Christian Alcoholics & Addicts in Recovery is a “diversion program” where drug addicts convicted of crimes can be sent to get help, but an investigation by the Center for Investigative Reporting reveals that CAAIR is really in the business of supplying low-cost workers to factories, where they are worked seven days/week on threat of being returned to prison, and where workers who are maimed on the job are sent to prison and not given worker’s compensation – all for no pay at all.
It amounted to indentured servitude, and even by the standards of prison labor, the work was grueling and dangerous. CAAIR collected paychecks for the workers, but the workers never saw a dime. What’s more, the workers had all been diverted to CAAIR because they were struggling with drug dependency, and the “therapy” they received for their health problems was “work and prayer.”
CAAIR is not the only program of its kind; across America, drug-dependent people who are enmeshed in the criminal justice system are being turned into forced labor forces for some of the country’s biggest corporations, such as Coca-Cola and Simmons Food (who supply KFC, PetSmart, Walmart and Popeye’s).
