Screenshot via Los Angeles Times
窥探美国监狱系统的冰山一角，却足以使人触目惊心。
当地时间11日，洛杉矶时报（Los Angeles Times）报道，在新冠肺炎疫情爆发之后，美国加州大部分工厂都关闭了，但加州监狱仍然让囚犯生产口罩，并且囚犯的劳动所得收入十分低廉，每小时最低只能赚取8美分。尽管狱中已经有人新冠检测呈阳性，但监狱仍要求囚犯继续生产口罩。
While much of California shut down this spring during the global pandemic, inmates at a sewing factory in a women's prison in Chino spent at least 12 hours a day stitching masks, The Los Angeles Times reported.
加州监狱里的“奴隶工厂”
Screenshot via Los Angeles Times
一位确诊感染新冠的女囚罗比•霍尔(Robbie Hall)表示，“这里就像‘奴隶工厂’，你给的越多，他们想要的也越多。”
在美国新冠疫情暴发期间，加州女子监狱中的囚犯冒着感染疫情的风险被迫加班加点大批生产口罩，每天工作时间高达12小时。她们每天生产成千上万的口罩，却不能拥有一个。
她们制作口罩的材料来自附近的一所男子监狱，那里已有23名囚犯因感染新冠病毒而死亡。并且她们的老板定期在这两所监狱走动。
起初她们只是担心病毒会被带过来，但接着，悲剧还是发生了。
5月初，这所女子监狱出现新冠肺炎疫情，多人被感染。最可怕的是，尽管监狱内的新冠疫情逐渐加剧，但“奴隶工厂”仍在继续运营。并且关押在不同牢房的囚犯集中在一起工作，无疑增加了病毒传播的风险。
Robbie Hall said, "It was like a slave factory. The more you give them, the more they want."
During the pandemic, she was one of thousands of incarcerated workers who stayed on the job in high-risk positions, such as walking from cell to cell delivering meals. And what they do helped them earn wages that ranged from eight cents to $1 an hour.
In the prison factories, the inmates made products including masks and hand sanitizers, which were sold to state agencies for millions of dollars, according to The Los Angeles Times.
However, Hall was quoted by paper as saying that the inmates were forbidden from wearing masks.
Amid the drive for production, factories reportedly continued to run even as infections increased inside prison walls. Some of them have increased production.
For example at the Chino prison, supervisors kept increasing the daily quotas, from 2,000 to 3,000 to 3,500 masks. So the women workers in the prison had to stitch masks until their bodies ached seven days a week.
The factories even brought together inmates who were housed in different units, heightening the risk of spreading the virus inside prisons, according to The Los Angeles Times.
从未消失的奴隶制
Prison VCG
在高举自由、*权人**旗帜的美国，这些囚犯却没有拒绝的权利。
霍尔表示，狱中的生活成本太高，如果她们拒绝加班，就会被替换掉，那样她在狱中本就拮据的生活会雪上加霜。
此外，那些拒绝工作或在能力范围内没有完成工作的人将面临纪律处分，甚至可能导致被拒绝假释。因为根据美国宪法第13修正案：美利坚合众国境内不允许奴隶制度存在，但当事人被定罪的情况例外。任何身体健全的囚犯都可以被要求从事任何被认为是监狱运作所必需的工作。
许多法律学者和民权倡导者认为，当代监狱劳动是美国宪法第13修正案允许的一种奴隶制形式。加州大学欧文分校(UC Irvine)的法学教授米歇尔•古德温(Michele Goodwin)表示，这一措辞是在变相保留奴隶制。
Hall said if they refused to work overtime, they feared getting replaced or worse, having their release date delayed.
Though critics have called this a form of slave labor. However, it is allowed according to the 13th Amendment in U.S. Constitution: slavery is not allowed in the U. S., except in the case of convicted parties. "Any able-bodied inmate" can be required to "perform any work deemed necessary" for prison operations.
监狱回应，真假难辨
The California Institution for Women
报道还指出，加州监狱工业管理局发言人米歇尔·凯恩(Michele Kane)在一份声明中承认了一些重要工作在疫情期间仍在继续运营，例如制造口罩等。但凯恩称，监狱工厂已经减少了囚犯人数，并实行了隔离政策，在与劳教部门和法院任命的负责监管加州监狱医疗保健的联邦接管人协商后决定何时关闭或重新开放工厂。
加州惩教与康复部发言人达娜·西马斯(Dana Simas)也表示，该监狱遵循联邦接管人批准的隔离和检疫规程。并已经采取了应对措施防控狱中新冠疫情，比如为工作人员和囚犯提供防护设备等。
监狱回应与囚犯所描述的工资微薄、疫情期间未防护等问题大相径庭。
Admitting some essential critical enterprises including the manufacture of masks have continued operating during the pandemic, Michele Kane, a spokeswoman for the California Prison Industry Authority, was quoted by The Los Angeles Times as saying that the agency reduced inmate staffing at factories, imposed social distancing and decided when to close or reopen operations in consultation with the corrections department and the court-appointed federal receiver overseeing healthcare inside California's prisons.
Dana Simas, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said in a statement that the agency follows isolation and quarantine protocols approved by the federal receiver, according to the paper. The statement said the agency has taken "extraordinary measures to address COVID-19" in prisons, such as providing staff and inmates with protective equipment.
But interviews with incarcerated workers paint a stark different picture of prison labor during the pandemic: questionable infection control and the threat of more time in prison looming over their heads.
这篇报道发布后，海外网友对此表示愤懑:
“ ...他们制造了成千上万的口罩，但却被禁止佩戴。”
“为我们国家对待人民的方式感到羞耻。”
“实际上美国的奴隶制从未结束。继续挖掘，直到你领悟。”
有的网友发出灵魂质问：
“我们什么时候才能停止否认大规模监禁少数民族是现代奴隶制?你怎么解释每小时8美分的工资不是强迫劳动呢?”
有网友呼吁取消这些“奴隶工厂”：
“取消工厂。优先康复治疗和锻炼。并非所有囚犯都是*社会反**者。如果他们能在正确的帮助下找到正确的道路，他们就会更有希望。”
一名囚犯说：“我只是想活着出来。我没有被判死刑。”