Amid blistering summer temperatures, a federal judge ordered Louisiana to take steps to protect the health and safety of incarcerated workers toiling in the fields of a former slave plantation, saying they face “substantial risk of injury or death.” The state immediately appealed the decision. U.
S. District Court Judge Brian Jackson issued a temporary restraining order Tuesday, giving the state department of corrections seven days to provide a plan to improve conditions on the so-called Farm Line at Louisiana State Penitentiary, otherwise known as Angola. The expansive penitentiary occupies land that once was a plantation.
Jackson called on the state to correct deficiencies, including inadequate shade and breaks from work and a failure to provide workers with sunscreen and other basic protections, including medical checks for those especially vulnerable to high temperatures. However, the judge stopped short of shutting down the farm line altogether when heat indexes reach 88 degrees Fahrenheit (31.1 degrees Celsius) or higher, which was what the plaintiffs had requested.
The order comes amid growing nationwide attention on prison labor, a and has evolved over the decades into a multibillion-dollar industry. A linked some of the world’s largest and best-known companies – from Cargill and Walmart to Burger King – to Angola and other prison farms, where incarcerated workers are paid pennies an hour or nothing at all. Men incarcerated at Angola filed a class-action laws.