1. Prison labor is enabled by the 13th amendment under the United States Constitution. It bans slavery "except as a punishment of crime". There is currently 2.2 million inmates working right now. And in many states, the inmates actually get paid to work as well. Because I am a supporter of the U.S. Constitution, I do believe that prisons have the right to make their inmates work. They committed a crime, and in some form or fashion, I believe that they deserve to be put to work to pay for their crimes. Prison is supposed to teach the inmates to not do their crimes again. I believe that manual labor would aid in preventing future sentences.

2. During my research, I was surprised to find out just the number of companies alone that are associated with hiring prison labor practices, whether confirmed or not. I did learn extensively about the 13th Amendment through Ava Devine's documentary "13th" on Netflix a couple years back and basically seeing all these companies that are either (confirmed) participants or are even mentioned to use prison labor is disheartening, because it's basically legalized slavery. I'm here for reform and rehabilitation for those incarcerated due to the mistakes made in their lives, however if these prisoners are not actually changing their lives for the better, and rather just keeping a large companies production costs low are these prisoners any better coming out then when they were going in? I don't think so. The companies I came across that use prison labor include McDonalds, PepsiCo, Pfizer, Mary Kate Inc., Starbucks, UPS, and Walmart to name a few.

Respond to these 2 posts your opinion. These two are written by 2 students so provide a meaningful response to these 2 posts above. Dont just write I agree" or I disagree.