Dear Friends, As we look back at important moments in our work in 2024, NRCAT’s collaboration with Ben & Jerry’s Into the Mix podcast for an episode spotlighting the atrocities of torture and forced labor in prisons was particularly poignant. Earlier this year, NRCAT’s Director of U.S. Prisons Program, Johnny Perez, was featured on the Ben & Jerry’s Into the Mix podcast episode, “Cents an Hour: Prison Labor & the Exception in the 13th Amendment.” In it, Johnny lays out a history of prison slavery and how labor dissent on the inside is kept at bay with the threat of solitary confinement. Your donation to NRCAT today helps us continue to resource programs like this Ben & Jerry’s podcast and the growing interest national media is showing in our work to end solitary. Solitary confinement is itself a practice with roots in chattel slavery. The “box” or “the hole” was held out as menacing punishment for any enslaved person who was deemed “disobedient.” Johnny draws from his own experience of working for next to nothing while in prison, with the threat of solitary confinement looming, earning massive profits for those who had labor contracts with the prison. We encourage you to give it a listen. | |
