regular day say you have a phone call planned or so your your mom is getting a surgery that's happened to me my mom was getting eye surgery I wanted to be to go make a phone call and make sure she was okay and that day they didn't have enough officers so no one was allowed out of their cell to make a phone call. So I had to be stuck in my room wondering if my mom was okay how the operation went because anesthesia she's an older woman so there's a lot of things that people don't think about and there prisoners are getting what is due to like if you think that they deserve to suffer and they deserve to have a bad time believe me they are it is not a good time even if you were able to do classes and they had all this stuff rehabilitation it would still not be fun at all this is not a good thing. We want people to come out of there with more of an education with an understanding of what they did wrong so that maybe they won't come back again because I know the recidivism is very high and it's something that the government and everybody that is even in this realm of making sure prisons are up to code and doing the right thing should be aware of all the shit that's going on.

SPEAKER_15 54:38

It's very commonly referred to in the prison prison system by people who have done time as the hole or the box. Those terms date back to antebellum slavery. Oh interesting okay the hole was a literal hole that enslaved people were put in if they disobeyed the rules of their enslaver got it right no food darkness heat similarly the hot box was the same thing was a box. These are the terms that then migrated into the system and then you don't even know are related to antiviolum slavery.

SPEAKER_09 55:12

The field war you guys are doing loses money but it still happens is the goal just to break your spirit and your will and when you leave prison to feel like a piece of sh. What is the goal?

SPEAKER_12 55:21

Texas is a really punitive state and I think that this idea that if we just make it as miserable as possible, um people won't come back. But the Does it work? Oh it absolutely does not work, right? Because uh people are here because they have done something um that probably especially women resulted of trauma and they have to work through that and heal uh or they're gonna get out and still not know how to handle their emotions and handle what they've been through and still go back to their same old ways and they end up back to prison and our recidivism rates show that.

SPEAKER_09 55:52

Do you think 10 years helped you more than one year or two years or five years in prison would have helped you understand you did a bad thing and you need to stop doing that or I think that after about 12 months inside I really emerged myself into the prison life.

SPEAKER_12 56:07

After a year any thoughts of good things were gone. So no I think that it doesn't matter I think that you humans are going to survive where they're at they're gonna change to be able to survive I was the worst version of myself while I was incarcerated.

SPEAKER_04 56:21

The American prison system is set up to humiliate degrade punish and minimize the American prison system is full of individuals who are in fact used as free labor for corporations for companies for the state the Texas prison system as an example.

SPEAKER_03 56:36

They have a hundred the guards turn the keys hand out the mail count maybe drive the buses that's it everything else is done by prisoners yes we cook the prisoners run the prison yes we're sitting in the city of it's like a drug rehab dude rehabs and you go well I forget what they used to call them the older rehabs when it was very strict and but they were structured so that the the people in the rehab were running the rehab they were the ones that did that made sure that you the people were held accountable they had certain jobs they had they were the ones that ran groups they were the ones that they did the food they worked in the kitchen they did everything they did everything besides the individual counseling and sometimes they a counselor would do the group but most of the time even if a counselor was doing the group they would have someone else run it just so they can get a sense of that's what they would say their excuse so that they can get a sense of being the head of something and and learning how to listen instead of speak you know sit on your hands and don't talk and wait for that person to finish speaking before you you do and it was a whole thing too I don't know why they made you sit on your hands. I guess they didn't like Italians because we talk with our hands but they made you sit on your hands we ran conflict groups which is if someone had a problem with another person we would have to sit in these huge lined up seats and we'd face each other the person who had a problem with the person faced the other person would tell them how they feel and then you weren't allowed to react and until the other person was done speaking it's the same situation.

SPEAKER_15 58:37

These prisons are run by the prisoners my friend do you get this are you getting it costs us over five hundred thousand dollars a year to incarcerate one person on Rikers Island.

SPEAKER_09 59:02

500k do you know what we could do with 500k do they want you to end back up in the prison system?

SPEAKER_04 59:09

Do they want you to live a happy fruitful bountiful life after prison is the goal to set you up for success after if that was the truth then they would set you up with jobs just like a college does I think that may be the ideal right I don't think that there is a huge universe of individuals who are plotting to ensure that individuals have been incarcerated go back to their cage. I don't think that exists I don't think that exists either politicians have done a good job at demonizing anyone who gets in a cage in the first place right they cannot be trusted around your kids. Most prisons you go to now TDCJ have maybe one psychologist in fact they don't have psychologists.

SPEAKER_03 59:42

No they don't have if you've been in an environment the one travels amongst most of the jails in that state there'll be one or two main counselors and that second counselor who is not the main counselor either cannot even make decisions until they talk to that other counselor. So you're sometimes waiting for depression or your your psychiatric meds for months when you first get there because you have to see a psych in order for them to to allow you to take this medication my friend JR who's the co-host the show I'll get him to tell the story about how they screwed him over with his medication he was known to be on one medication and when he switched jails the paperwork did not go so he failed a drug test for that medication he told him well I was prescribed it by someone by the by the other prison that I was at they couldn't find the paperwork and he got 120 days in adseg and 90 days of good time taken away from him when he first was sent to prison because the guards and the paperwork was messed up. So it was their fault it was they messed up and JR wound up having to do his first time in prison and his first time in trouble having to do time in ad sag. And I met him in ad sag on his second time for doing nothing either it was during the riot where we were both sleeping. We had no cause in this but yet we were both sentenced to 260 something days that's how we met in a cell together with nothing to do for over 30 something days until they figured out what to do with us. And once they figured out that they didn't know what to do they just gave everyone the same amount of time and me and Jay and R s JR split ways and thank God we just kept talking and his journey was just as sickening as mine was it's it's it's a sad thing it's a sad thing.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:57

Uh you got twenty twenty five thirty percent of people who are in jails and prisons have severe mental health issues. It's not helped by being in jail which means that I don't believe that putting someone in a cage a literal cage where they feel like anything you have access to meaningful health with incredibly deficient uh way to meet your whatever nutritional needs all that in other words deprivation I don't think that helps torture all that I don't think that helps it is torture.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:23

I mean do you imagine being an alone like not a human touch there's no human touch for like three years especially in a female jail she said she tried to give like console her friend and she's put in ads egg for it like that's not right. You know like we you we need some type of as human beings we need some type of connection with someone with something and like the if your bunkie is the only like communication and it's the only friendship you have it's it's it makes you lose your sense of being able to communicate with people in general getting my communication skills back after prison I'm still trying to do that if you can tell I forget what I'm talking about. I for I stumble over my sentences where I never used to do things like that because when you don't speak for weeks at a time if you're alone in your cell in adseg and the only thing you say is thank you what's for dinner what time is it and you're reading a book how are you supposed to in fact get better at communicating you know even if you're already if you're already a a great communicator you don't keep practicing that and you don't keep up with that you get used to being alone and you get used to being isolated. So when you come home you isolate yourself and that's I've been trying to catch myself with that it's a huge thing but not right up here because of the situations and because of the things that I had to go through when I was in prison. And I know a lot of other people feel the same way and I it's it's sad because I know there are extremely talented people and extremely smart people that sometimes were wrongfully convicted and and they still do they're doing time. They don't have the money to hire a lawyer to appeal it. They don't have the connections that most other people have there are people out there that have been put in prison for doing nothing wrong. And we also have to realize that you know not not everyone in there is guilty. Okay? Not everyone in prison is an actual offender.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:55

And that's scary if what you want to do is subject them to the most violent brutality you want then say it and don't say that what you want is people to be chained and rehabilitated with me as someone who put a pistol to somebody's head.

SPEAKER_09 1:05:12

How do you deal with someone who maybe doesn't even care about these people but wants a better system better functioning society. How would you redesign the prison system?

SPEAKER_15 1:05:20

Well I'm not sure I would redesign the prison system. I think this the system that we have has no redeeming qualities. Zero. And I think we need to like reimagine entire look at that that's how prisons are that's how they look at it that's what they look at harm in our community what are some immediate changes you would make to the prison system.

SPEAKER_12 1:05:40

We're suing for air conditioning so that's a big one is stop cooking people alive. People are dying every summer Texas AM did a report that showed some cells at 140 degrees in the summer and I've seen people officers fall out from the heat. So that's probably like the immediate thing.

SPEAKER_15 1:05:56

They need to live a dignified life where inequity is crushed where um people feel fulfilled purpose driven and loved feel connected to the communities and the land that they're on and then together in a connected world we can be I'm less likely to Cause you harm because I have everything I need and because I'm connected to you as a youth and I feel part of the community. That we have the tools between us and in a system to address that harm in a way that doesn't cause or reproduce more harm. Because this is this system is not producing safety. If incarceration produced safety, then the US should be the safest place on the planet. To me, it's like all these root causes, right? And one of them is addressing the exception in the 13th Amendment.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:45

At what point do you stop getting second chances? I don't think any human, I don't care what you do, deserves to be enslaved. I don't care what you did.

SPEAKER_09 1:06:52

So you are anti-slavery, regardless of the worst crimes possible you can commit.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:56

Yes. But I also want to say some of these people who, because of things that decisions they made at a very high level, way distance from the tens of thousands of people who may get killed or poisoned, right? Because of some of the stuff that they do, don't get charge with it. I would say that's more heinous than someone who gets out and kills maybe a group of five.

SPEAKER_09 1:07:12

Yep. Poisoning the food, uh poisoning the water, destroying the environment.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:16

None of them ever went to jail, none of them ever went to prison. Should they have, in my view, no. I don't think anybody should be in prison. No one should be sent to prison. No. No one. I'm an abolitionist. No. What should they do? I'm not saying I don't believe in some sort of separation for some folks. A lot of time it takes resources. Yes, it takes. And I understand that given an infinite supply. And an infinite, maybe a watch, maybe sort of regulation on the movement. I don't know. So I have to come down on the side of some sort of separation that is not punitive in nature. You need to find a way to allow individuals who are leaving prison to have kind of a ceremony of return and say, you have quote unquote paid your debt. Yes. Go on, it's not sign up and say that you do not believe that we should enslave anybody.

SPEAKER_09 1:08:02

Jorge, you're the man, dude. Thank you so much for your time.

SPEAKER_12 1:08:04

You can hit me up on my link tree. It's uh www.marcymarie.com.

SPEAKER_15 1:08:10

The first thing is obviously follow us on all the social platforms, Wirthrises on the different platforms, as well as end the exception on Instagram. You can also visit us on our website at worthrises.org to set up on the uh newsletter or to donate. Um and if you want to send a message to your Congress member to end the exception to the 13th Amendment, visit ntheexception.com to take action.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:34

There you go.

SPEAKER_09 1:08:34

End the ex and the what was it? Whatever. Whatever you want to support, but full disclosure, I do endorse the enslavement and murder of certain heinous criminals. Yes, I do not believe that every criminal can or wants to be rehabilitated into society. Some people are simply menaces to society. But largely, if we zoomed out and created a more rehabilitative prison system rather than one focused on punishment, I think the criminals that leave prison will go on to commit less crimes and fit into society better. Hold on. Okay, so exactly.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:08

So what he said is absolutely I agree 100%. And that's why we have minimum security, medium security, and maximum security prisons. And the reason for that is that the minimum securities are meant for people like me that just kind of like DUI didn't hurt anybody, that never hurt anybody. First offenders, you know, things like that. But when you have New Jersey closing the only minimum security prison in the state, you're sending people that are basically just like low offenders. They they didn't do anything besides, you know, like a a crime that the the judge felt that they needed to be put away for a couple of years to reflect on their actions, right? Not a criminal that's doing 10 to life, 15 to life, or it's got a life sentence. You know what I mean? Nothing like that. You don't put the murderers and rapers, rapists along in the same prison as someone that has a DUI or someone that has a low offense, you know, or has never been or has never offended before. You know, you don't keep them in the same spot. And that's how you separate it. You make the maximum maximum security prisons the ones that they're the ones doing the work, they're the ones doing they're the ones doing the hard labor, they're the ones that have the the shitty situation. You don't you don't transfer people like Jill Galay Maxwell to a minimum security federal prison. No, you make her someone like that, you put her in a maximum security prison, and you make it horrible for her, and you make it so bad that she does not even want to live anymore because that's what they she deserves. But these people that you know they they hit the back of a car while they were driving, nothing while they were driving, intoxicated, and no one was hurt. I mean, they there there could have been someone that's hurt, so yes, they they I I deserved to do that time, but to be put in the same room as someone named Ra Murder, that's crazy. And his nickname was Ra Murder because he just murdered people and he was in there for life. Why am I in the same room as someone that's in prison for life and I'm not even in the NSA? I'm in a regular general population. Why is this murderer in the room with me? And that's how you separate the heinous from the miscellaneous, I guess you can say or the the non-violent offenders? I basically think that's how it should be separated. If you did a violent crime, we're gonna separate you into the people that that are doing violence. Because maybe we can have some violence done upon you, bitch. You know? Minimum security? Someone they oh, you you you broke into a house with no one there and you took a couple of hundred dollars worth of stuff. I don't think you deserve to be doing slave labor and you deserve to be punished the same way that a murderer has. So you you have to separate it in some way, and we did have that separation for a little bit of time from what I've known. But now, since the prison systems are all either becoming privatized or run by the state, you're gonna see a lot of different ways of running the prison system, and they're trying to get prisoners to lower the amount of spending the state has to do. So I highly recommend go check out the Alabama solution. I'm sorry that this was a longer video than I intended to be. I'm gonna put it put it up like it, like it is, you know, not no editing. Just gonna throw this up, and I'll it will be up on the podcast sites as well, so that you can listen to this through audio. But we're also going to dive into that Tommy G video of him be going to the Atlantic pris going to the prison in Atlanta and then doing 24 hours there. Those are two longer videos, so we are going to take a break in between them. And uh next time we'll talk about the actual inside of the prison and see the inside of the prisons. So I can't wait to see what he does because he's got some balls spending 24 hours in in this prison. So shout out to him, shout out to Tyler. Thank you for joining us. Leave a comment, like, really helps us here on the channel, and you'll see JR hopefully back here this week. Like uh we usually do. So I hope you had a good Super Bowl. Hope you had a good week again. Thanks. I'm out again.