Amid Farm Worker Shortage, Prisons Coordinate with Growers
The state has recently revamped a prison program aimed at addressing Georgia’s widespread farm worker shortage.
The program is already lining up probationers with farmers. Now the state is offering the same to inmates held in transition facilities. The first batch of prisoners have been placed in a Vidalia onion farm.
Brian Robinson, a spokesman for the Governor, says the program makes sense considering many farms have too few workers.
“Particularly at a time when it’s hard to find jobs even for people who don’t have criminal records, it’s a chance to make money. They wear civilian clothes, they’re not supervised. We are matching a need for a need – a need for labor and a need for jobs.”
But critics say it amounts to forced labor.
“Inmates are so limited in what they are able to do the concern would be is if the choice is actually the inmate’s choice,” said Edward Dubose of the NAACP.
Last year, Georgia passed one of the strictest immigration laws in the country, which many blame for the farm worker shortage. Agriculture officials estimate the lack of workers is costing state farmers an estimated $300 to $400 million.
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