For decades, Angola has forced prisoners to work in fields in extreme heat. Today, they urged a federal judge to halt the practice.
Prisoners filed an emergency motion about working in the summer heat, as part of a proposed class-action lawsuit to end the “Farm Line” — forced agricultural labor at the prison, for little or no pay.
On Tuesday, lawyers representing people locked up at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola urged a federal judge to halt operations of the Farm Line any time the heat index rises above 88 degrees.
“Beginning as early as this month, temperatures on the Farm Line are expected to routinely reach or exceed safe levels, creating a serious risk of injury or death to even the healthiest of individuals and an even greater risk to those with underlying health conditions,” attorneys for the prisoners wrote in a court filing in May.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Brian Jackson heard oral arguments from lawyers for the Louisiana Department of Corrections and the Promise of Justice Initiative (PJI), who represented Angola inmates.
When prisoners are forced to work on the Farm Line, they are rarely given breaks or drinking water and lack necessary equipment, their lawyers said.
Also, many incarcerated people have medical conditions that make them vulnerable to heat related illness — but they are not exempt from work on even the hottest days, PJI lawyers said.
There are other hardships as well. Though other agricultural workers in Louisiana work alongside modern farming equipment, prisoners on the Farm Line are forced to “grub in the dirt with bare, ungloved hands.” When drinking water is provided – and often it’s not – “it is dirty and full of insects; the men drink it ‘just to stay hydrated and avoid passing out,’” the filing claims.
Lawyers for the Louisiana Department of Corrections countered with a very different picture of conditions on the Farm Line, claiming that clean water and Gatorade were readily available. And when the heat index was over 88 degrees, DOC lawyers said, prisoners are forced to take a break every half an hour.
That didn’t jibe with what PJI lawyer Lydia Wright had heard from her clients. Gatorade has never been available, she said.
DOC attorneys also warned that halting farm work during hot days would deprive thousands of prisoners at Angola of fresh vegetables harvested from the fields and used in prison kitchens.
“An injunction would essentially let those crops rot in the field,” Andrew Blanchfield, an attorney for the prison, told the judge.
Judge Jackson declined to make a ruling on Tuesday, but seemed concerned about some deprivations standard to Farm Line work, including the lack of sunscreen and shaded areas for breaks.
“Every dermatologist in America says sunscreen is mandatory,” Jackson said. “That’s an issue that certainly affects human health. In this day and age, everyone knows you gotta have sunscreen if you’re going to be out in the sun.”
The request to halt the Farm Line during extreme heat is part of a broader class-action lawsuit brought by prisoners seeking to end the practice of forced agricultural labor at Angola altogether.
The lawsuit was brought by incarcerated members of the advocacy organization Voice of the Experienced (VOTE).
The VOTE suit argues that the Farm Line serves “no legitimate penological or institutional purpose” and violates the prisoners’ Eighth Amendment right against cruel and unusual punishment. “It is purely punitive, designed to ‘break’ incarcerated men and ensure their submission.”
The current system of forced agricultural labor at Angola dates back to the period following the Civil War, when Louisiana “turned to the criminal legal system to ‘get things back as near to slavery as possible,’” the lawsuit charges.
The lawsuit describes how prison labor works at the penitentiary. Everyone incarcerated at Angola is forced to work on the Farm Line at some point. The first three years, they basically work for free because it takes three years for a prisoner to “become eligible” for compensation. After three years, they start at two cents an hour for any work they perform.
Some allege the Angola Farm Line is akin to “modern-day slavery,” because the wages are so low as to be meaningless.
Anyone who refuses to work can be placed in solitary confinement.
To the Louisiana Department of Corrections, there is nothing unconstitutional about the Farm Line. Their lawyers contend that it is “run in accordance with modern-day industry standards.”
To deal with Louisiana summer temperatures, the department has heat-pathology policies mandating that temperatures be monitored every two hours. When the heat index rises above 88 degrees, wardens are supposed to provide rest and water breaks every 30 minutes.
But prisoners say that the policies meant to protect them are insufficient and sometimes aren’t followed. “There is no shade, and breaks are infrequent, short, or non-existent. Sunglasses, sunhats, or sunscreen are not provided,” the filing reads.
Anyone who suffers heat stroke cannot count on proper treatment, the suit emphasizes: “Adequate medical care, which is critical to preventing serious heat-related injury, does not exist.”
Last year, U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick of the Middle District of Louisiana found healthcare at Angola unconstitutional, calling it “abhorrent” and “cruel,” and ordered federal oversight. The state has appealed that ruling.
There are other questions about the constitutionality of the practice of prison labor, which is allowed under the 13th Amendment of 1865, which abolished slavery throughout the United States. “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States.”
Those words – “except as punishment for a crime” – created an exception for prisons, allowing the use of prisoners as free and forced labor.
A subgroup of clients in the lawsuit – those who are part of the 1,500 people currently incarcerated on convictions by non-unanimous juries – also argued that the Farm Line is unconstitutional for them, because they were not “duly convicted.” But that claim was tossed by Judge Jackson in a ruling earlier this month.
For prison officials, today’s motion is a threat to a much broader issue. “A ruling prohibiting any inmate from working on the Farm Line if the heat index exceeds 88 degrees would effectively open the flood gates to cease any and all work in any institution across the South,” the department wrote.
Prisoners argue that the situation has become urgent, due to the dangers posed by conditions on the Farm Line and the seeming indifference of prison officials to prisoner grievances.
“Once, I was forced to work the Farm Line in the summer and was in the corn fields. The temperature was over 100 degrees and I started feeling chills,” said one prisoner quoted in the filing. “I lost control of my limbs and fainted. Medical came and reported that my blood pressure was very high. Despite all this, prison officials sent me back out into the field the next day. I refused. I was placed in lockdown.”
According to the filing, the officers who oversee the Farm Line used to ride horses, but no longer do. Prisoners contend that the practice was ended in order to protect the horses from the “blistering” heat.