USA: disaster in prison

J. Carlee Purdum. Incarcerated workers in the United States have become a greater topic of concern in the last 10 to 15 years. However, they have been involved in forced labour for as long as prisons have existed. Slavery was abolished by the Constitution with the 13th Amendment, but with the exception of people convicted of a crime. Convicted criminals do not have the right to refuse to work. When slavery ended, policies were adopted targeting recently freed persons to bring them back under the power of the state, especially in the South. The same people who had enslaved them put them back onto the same plantations doing the same type of labour. The criminal justice system was used to recapture that freed labour. The legacy of that can still be seen today with incarcerated workers and disaster response.

All states across the country rely on prisoners for disaster response. But this recourse tends to be more organised in states where such practices were historically more acceptable or common. This is especially acute in the South, which speaks volumes to the legacy of slavery in that region.

Southern states tend to have more comprehensive plans and have more details about how incarcerated people can be used. This is the case in California too, which also has a very long history of exploiting workers.

I once spoke to a prison officer and asked him what kinds of things incarcerated people could be used for and he responded: “anything”. Whenever there is an emergency or a need for reducing costs and obtaining a large labour force, the government looks to prisons. And there is nothing to prevent or discourage them from doing so because all the policies encourage it. They exploit the fact that prisoners don’t have the right to refuse work or the right to fair wages. With disasters becoming more frequent and devastating, the demand is growing for incarcerated people as a large, accessible and cheap labour force.

JCP. The disaster response life cycle can be broken down into different phases: Mitigation, Preparedness, Response and Recovery. Mitigation is the work done within a community to try to reduce the risk of a disaster occurring or its potential impact. Prisoners will, for example, participate in seismic retrofitting of buildings and strengthening of seawalls. The next phase is Preparedness, which refers to preparations made in the lead-up to a disaster. For example, hurricanes are often predictable, and preparations can be made before they make landfall. Prisoners might make sandbags, prepare or clean shelters, and sort supplies. The Response phase takes place when the disaster occurs. Prisoners are involved in emergency response, such as putting out fires, cleaning and disposing of contaminated animal carcasses, and clearing roads so that emergency vehicles can access the community. Finally, in the Recovery phase – usually the longest one – prisoners participate in cleaning up the community, for example by rebuilding public facilities such as schools, or replanting vegetation.

The use of incarcerated workers is incentivised by certain disaster policies, such as the Stafford Act: it allows for the cost of incarcerated people’s labour to be reimbursed through the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and their public assistance programs.

When a state prison agency sends out incarcerated workers, they keep track of all costs (number of hours worked, transportation, security monitoring). Then, those costs are sent to FEMA and a significant portion is reimbursed back to the state. Whenever an emergency happens, various state agencies are mobilised to provide resources. They coordinate together in the emergency operations centre and discuss the resources that each of them can provide. The state prison agency can provide vehicles, communication equipment and prison guards that can help with public safety functions. But their primary resource, their bread and butter, is incarcerated workers.

Moreover, state-owned prisons are much easier to get accountability from in terms of how they use incarcerated workers in disasters. Their policies are more visible, and their plans are more transparent. Private prisons on the other hand are almost like a black hole of information: it is very difficult to understand how they operate or what their policies are. The literature tends to say that the environment in private prisons is generally harsher, because they have lower budgets, they are always looking to cut costs, and they have high staff turnover due to lower wages. Labour practices inside private prisons are likely more hazardous compared to state prisons. At the county level, it is also more difficult to find information. Finally, federal prisons are less visible in terms of what they are sending their people out to do, but that is likely because they are less integrated into disaster response.

In California, which is very prone to wildfires, about 30 to 40% of the wildland firefighting force is made up of incarcerated workers. In practice, prison labour is present throughout the life cycle of a disaster, but documentation is sparse thus making it difficult to understand the scope of it. Often, states will say that incarcerated people volunteer to take part in it. Sometimes it is true. For example, incarcerated firefighters are often volunteers because the fire camps offer a much less harsh environment than ordinary prison environments. There are still several security restrictions, but prisoners placed in fire camps are out in nature and feel freer. Prisoners would also rather have their families come see them in a camp environment rather than a harsh prison environment. The pay is also better, but nowhere near what a civilian would make doing the same job. On the other hand, studies on incarcerated firefighters have shown that they are exposed to a disproportionate risk of health effects compared to civilian firefighters. Prisoners have been found to have more severe health issues and injuries because they do not have the same access to healthcare. Regarding consent, they are in a coercive environment that pushes them to volunteer and take the risks. Civilian firefighters do not have the same kind of constraints.

JCP. During the pandemic, a new need emerged: factory operations had to be set up quickly to produce personal protective equipment (PPE). The government wanted a large labour force at a low cost. Prisons already had factory operations set up because they do factory work in general. They were prepared to provide this type of service and could make the switch to manufacturing PPE quickly. Almost every state in the country opened their own operation. This was possibly the first time in history that every state in the country had set their prison operations to do the same type of labour and respond to the same emergency. They manufactured masks, gowns, protective eye equipment, shields, and all sorts of other PPE. State prison agencies were posting videos and pictures showing how prisons were helping respond to this emergency.

However, those factories were small and cramped. Incarcerated workers were not socially distancing and not wearing sufficient PPE. The equipment was first being sent out to civilian sectors such as hospitals and law enforcement, but also the prison staff. Incarcerated people did not have access to the same PPE that they were producing for civilians, despite being the ones manufacturing it and being put at risk. State administrations eventually gave up trying to prevent outbreaks in prisons. They thought that there was nothing they could do to stop it in these packed facilities, and decided to send the resources where they believed they would have a bigger impact. At the same time, they were denying requests for early release from prisoners who had committed minor crimes or were nearing the end of their sentences. Priority was given to conserving cheap labour over decongesting prisons and reducing health risks.