Private prison companies such as Core Civic stand accused of using forced detention center labor at ICE immigrant detention facilities in order to reduce their costs and increase their profits.

There is nothing constitutionally wrong with having convicted inmates at a correctional facility perform work; the 13th Amendment carves out an exception for this practice. However, allegations in recent lawsuits say that private prison companies, which are contracted by the federal government at taxpayers’ expense, have been exploiting detained migrants for detention center labor to carry out tasks that only benefit the company’s bottom line.

These detainees have not been convicted of any crime. In the overwhelming majority of cases, they are simply immigrants who are awaiting public hearings to determine whether or not they will be allowed to remain in the U.S. Even those who enter illegally often face only misdemeanor charges.

Yet detainees are reportedly being forced to work for these companies across an industry that is largely subsidized by American taxpayers. At least one recent lawsuit accuses Core Civic of breaking forced labor and state and federal trafficking laws in addition to other violations.

Origins of Prison Labor in the U.S.

The 13th Amendment, which abolished slavery in the U.S. after the Civil War, states that “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude…shall exist within the United States” or its territories. However, it makes an exception for those who have been “duly convicted” of a crime. It was this loophole that allowed owners of cotton plantations that had survived the war to “rent” convicts, many of whom were formerly enslaved African-Americans, to work in their fields.

Eventually, these convicts were rented out to private farms, logging and mining operations; essentially the state was subsidizing private, for-profit businesses. Realizing that it was losing a great deal of revenue, the State of Texas bought over a dozen plantations of its own during the first two decades of the twentieth century, turning them into prison farms. Prison laborers in southern states were routinely beaten and physically tortured if their overseers decided they weren’t working fast enough, or simply to satisfy the sadistic tendencies of prison guards and inmate “trusties” who were assigned to oversee their fellow prisoners. These practices went on until at least the mid-1970s.

Learning on the Job

According to Mother Jones, T. Don Hutto had worked as a prison manager under this system for about 15 years, gaining a reputation for making corrections facilities profitable. During his tenure at Arkansas’ Cummins Farm Unit during the early 1970s, he began holding “prison rodeos” that had more in common with the gladiatorial games of ancient Rome than traditional American rodeos. Reported punishments for failure to meet work quotas included forcing an inmate to stand against a wall for six hours without food or clothing, beatings and solitary confinement without blankets, clothing or substantial food for up to a month at a time.

Ultimately, a lawsuit was filed in federal court. The judge in that case ruled that conditions at Cummins were “sub-human” after finding the facility guilty of torture, overcrowding, and denying inmates medical care, among other abuses.

One thing was certain, however: Hutto knew how to make a prison turn a profit. This is arguably the roots of today’s practice of forced detention center labor.

The Private Prison Industry is Born

Mother Jones reports that in 1983, Hutto teamed up with Thomas Beasley, a Republican politician who came up with the idea of privately-run, for-profit prisons, and Robert Crants, who had some background in real estate. Together, the three founded the “Corrections Corporation of America,” the first for-profit prison in the U.S. Their first facility was opened in an old motel, which they surrounded with barbed-wire fences.

The times and conditions were ideal. For three years, the Reagan Administration had been leading the charge to privatize many governmental functions.

The new private prison industry was fed by the Reagan Administration’s so-called “War on Drugs,” which, during the 1980s and ’90s, ultimately resulted in the U.S. having a higher percentage of its population behind bars than Russia, China and Saudi Arabia. Lawmakers in Washington D.C. and state houses across the country who had successfully run on “get tough on crime” platforms were more than happy to send more business their way by passing more and more draconian laws, ensuring there would be no shortage of “clients.”

By the late 1990s, business was booming for the private prison industry – but when the Corrections Company of America became involved in scandals involving inmate abuse, detention center labor, substandard working conditions and employee pay and more, business took a nosedive, along with its stock price. At one point, CCA’s stock was valued at over $45 a share, but by the turn of the century had fallen to penny stock status.

In 2001, a new presidential administration brought in leaders and lawmakers who took a hard line on undocumented immigrants. In 2004, Congress increased the budget of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency by 200 percent. The CCA spent millions on lobbying, and the investment paid off; the company was awarded hundreds of millions of dollars in federal contracts to open and operate “residential facilities” for housing immigrant families – including young children.

Today, with more and more contracts to run immigrant detention centers, private prison companies are reportedly getting a steady supply of detention center labor.

How Detention Has Changed

It should be pointed out that in the past, those who came to the U.S. illegally or in order to seek asylum were not imprisoned unless they had a criminal record. In most cases, they were either deported, or processed and released pending their immigration hearings. In many cases, those who had been released did not show up for their court dates; however, the manpower and money to track them down was in short supply. Therefore, ICE began adopting the policy of jailing immigrants until their hearing dates.

Meanwhile, CCA, which rebranded itself as “CoreCivic” in attempts to escape its controversial past, and other private prison companies have allegedly been using forced detention center labor as yet another way to externalize and minimize operating costs while they internalize and maximize profits.

Officially, these immigrant detainees are not “required” to perform prison jobs that should be done by employees paid a legal wage. However, witnesses report that these detention centers have ways of exerting pressure on detainees.

Part of the equation is boredom. As one refugee from El Salvador told investigators from Daily Beast, “There’s absolutely nothing to do.” She says one reason detainees agree to undertake these jobs (which “pay” as little as $1 a day) is to have something to take their minds off their stressful and uncertain situations.

Another example of forced detention center labor was recently reported in the Guardian. An immigrant from Bangladesh, who is being held at a CoreCivic facility in Georgia, had been receiving .50¢ an hour, but protested when he was not paid on time.

That protest took the form of organizing a boycott among his fellow detainees. He was then reportedly placed in solitary confinement for 10 days, under what the story described as “deplorable conditions.”

At the same time, detainees are allegedly subject to a “deprivation system” under which they are required to pay inflated prices for their food (which is substandard) and other living supplies – all on an “income” of as little as a dollar a day.

Core Civic officials argue this practice is not in violation of the 13th Amendment because the detainees are paid and the work is supposedly voluntary.

What is Being Done?

In addition to lawsuits being filed on behalf of those who have been subject to forced detention center labor, a number of states are taking a hard look at the private prison industry. In 2005, the Tulsa County Criminal Justice Authority ended its contract with CCA after investigations revealed gross mismanagement and exploitation of inmates. In 2011, the company settled a lawsuit filed by the ACLU over allegations of using violence as a form “social management” and denying medical care to detainees. In 2013, the state of Kentucky announced that it would stop using private prisons – but then reversed its decision when overcrowding became a problem.

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This article is not legal advice. It is presented
for informational purposes only.