Across the country, judges increasingly are sending defendants to rehab instead of prison or jail. These diversion courts have become the bedrock of criminal justice reform, aiming to transform lives and ease overcrowded prisons.
But in the rush to spare people from prison, some judges are steering defendants into rehabs that are little more than lucrative work camps for private industry, an investigation by Reveal from The Center for Investigative Reporting has found.
The programs promise freedom from addiction. Instead, they’ve turned thousands of men and women into indentured servants.
The beneficiaries of these programs span the country, from Fortune 500 companies to factories and local businesses. The defendants work at a Coca-Cola bottling plant in Oklahoma, a construction firm in Alabama, a nursing home in North Carolina.
There’s little drug rehabilitation going on at these labor camps. Some of the companies that utilize the slave labor are so dependent on it that they’d go under without it. Some of the industries these men are forced to work in are notoriously dangerous. When they’re injured, the companies file workers compensation claims – and keep the money for themselves, even though the workers are typically not employees but clients.
Warning: no matter how bad you think this story is going to be, it’s worse
In every Southern state (didn’t have time to look at the rest of the country) you can find some sort of studio apartment for around $500 per month, sometimes less than that. Why bother lying about something so easily disproven?
Because Bernie Sanders supporters aren’t going to fact check him, and they’ll ignore any contrary evidence that’s presented to them anyways.
Things like this really tick me off and It’s not political or anything but it’s the fact that you think all that money is there. Here’s what I mean;
That weekly check comes to, according to you, 290. Most places DO NOT pay for your half hour lunch that is required by law. So your beginning number was wrong. $7.25 x 7.5 hours a day x 5 days a week only gets you $271.88.
Most people in America get paid bi-weekly, so let’s double it to get the budget. $543.75. That’s GROSS, not NET. Out of that comes anywhere between 10% and 15% taxes depending on state so we’ll low ball it at 10%. Automatically down to $489.38 a pay check. Now health insurance. Usually anywhere from 70-100 a pay check for the cheapest plans. Again, we’ll low ball and go $70. So now we have $419.39 a paycheck. x 2 = $839.
Eight hundred thirty nine dollars. A MONTH.
But again, you seem to think that’s fair. So let’s proceed. You say rent is $500? Okay. This person now has $339 left to buy groceries for the whole month, pay utilities, car payment, car insurance, and gas money to get to work.
Those are the bare needs. You have to eat. You have to pay for heat, water, garbage removal, gas and or electricity because apartments do not always include things and rarely all of the above. Most cities in America do not have public transportation. Mine doesn’t despite the fact that our population is over 15,000 people, not counting a taxi. If you have a car, you have to pay that. If you have a car, legally you have to have car insurance. You have to pay that. You have to have gas in that car to get to work to make that money.
Now if you can tell me you can get all of that out of $339 you’re lying.
You are so focused on rent that you aren’t thinking about everything else people have to pay for. Rent was an example. This is a breakdown of the budget you gave me and it’s not possible to live off that in 2017 America.
And BECAUSE this person makes over $800 a month, they probably won’t qualify for financial aid or food stamps. $800 is the line in my state where they won’t help you. No food stamps, financial aid, or government housing if you make more than $800 a month.
Why does it bother you that people deserve to live above the poverty line?
The EURO-conversion was used by retailers to raise prices. Aldi, however, reacted with the biggest price reduction of its
corporate history. As a result, it was able to double its profits.
Paragraph edited for clarity – the original is on page 17.
Imagine that – taking market share by improving service and prices.
EDIT: Mind you, some of Walmart’s failure is absolutely because the government has put bars on the free maket that made it illegal for them to succeed:
With organic growth close to being a mission impossible for hypermarket operators
due to stringent* planning and zoning regulations
Soon faced with
rapidly mounting losses, Wal-Mart’s management resorted to staff cuts and closures to
reduce its above-average personnel costs. Due to strict worker protection regulations,
however, making surplus workers redundant can be a complicated, lengthy and costly
affair in Germany – a cumbersome fact of life for its German competitors, but, obviously,
terra incognita for Wal-Mart Germany’s (mostly) American executives
* Stringent is explained elsewhere in the text and it is, indeed, stringent.
Beautiful article. My favorite parts:
– The leading retail strategy in Germany is “hard discounting” which offers a very narrow selection of high quality products at “rock bottom” prices. Aldi rules at this and hard discount retailers control a third of the market. In the UK etc this accounts for less than a tenth of the market. This is the polar opposite of Walmart’s “sell literally everything” strategy. – Germany has zoning laws that favor smaller buildings. This works in favor of hard discounters because they offer a narrow selection and minimalist shopping environment. Compare to Walmart’s “browse an entire warehouse and grocery store then eat at one of several restaurants” model. – Germany has antitrust/fair trade laws that forbid merchants from permanently selling goods below cost. This is Walmart’s favorite strategy famously observed in the gallon-jar pickle campaign. – Germany only allows retailers to be open for 80 hours per week, compared to 196 in the UK, 96 in the Netherlands, and 144 in France. – Walmart refused to recognize the outcome of the collective wage negotiation process with their German unionized employees and were “completely surprised” when said unions promptly organized walkouts in 30 stores. They were probably surprised because of their millions of US employees, only 12 are known to be unionized. This gave Walmart a “union basher” rep in Germany where unions are influential and popular. – Walmart tried to pull their “hire a ton of employees and give them shitty part time hours so we don’t have to give them full-time benefits” but worker protection laws prevented this and Walmart was forced to compete on product margins and services rather than recouping losses by shafting their employees. Aldi was able to match their prices cent for cent, but offered better service and more value. – Walmart repeatedly defied German antitrust laws like “You must provide your balance sheet and annual profit/loss statement” and “You must provide a bottle/plastic refund system for products you sell.” None of the other leading German retailers had a problem sustaining growth and profit while complying with these laws. – Germany put some dude from Arkansas in charge of the acquisition. He didn’t speak German. Anyone who’s spent time with Germans can imagine how well this probably went over.
So basically Walmart rolled up to Germany and tried to play its usual game of “buy out entire supply chains, sell products below cost until competitors are dry, then use their market reach to demand bulk orders from suppliers at near-zero margins, all the while keeping stores open 24/7 to maintain a huge pool of redundant part time workers at minimum wage with no benefits to reduce operating costs and further subsidize more supply chain buyouts” and the heavily unionized, aggressively antitrust, worker protection, high value low price German market laughed in their dumb weasel faces and sent them packing.
Meanwhile, Aldi, who has been commanding the German market while complying with all these regulations, has been expanding seamlessly into the US and has owned Trader Joe’s since 1979, which sells twice as much per square foot as Whole Foods.
This article is a beautiful demonstration that the only reason shitty companies like Walmart keep biting us in the ass in the US is because our leaders refuse to put them on a leash.
And not only that, the capitalism works better when there are strong anti-trust, strong worker protection, and strong market controls in place. More small businesses providing better goods and services for cheaper because they’re actually competing instead of doing like Walmart and burning capital until they force the local competition out of the market.
Even in the US… Trader Joe’s where I live has good products, a store that doesn’t stress me out, and absolutely most important… employees who seem to be happy doing what they’re doing. I trust the brand, which I don’t with Walmart. I don’t see Trader Joe’s actively trying to put the natural food store across the street out of business, or vice verse. I shop at both every week. I go into Walmart maybe twice a year, tops.
I’m fairly certain America hinges now on propaganda that everything is okay and we’re still a first world nation when actually, our country is slipping further and further, and we’re really just. The best third world country out here. Not even comparable to most first world countries, so we fucking aren’t one anymore
Sounds like we live in a police state where the rich tax the poor not to feed or protect them but to fund programs and legislature that defunds their resources and encourages them to die. The rich get richer and the middle class shrinks and suffocates while the entire country falls apart because corporate power greed refuses to see the consequences of their actions.
I wish I had the faith to believe what goes around comes around, but I think it’s time to understand that we’re the ones that need to come around and take action. The rich aren’t going to do jack shit for us anymore. Even the rich that care about people on the bottom don’t have the courage to help people en masse
Economically speaking, one of the foundations of a 1st world country is a strong middle class (source, my BBA in Economics and International Business), and it’s been abundantly clear that America’s middle class has been shrinking. Wages have been stagnant since pretty much the 1970′s, American CEO’s wage disparity is the highest in the world when compared to the average of their workers.
Basically, the us *isn’t* a first world country anymore. Our economy may still be one of the highest (I’m not sure if China has overtaken us yet), but our infrastructure is crumbling. Roads and school and bridges are in dire need of repair, our education system is laughable when you see how much money we have available for it. Military spending is out of control, often on things the military doesn’t even need or want. All in the name of continuously soaring profits for the highest echelon of society, who never needed it to begin with.
Here’s some expresses from a recent article about a UN official investigating poverty in the US:
“A United Nations official investigating poverty in the United States was shocked at the level of environmental degradation in some areas of rural Alabama, saying he had never seen anything like it in the developed world.
“I think it’s very uncommon in the First World. This is not a sight that one normally sees. I’d have to say that I haven’t seen this,” Philip Alston, the U.N.’s Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights, told Connor Sheets of AL.comearlier this week as they toured a community in Butler County where “raw sewage flows from homes through exposed PVC pipes and into open trenches and pits.”
“Some might ask why a U.N. Special Rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights would visit a country as rich as the United States,“ Alston said. “But despite great wealth in the U.S., there also exists great poverty and inequality.”
Alston also pointed out that the U.S. “has been very keen” on other countries being investigated by the U.N. for civil and human rights issues.
“Now, it’s the turn to look at what’s going on in the U.S.,” Alston said. “There are pretty extreme levels of poverty in the United States given the wealth of the country. And that does have significant human rights implications.”
“The idea of human rights is that people have basic dignity and that it’s the role of the government—yes, the government!—to ensure that no one falls below the decent level,” he said. “Civilized society doesn’t say for people to go and make it on your own and if you can’t, bad luck.””
there’s a big difference between “food waste” as in “farmers destroy tons of food to avoid exceeding quotas” or “supermarkets throw away this much edible food because it doesn’t sell”
and “food waste” as in “it is not actually within the capacity of humans to perfectly predict and track household food consumption, so a certain amount of food per household inevitably goes bad and has to be thrown out every year”
the idea that food waste is the product of thoughtless consumers rather than corporate greed is really insidious
Truuuuuuuueeeeeee, other large sources of food waste:
– Restaurants. The fact that the rich expect restaurants to have every article on their menu available at all times means every restaurant has far more food than they need and throws a lot of that shit out.
– Big inhuman organisations with intense bureaucracy. Think hospitals, schools, prisons, refugee camps and the army. Organisations that provide food for a very large group of people but are not allowed (and/or can’t be bothered) to give that food away if there is too much of it.
Some of the most spectacular food waste I’vepersonally witnessed was an army training camp that threw away 250 sealed lunchboxes because the training ended one day early, and a refugee center than threw away over 100 loaves of bread while people in the center where hungry because regulations stated that every refugee got two slices of bread for breakfast.
And I’m supposed to feel guilty about half a tomato rotting in the garbage? Nah, that’s not food waste. That’s just life.
Shifting the guilt to the consumer is an intentional marketing ploy. The same was done when soda companies switched from bottles to cans
Originally soda machines had a place for you to return your bottle which the company would collect, sanitize, and re-use. Consumers paid a deposit when they bought the soda, then got it back when they dropped the empty bottle in the slot. Bars and restaurants also had to pay the deposit and redeem the bottles for a refund
Then companies decided it’d be cheaper to use disposable aluminum cans. Soda is something people often consumed in public places like parks and in front of stores. Increased public trash led to a litter problem. Environmentalists pressured the soda companies to fix the problem by bringing back the deposit and recycling programs. Instead, the companies started anti-liter campaigns that placed the guilt wholly on the consumer
This was decades before curb-side recycling existed. Recycling plants were few and far between, and consumers would have to save up cans then cart them to one of these facilities to recycle them, which few individuals had the time and transpiration to do. The ad campaigns led to people demanding more public garbage cans, which did reduce liter, but those were purchased and maintained at city expense and the contents went to landfills. It also led to the general public believing littering and landfill problems rested squarely on the shoulders of consumers even though the corporations had a perfectly good recycling system that they could have continued
Big business wants you to blame yourself and each other for problems they caused, and they’d rather spend money on guilt shifting ad campaigns than use that money for something good
I was actually never told any of the stuff in that last addition.
Wait, in this narrative, who’s making the profit??
It’s a tactic where you underprice competitors in order to drive them out of business. You lose money right up until you steal their whole client base and they’re forced to shut down. Once you’ve eliminated the competition, you’re free to hike up prices obscenely high. This is how Amazon destroyed traditional bookstores.
Pretty sure Standard Oil did the same thing too
Walmart does this in small towns
Yes this is a capitalist tactic used by many companies, including Amazon, Standard Oil, and Walmart.
Textbook example of Marxist alienation, specifically alienation from the product of your labor. Workers under capitalism have no connection to the things they work with, nor any say in the cultivation or sale of those things. Just one of many ways in which capitalism deliberately limits human freedom and wellbeing.
wupacing 