Earlier this year, the Center for Media and Democracy released documents detailing some 800 model legislations crafted by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC). Included in those documents was the Prison Industries Act, legislation that had already been established in dozens of states across the country.

Like much of the model legislation created by ALEC, this bill is designed to help private corporations increase profits. In this case, those profits come from the use of prison labor. As Mike Elk and Bob Sloan wrote in The Nation, "prison labor for the private sector was legally barred for years, to avoid unfair competition with private companies."

In addition to this legislation, ALEC crafted numerous pieces of legislation that resulted in harsher sentencing in the courts, meaning more prisoners and longer sentences. That, in turn, means more laborers off which to profit.

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The McCain campaign has been caught out using free prison labor for an event at which he also received a significant discount on renting the facility.

I guess that's what happens when a verywealthy Republican realizes that there aren't many people who want to donate to, or volunteer for, their campaign. They hit up a town with a captive labor force for some free elbow grease.

Yes, we have that here.

It's all part of keeping the US competitive on the world labor market.

What? You didn't think that no one was profiting off our sky high incarceration rates, turning public sentencing policy into private wealth, did you?

Also, as of 2004, prison inmates were 45 percent Black, 25 percent Hispanic. I'm sure that doesn't factor at all into continued toleration of this cut-rate abuse of the labor market. I wonder what John McCain, Mr. Civil Right, thinks about that.

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