America’s Slave Labor
What follows is an Opinion by Christopher Moraff, a Philadelphia-based writer and photographer. A frequent contributor to In These Times, he has also written for the American Prospect Online, Boulder Weekly and Entrepreneur Magazine, among other publications.
U.S. prisoners working for a computer-recycling operation run by Federal Prison Industries (FPI) are being exposed to a toxic cocktail of hazardous chemicals through their prison jobs while efforts by some prison officials to protect them have been met with stonewalling and subterfuge.
Since 1994, FPI has used inmates to disassemble electronic waste (e-waste)—the detritus of obsolete computers, televisions and related electronics goods—for recycling.
The article mentions nothing about these 'make work' projects getting these prisoners out of their cell and using their brains instead of sitting at their cell bars and moping about.
