{"id":1753,"date":"2023-09-16T17:32:00","date_gmt":"2023-09-16T17:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nulifedaily.com\/?p=1753"},"modified":"2023-09-16T17:34:39","modified_gmt":"2023-09-16T17:34:39","slug":"fantasy-of-slavery-being-fulfilled-in-louisiana-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/proliberation.com\/underthesun\/fantasy-of-slavery-being-fulfilled-in-louisiana-prison\/","title":{"rendered":"Fantasy of Slavery being Fulfilled in Louisiana Prison"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The Louisiana government and prison system is living a real time fantasy of enslavement of Blacks cloaked through the prison system and supported by the 13th amendment. And the US government has not done a damn thing about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Little does the individuals who enforce this kind of cruelty on other human beings know that they will draw the wrath of God on their own personal lives. This in includes the prison guards, the warden, the institution that funds this evil, and anyone who sits behind a desk to process paperwork behind this crime of human abuse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>According to a <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/louisiana-angola-prison-lawsuit-a091bf3375d091994d5814539dafb87f\" data-type=\"link\" data-id=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/louisiana-angola-prison-lawsuit-a091bf3375d091994d5814539dafb87f\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">report from the AP, Louisianan prisoner suit claims they\u2019re forced to endure dangerous conditions at Angola prison farm<\/a>, \u201cMen incarcerated at Louisiana State Penitentiary filed a class-action lawsuit Saturday contending they have been forced to work in the prison\u2019s fields for little or no pay, even when temperatures soar past 100 degrees. They described the conditions as cruel, degrading and often dangerous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The men, most of whom are Black, work on the farm of the 18,000-acre maximum-security prison known as Angola &#8212; the site of a former slave plantation &#8212; hoeing, weeding and picking crops by hand, often surrounded by armed guards, the suit said. If they refuse to work or fail to meet quotas, they can be sent to solitary confinement or otherwise punished, according to disciplinary guidelines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThis labor serves no legitimate penological or institutional purpose,\u201d the suit said. \u201cIt\u2019s purely punitive, designed to \u2018break\u2019 incarcerated men and ensure their submission.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It names as defendants Angola\u2019s warden, Timothy Hooper, and officials with Louisiana\u2019s department of corrections and its money-making arm,&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.prisonenterprises.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Prison Enterprises<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A spokesman for the department of correction and an attorney for the department did not immediately provide comment on the suit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a><\/a>The United States has historically locked up more people than any other country, with more than 2.2 million inmates in federal and state prisons, jails and detention centers. They can be forced to work because the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which abolished slavery after the Civil War, made an exception for those \u201cduly convicted\u201d of a crime.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The plaintiffs include four men who formerly or are currently working in the fields, along with&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.voiceoftheexperienced.org\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Voice of the Experienced<\/a>, an organization made up of current and formerly incarcerated people, around 150 of whom are still at Angola.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The suit said the work is especially dangerous for those with disabilities or health conditions in the summer months, with temperatures reaching up to 102 degrees in June, with heat indexes of up to 145.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Some of the plaintiffs have not been given the accommodations and services they are entitled to under the Americans with Disabilities Act, it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>These men are forced to work \u201cnotwithstanding their increased risk of illness or injury,\u201d the suit said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It asserts the field work also violates their 8th Amendment rights to be free of cruel and unusual punishment, and that some plaintiffs in the suit were sentenced by non-unanimous juries and therefore were not \u201cduly convicted\u201d within the meaning of the 13th Amendment. The men \u2014 represented by the legal advocacy organizations Promise of Justice Initiative and Rights Behind Bars \u2014 are asking the court to declare that work they are forced to do is unconstitutional and to require the state to end its generations-long practice of compulsory agricultural labor.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Louisiana government and prison system is living a real time fantasy of enslavement of Blacks cloaked through the prison system and supported by the 13th amendment. And the US government has not done a damn thing about it. Little does the individuals who enforce this kind of cruelty on other human beings know that [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1754,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[92,81,73],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1753","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-editorials","8":"category-justice","9":"category-us-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/proliberation.com\/underthesun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1753","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/proliberation.com\/underthesun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/proliberation.com\/underthesun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proliberation.com\/underthesun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proliberation.com\/underthesun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1753"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/proliberation.com\/underthesun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1753\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1757,"href":"https:\/\/proliberation.com\/underthesun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1753\/revisions\/1757"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proliberation.com\/underthesun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1754"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/proliberation.com\/underthesun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proliberation.com\/underthesun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/proliberation.com\/underthesun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}