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TDCJ prisoners still do everything from growing all the food we eat , raising livestock and crops on hundreds of thousands of acres of TDCJ-owned farmland , to building and maintaining the prisons that hold us. The prisoners plant, tend and harvest everything from cotton, beans, carrots and potatoes, to peanuts and more. This work is performed by “hoe squads” of prisoners using primitive manual labor methods like those of the field slaves of yesterday or Third World peasants, while armed guards on horseback “oversee” them. The prisoners, like the old slaves, refer to these overseers as “bossman”. To see one of these teams at work is to witness a scene like something ripped from an old slave movie. (en) |
