NY Times: “Under Alabama prison rules, there are thin lines between work incentives, forced labor and “involuntary servitude” — which reforms to the Alabama Constitution in 2022 banned. From the viewpoint of Mr. Anderson and more than a dozen other Alabama inmates interviewed by The New York Times, the ultimate message, in practice, is straightforward: Do this, or else.
“You have no choice,” said Mr. Anderson, 43, who has served 15 years of a 20-year felony sentence for a marijuana trafficking conviction in 2009, and has been contracted out to Ju-Young for about a year.
“If you don’t,” he added, “they’re going to send you on back to the camp and you get rolled up with a disciplinary charge” — like denial of parole, having “good time” revoked, which prolongs incarceration, or being made to work without pay at prison facilities.
The men hanging out with Mr. Anderson in the parking lot — who live with him up the road at a low-security corrections facility for work-release-eligible inmates — nodded in agreement. Most declined to speak on the record out of fear of retaliation.”