Proposal to ban free prison labor introduced for 2022 Florida legislative session
The state of Florida allows for unpaid prison labor, but that could change if a Tampa-based Democratic lawmaker’s joint resolution makes it through the Legislature in the upcoming session, which begins next week.
What You Need To Know
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- Inmates in correctional facilities who do get paid generally make less than a dollar per hour, as prisons are not subject to federal laws on minimum wage
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- In Florida, qualified prisoners can get paid for their labor by getting linked up with PRIDE Enterprises, a state-based business that runs vocational training programs for inmates in the Department of Corrections
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- In 2020, Oregon Dem. Senator Jeff Merkley and U.S. Dem. Rep. William Lacy Clay introduced the Abolishment Amendment, which would strike the “punishment clause” and abolish forced prison labor
State Rep. Dianne Hart’s joint resolution (HJR 39) calls for prohibiting slavery and involuntary servitude. If it were to be approved by lawmakers (along with its Senate companion) and signed by the governor, the measure would go before Florida voters as a constitutional amendment on the 2022 ballot.
“I just think that if we work people, they deserve to get paid,” Rep. Hart told Spectrum Bay News 9. “In that way I think it’ll eliminate a lot of issues inside of our prisons when it comes to people being able to get some of the things that they need.”
Hart introduced a similar proposal before last year’s legislative session. She said that she was alerted by The Ordinary People Society to the fact that the 13th Amendment outlawed slavery “except as a punishment for crime,” a loophole which has allowed states to compel hundreds of thousands of incarcerated people to be subjected to forced labor in prisons for decades.