Cooking the prisoners

Jul 12th, 2021 | By
Category: Notes and Comment Blog

Apparently labor laws and safety laws don’t apply to prisoners.

Temperatures reached 97 degrees on June 21 at the French Robinson Unit prison the day Seth Donnelly collapsed. The Texas Observer reported Seth passed out during his prison job of training attack dogs — running around in a 75-pound ​“fight suit” while the dogs tried to bite him. Seth’s internal body temperature was 106 when he reached the hospital, where doctors eventually took him off life support. He died on June 23, and his preliminary autopsy lists multiorgan failure following severe hyperthermia.

97 degrees. A padded suit weighing 75 pounds. It’s worthy of the tunnels at Camp Dora.

Danielle, who asked for In These Times to withhold her last name to protect her family-run business from social stigma, says she woke up in her cell in Texas at Gatesville Prison one typical early morning in July 2015, drenched in sweat. Without time (or permission) to shower or brush her teeth, she reports she was corralled to the fields in a heavy uniform.

“It didn’t feel safe,” says Danielle, who explains she picked tomatoes and jalapeño peppers without pay. Gatesville’s average high temperature that month was 98 degrees. ​“Texas in July, it’s like sitting on hell’s doorstep,” she says.

A guard who Danielle says she was ​“deathly terrified of” patrolled the ​“state property” (the term guards used for incarcerated people) on a horse. Danielle says she was not provided gloves, which often left her hands exposed to thorns and caustic jalapeño juices.

OSHA [Occupational Safety and Health Administration] rules do not apply to state prisons. Twenty-two states have adopted OSHA ​“state plans,” which cover state prisons with standards intended to be at least as effective as federal standards. Eight of the 10 states with the highest incarceration rates have declined to adopt these plans.

“The guards could literally do whatever they wanted to us,” says Danielle, who was incarcerated in Texas from August 2014 to September 2015..

Danielle’s stated working conditions appear antithetical to OSHA’s guidelines. ​“There was a vehicle that would come by and bring some water, but if the vehicle broke down you were out of luck for water that day,” she says. ​“That happened numerous times. Even when we get water it was gone within a few minutes and they won’t refill it for you. There are 50-plus women and the women in the back don’t get any.”

That causes death. It also causes misery of course, but it kills. Extreme heat is lethal, and hydration is essential.

Nearly half of people imprisoned in the U.S. work while incarcerated, a population disproportionately likely to be Black. Penal labor became a more significant part of the American economy following the Civil War; police would conduct sweeps and make arrests of Black men when plantations needed additional labor for planting, cutting and harvesting crops. Today, a majority of incarcerated workers perform ​“institutional maintenance,” which includes tasks like mowing the compound lawn and mopping floors. A relatively small number of others work in ​“correctional industries,” manufacturing things like license plates, sewing American flags and — as in Danielle’s case — harvesting vegetables that are later sold for a profit. All seven states that don’t pay for non-industry labor are in the South, which can reach dangerously hot summer temperatures.

And which are former slave states, and then Jim Crow states. Not a coincidence.

13 Responses to “Cooking the prisoners”