When the United States ratified the 13th amendment in 1865, federal lawmakers very nearly outlawed slavery for good
— but not entirely.
Tucked within arguably the most important corner of the US constitution is a massive caveat:
“neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States”
In the 160-some years since that amendment, a quieter type of forced servitude has lived on in the US: prison labor.
From the debt peonage of the post-Civil War reconstruction era to the privatized contracting of the 21st century,
prison labor is a massive money maker,
generating $11 billion worth of goods in 2022 alone.
As horrifying a thought as it is, one of the companies still benefiting from the practice is in the news for another reason:
spreading a gut-busting diarrhea parasite through mass-produced shredded lettuce in grocery stores and fast food outlets.
It turns out that Taylor Farms, the agricultural company widely believed to be behind the cyclospora outbreakcurrently raging throughout the US, is also heavily involved in modern-day forced labor
#forcedlabor #TaylorFarms
https://futurism.com/science-energy/diarrhea-lettuce-taylor-farms-prison-labor
