In charge of selling trips to Mexico, Montrell Carmouche boasts on the telephone of its
“blonde sand beaches and coral reefs”
while being careful not to reveal that he has never set foot there.
And for good reason: he is being held in a prison in the United States.
His story and his pittance - a six-dollar commission per sale - are featured in a report released Wednesday, June 15 by the powerful civil rights organization ACLU and the University of Chicago, devoted to the work of the American prison population.
Inmates
'receive pennies for their work, often carried out in dangerous conditions, while bringing in billions of dollars to the states and federal government'
, according to ACLU researcher Jennifer Turner, lead author of the paper.
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The incarceration rate in the United States is among the highest in the world, with more than 1.2 million people held in federal or state prisons.
Two-thirds of them have jobs behind bars and produce goods and services worth more than $11 billion each year, according to this report titled “Captive Labour: The Exploitation of Incarcerated Workers,” which compiles other investigations, official documents and interviews with detainees.
The vast majority (more than 80%) are employed in the smooth running of their prison as cleaning staff, cooks, or even electricians or plumbers for wages between 0 and 1.24 dollars per hour.
Symbolic salaries
In 2004, a low estimate of the gains made through their work put the figure at nine billion dollars, recall the authors of the report.
“These jobs do not bring us anything but are beneficial for the prison system
,” comments Latashia Millender, detained in Illinois, quoted in this document.
"I make $450 a year, which would be a civilian's salary for a single week!"
About 50,000 prisoners provide goods and services that are sold to other government agencies and worth $2.09 billion in 2021, according to the National Association of Prison Industries.
They can wash sheets for hospitals, make uniforms for officials, etc.
Here again, salaries are nominal: in Oregon, for example, the agency in charge of vehicle registration pays 4 to 6 dollars a day to inmates who make license plates, compared to 80 dollars for free employees. .
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Finally, less than 5,000 detainees, including Montrell Carmouche, work for private companies, whose customers are often unaware of the origin of the products.
These jobs, which are a little more remunerative, are highly sought after.
But most of the winnings are seized by the public authorities, in particular to reimburse their legal costs.
Whatever the job, the authors of the report stress that prisoners are little or not trained for the tasks assigned to them, that they generally cannot refuse them and do not have the equipment necessary for their safety.
“American prisons violate fundamental rights to life and dignity”
, concludes Claudia Flores of the University of Chicago, co-author of the study, recommending a whole series of reforms, including the imposition of a minimum wage.
Contacted by AFP, the federal office of prisons had not reacted Wednesday evening.
