Episode 14. Road Signs

Since we had “too much fun” in our last episode about emus, Kate decided to bring us back down hard with an episode about a seemingly innocuous topic: Road signs. 

We all see road signs all the time. But have you ever wondered who makes them? Then answer is the same as for many products in the United States: Prisoners.

This episode covers the history of road signs in the U.S., the history of prisons around the world, and how America’s prison system was built on forced labor from the very start. We also go into how the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution left a convenient loophole that maintained the slavery status quo and motivates the disproportionate imprisonment of Black people. Finally, we take a peek at the prison system in Finland, Norway, and Denmark to get a glimpse of how things could be different.

Trigger warning: Prison and race-related trauma, violence.

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References

https://freakonomics.com/podcast/highway-signs-and-prison-labor/

https://www.marketplace.org/story/2015/09/22/ever-wonder-who-makes-those-big-highway-signs

https://www.sentencingproject.org/reports/private-prisons-in-the-united-states/

https://plsny.org/

https://www.interstatesignways.com/post/why-us-signage-differs-from-the-rest-of-the-world&sa=D&source=docs&ust=1754862494573257&usg=AOvVaw2brh4pFwS5oavSxctQF7JL

https://www.correctionenterprises.com/vision-mission-values/

https://www.npr.org/2023/11/13/1210564359/slavery-prison-forced-labor-movement#:~:text=Five%20years%20ago%20this%20month,on%20this%20issue%20in%202024. 

https://www.freedomunited.org/news/nevada-ends-forced-prison-labor/#:~:text=Nevada%20has%20become%20the%20latest,true%20freedom%20from%20forced%20labor

https://pressbooks.pub/alaskacriminallaw2022/chapter/1-5-the-purposes-of-punishment/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prison#:~:text=During%20the%20Middle%20Ages%20in,on%20naval%20or%20merchant%20vessels

https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/secondary/SMIGRA*/Ergastulum.html

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Discipline_and_Punish/6rfP0H5TSmYC?hl=en&gbpv=1&pg=PP5&printsec=frontcover

https://daily.jstor.org/the-invention-of-incarceration/

https://www.aclu.org/issues/smart-justice/mass-incarceration

https://review.law.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/sites/3/2021/03/Rushin-Edwards-73-Stan.-L.-Rev.-637.pdf

https://www.law.cornell.edu/wex/stop_and_frisk

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8389488/

https://www.archives.gov/milestone-documents/13th-amendment

https://jimcrowmuseum.ferris.edu/origins.htm#:~:text=During%20the%20Jim%20Crow%20period%20