Encouraging inmates to work, while serving their sentence, is not usually regarded as problematic phenomena. After all such situation can have its advantages. Inmates can get new skills, learn to cooperate and believe in idea that in order to be paid fairly you need to do a fair work. Here however the word “fair” seems to be the key point. Imagine the situation when while being in prison you are forced to work and most importantly not being remunerated for it. Add to this: poor living conditions, human rights abuses, inadequate food rations, and lack of opportunities to educate yourself and it is most probable that you are not in the prison anymore. This is a labour camp.

Thinking of labour camps we usually associate such places with autocratic regimes like Soviet Union and the system of Gulags. To keep it short, labour camps in former Soviet Russia were prison facilities, where inmates were sent and forced to work. Conditions were appalling. The majority of prisoners at most times faced inadequate food rations, overcrowding, poorly insulated housing, poor hygiene, and inadequate health care. Most prisoners were compelled to perform harsh physical labor. Officially established work hours were in most periods longer and days off were fewer than for civilian workers. Although since 1930s prisoners for their good work could obtain some monetary bonuses and since 1950s a chance for an early-release, it still does not change the overall picture of labour camps.

In our modern world where with each single year the awareness and faith in the human rights increase we may come to the conclusion that, this horrible memory from the past is nothing but a story from which we can learn and don’t let it repeat ever again. But did we pay enough attention?

On 9 December 2010 an event on the unprecedented scale took place in seven U.S. prison facilities in Georgia. Inmates of different classes, ethnicity and religion united in order to peacefully fight for their rights in the largest prisoner strike in U.S. history. Answer for the question, why would prisoners go on strike in the United States, a country which to large extent is identified with the western human rights ideology might be surprising. Strike went on because of the similar reasons for which we treat Gulags as a horrifying memory.

Strike became an expression of seven demands which prisoners have towards the US government. First they fight for a living wage for work. In violation of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution prohibiting slavery and involuntary servitude, the DOC demands prisoners work for free (like in Georgia) or for a symbolic payment between $1per day - $0.50per hour (as argued by Ms Elaine Brown, a former Head of the Black Panthers Party and currently a prisoner advocate).

Second postulate asks for more educational opportunities, which state at present is according to Ms Brown not even worth mentioning. Limiting this opportunity is clearly not beneficial for both the state and the prisoners.

Third, according to prisoners, the Department of Corrections against the 8th Amendment of the US Constitution denies adequate medical help to the inmates.

Fourth, and probably the strongest postulate relates to the demand to stop of cruel and unusual punishment. As reported, by the Black Agenda Report, at least on inmate has been injured by guards as a response to the peaceful strike. According to reports from prisoner advocates, guards have allegedly used violent measures to force the men back to work. The reports include stories of beatings, guards destroying prisoners' property, withholding heat and hot water and denying access to family members.

Fifth, prisoners demand better living conditions. So far they have been packed into the overcrowded cells. Furthermore, the Institute of Southern Studies reports that prisoners experience little heat in winter and oppressive heat in summer.

Eventually, inmates oppose the unfair rules on which they can contact their families. All phone calls made by families to the jail are paid under the astonishing rate of $50 for 1 hour a month. Furthermore, inmates are not allowed to receive money via the post services anymore. Now the money transfers are operated solely by a private company which charges 10% for their service, according to the World Socialist Web Site.

According to the data produced by the Sentencing Project, since 1980s there has been a 500% percent increase in the number of Americans incarcerated while in the same time period the crime rate remained stable. As a product of “tough on crime” judicial policies developed by the Clinton administration U.S. has now the highest population of the incarcerated citizens then any other country in the world. Currently American prisoners are used as laborers to do jobs ranging from cleaning highways, to making furniture for state agencies. The privatization however went even further and now it is possible to “hire” prisoners, having in mind that the wage paid is going to be the lowest possible. Importantly, like in case of Gulags which at least partially were also established for economic profits, the largest part of prisoners held in these facilities was convicted for non-violent crimes. There is no doubt that violating the basic human rights and using punishment which by far overruns the crime committed has got nothing to do with civilized world. Unfortunately that situation brings completely different picture, picture known from the labour camps. To make it clear it is not wrong to punish someone severely (but still not breaking the human rights) if someone committed a severe crime. It is wrong to punish someone inadequately harsh for what he done.

Penitentiary system of U.S. needs to face also another accusation. Accusation which also is closely connected to the sphere of human rights namely racial discrimination. As shown by the statistics quoted by Ms Brown, at present Nearly 50% of all inmates in Georgia are African American with situation being similar in other States. Such statistics would not be astonishing for a country where the majority of population is of black ethnicity. Interestingly however in the U.S. only 12%-13% of the society is African American. The accusations of the racism of the U.S. police and judiciary system are mounting and clearly the 9th December strike will help to emphasise this difficult problem.

Summing up, U.S. prison management is inevitably going into the wrong direction of human rights abuses, stigmatization of prisoners, putting the reclamation on danger and probably racism. “Jails in the U.S. are routinely in violation of the United Nations Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman and Degrading Treatment, the Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights“(Statement of Solidarity with Georgia Prisoner Strike). The association of the American prisons to Gulags is an obvious exaggeration. However it is interesting to take a minute to see how closely we are to the situations which we do not want ever to happen again.