Prisoners are demanding compensation for their work as opposed to “the current slave arrangement,” they wrote, in which they are paid in time deducted from their sentences. “A lot of times people will work in order to get time deducted, and then the prison guards and officials will find ways to punish someone for what the prisoners are saying are made up reasons that then extend the person’s time,” Jacqueline Aziz, an attorney with the Florida chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, told The Intercept.
“We want to be paid for the work we do, so that somebody doesn’t end up spending 10, 15, 20 years not being paid, and sent home with a bus ticket and a $50 check,” the prisoner speaking in the recording said. “We want to create an environment where someone can do their time, be rehabilitated, and enter into society with some type of hope.”...
Prisoners are also calling for fairer pricing of goods they can purchase in prison — claiming, for example, that a case of soup that costs $4 on the outside is sold for $17 by prison commissaries (the DOC disputed that claim and provided the following list of canteen prices).
“This is highway robbery without a gun,” the prisoners wrote. “It’s not just us that they’re taking from. It’s our families who struggle to make ends meet and send us money — they are the real victims that the state of Florida is taking advantage of.”...
Strike organizers are also calling on Florida to restore parole — which the state eliminated for non-capital felonies in 1984. “When someone is sentenced to life in prison, it means life in prison in Florida,” said Aziz. “There is no chance that good behavior in prison will get someone out earlier.”
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