The History of Prison Slavery in the U.S.

So far we’ve developed a class analytical theory of slavery used to understand labor in U.S. prisons. Slavery exists in U.S. prisons, although it is of a different form than our common conception of slavery in such sites as the Caribbean or the American south during the Antebellum period. Inmates are enslaved due to the unique structure of the production and appropriation of surplus labor, including the cultural, political, economic, and physical forces which overdetermine this class process.