Prisoners in at least 20 prisons across 11 states have been on strike for nearly three weeks, refusing to report to their prison jobs in what is likely the largest prison strike in U.S. history.
A group of inmates at Alabama’s Holman prison, the Free Alabama Movement called the work stoppage with the stated goal of ending prison slavery.
Prisoners on strike are calling for the repeal of an exception listed in the 13th Amendment to the United States Constitution, which bans “involuntary servitude” in addition to slavery, “except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.”
I’ll write more later, but the links below will fill you in for now.
The Marshall Project – A Primer on the Nationwide Prisoners’ Strike