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Comment by mempko | Hacker News Reader

Came here to say the same. USA has hundreds of thousands of prisoners toiling away in Georgia and other states. They are simply better fed slaves, but slaves the same. Probably makes it worse that they are mostly black.

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Also, they have labor strikes,

http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=20101209231616269

Also, they have cell phones.

http://www.wsbradio.com/news/news/local/growing-problem-cell...

Also, they were convicted in trials, for violating laws that were written by an elected legislature, and signed into law by an elected president. They were also provided an attorney, and have an appeals process at their disposal.

Seriously, yes, our prison system is really, really screwed up, but we got here largely out of public myopia and apathy, and to indicate we arrived at this place for reasons bearing any similarity to North Korea's is ignorant, at best.

Actually, they probably weren't convicted in trials, especially if their crimes were federal. 90% of them are probably there due to taking a plea bargain. They may or may not be guilty, since plea bargaining makes a guilty plea with a lighter sentence more attractive than proving your own innocence in a way that guarantees financial ruin and risks an extremely harsh sentence.

If it was a Federal trial, then they're in Federal prison, not the system run by Georgia, which is what we're discussing here.

There are Federal prisons in Georgia.

I made the mistake of assuming that labor camps were found in State systems only. I have since found out about Unicor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Prison_Industries

It's also incredibly likely that plea bargaining is responsible for much of the convictions at the state level as well. I'd be very surprised if a pathology at the federal level didn't exist at the state level as well.

I will slap my wife a little, here and there, not much, she deserves it, but damn, have you seen what Joe have done to his wife, he broke her arm and sent her to hospital, he is a monster!

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