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Inside the big business of prison farms and ‘agricarceral’ slave labor

Inside the big business of prison farms and ‘agricarceral’ slave labor

Update: 2025-05-19

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Private companies and state governments have long exploited the 13th Amendment to create a profitable agribusiness system that runs on prison slave labor. “If you look at the history of agriculture in the United States, it’s built on dispossession, it’s built on enslavement,” says Joshua Sbicca, director of the Prison Agriculture Lab, and the legacy of that violence lives on in the big business of “agricarceral” farming today. In this episode of Rattling the Bars, host and former political prisoner Mansa Musa speaks with Sbicca about the prisoners farming our food, the parties profiting from their exploitation, and the ongoing fight to uphold the basic rights and dignity of incarcerated workers.

Producer / Videographer / Post-Production: Cameron Granadino

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Inside the big business of prison farms and ‘agricarceral’ slave labor

Inside the big business of prison farms and ‘agricarceral’ slave labor

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