In the 20th century, the war on drugs ushered in an era of harsh punishment for nonviolent drug-related crimes, filling prisons with people who could be forced to work for little or no pay. Mass incarceration and the criminalization of poverty have created a modern horror – nearly two million people incarcerated in the United States have no protection from legal slavery. A disproportionate percentage of them are black and people of color. The abolition amendment, a joint resolution currently before the Senate Judiciary Committee, proposes to amend the U.S. Constitution to include a section that reads: “Neither slavery nor servitude may be imposed as punishment for a crime,” which would formally close the exemption loophole. However, the bar for passing a constitutional amendment is high, requiring a two-thirds majority of the House and Senate, as well as ratification by three-quarters of all state lawmakers. That is why this resolution has not been very successful. Slavery is legal in the United States. The 13th Amendment abolished it “except as punishment for felonies.” Today, Democratic members of the House and Senate introduced legislation to eliminate that language and end the system of unpaid, barely paid prison work of mass incarceration.t.co/iOd4CDqDCg “We want to remove offensive language and provide citizens with protection from slavery and involuntary servitude,” Max Parthas, co-director of government operations for the Abolish Slavery National Network and co-host of a weekly online radio program. Abolition Today, said in an interview. “We don`t want this law to be confused with a labor law,” said Parthas of the National Network for the Abolition of Slavery. “It`s about ending slavery.
What follows remains to be seen. As the largest prison in the United States and one of the oldest, Angola`s history is critical, but not unusual. And more importantly, plantation prisons are no longer the only plantations. Right now, there are about 1.2 million people in prisons in the United States who can and often are legally enslaved. About 20 state constitutions have opt-out clauses that allow slavery or involuntary servitude as punishment for crimes. Vermont prides itself on being the first in the country to ban slavery in 1777, but its constitution allows for involuntary servitude in certain circumstances, such as the payment of debts, damages, fines, or other costs. The James Prison Camp, which later became the Louisiana State Penitentiary, was one such labor camp. Commonly referred to by its plantation name Angola, after the homeland of slaves who worked in the countryside before the Civil War, much of the 18,000-acre plantation once belonged to one of the largest slave traders in the United States, Franklin and Armfield. In 1880, after the death of Isaac Franklin, his widow sold the plantation to Samuel Lawrence James, who had a lease with Louisiana to house the imprisoned population in exchange for the profits of their labor. James then leased the detainees to private companies that built levees and railroads. Under James`s “renting of convicts,” people were more likely to die than in slavery. For this reason, Vera, along with many justice-oriented organizations and individuals, support the Abolition Amendment, a federal law that would finally ban slavery for all without exception.
The abolition amendment was introduced by Sen. Jeff Merkley of Oregon and Congresswoman Nikema Williams of Georgia and would “prohibit the use of slavery and involuntary servitude as punishment for a crime.” More than 150 years after it was officially banned in the United States, slavery will be up for election in five states in November, as a new abolitionist movement seeks to reshape prison work. The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1865, abolished slavery and involuntary servitude in the United States — except as a publication for a person convicted of a felony. The “exception clause” loophole led to repressive 19th-century laws in the South, known as black codes, which allowed authorities to imprison blacks for minor offenses such as vagrancy and then force them to work. Black codes were a precursor to Jim Crow laws prohibited by the Civil Rights Act of 1964. Those who have been convicted of crimes – especially in America`s unjust criminal justice system – remain worthy of dignity and human rights. Attempts to dehumanize incarcerated people and justify their mistreatment and slavery are a hideous reflection of efforts to dehumanize blacks and justify slavery in the early days of this nation. If this shocks you, you`re not alone. Like most Americans, you probably missed the day in U.S. history class when the professor explained that we abolished slavery — except as punishment for a crime.
Or more likely, that lesson never happened. “Most people thought it was impossible to get the amendment on the ballot in Louisiana, but Louisiana and America shouldn`t be in the legalized slavery business,” he said in an interview. The second verdict was issued at the request of the Tennessee Department of Corrections, fearing that people incarcerated in Tennessee who were paid could fall under the slavery ban. While people incarcerated in Tennessee are – technically – paid for work, the rate is far from real pay, from $0.17 to $0.75 per hour before mandatory deductions. “No slavery or involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a crime for which the Party has been duly convicted, shall exist in the United States or anywhere under its jurisdiction.” Visitors described the journey to the Louisiana State Penitentiary as a journey back in time. With men forced to work in its fields, some still picking cotton, for only two hundred an hour, the prison was and is a plantation. Since the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment in 1865, its opt-out clause has allowed slavery to persist through punitive systems for generations. After the Civil War, many Southern states imposed black codes: laws that restricted black labor by requiring apprenticeships and employment contracts, often with former slave owners. The Black Codes also established systems of renting convicts and vagabond laws that incentivized the arrest, imprisonment and subsequent slavery of blacks. These laws criminalized poverty, unemployment, and homelessness to meet the labor needs of former slave owners after emancipation.
A recent poll commissioned by Worth Rises found that 68% of Americans are unaware that there is an exception in the Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution — the amendment celebrated for the abolition of slavery. Another 20% think there is an exception if the outgoing president decides as part of a war effort or in the interest of public safety. Fortunately, these exceptions do not exist, but slavery still exists. The state constitution currently prohibits slavery and involuntary serfdom, except in the latter case to punish a crime. The new wording states that slavery and involuntary servitude are prohibited, but the provision “does not apply to otherwise lawful criminal justice.” While some might argue that some prison work is technically voluntary, this ignores the fact that for an incarcerated person, refusal to work can result in loss of privileges, solitary confinement or denial of parole. It also overlooks the idea that basic necessities sold to incarcerated people are often exorbitantly expensive, especially in relation to the wages they earn. Exploitation and coercion are at the heart of it all.
The boundaries between slavery and involuntary servitude and prison labor differ in some cases by only a few cents per dollar. And Hughes in Vermont said, “Who knows?” what the impact will be. “I just want to abolish slavery. Under the so-called punitive clause, Southern sheriffs hired black prisoners from plantation owners—sometimes the same people they once owned as slaves—for free labor that benefited both police and planters. This lucrative system of “slavery under another name” persisted into the 20th century. It was so widespread that by the turn of the 20th century, nearly three-quarters of Alabama`s income came from forced labor by blacks. Voters in Alabama, Louisiana, Oregon, Tennessee and Vermont will decide state constitutional amendments that prohibit slavery and involuntary servitude in some cases except for incarcerators` labor. Proponents say the changes are necessary to remove outdated language from state constitutions and potentially change the criminal justice system by making all prison work voluntary. Will the adoption of the abolition amendment undo the close relationship between the United States? Prison system and slavery? It will be up to the courts and the will of the people – us – to see that. And first, we must accept that a system based on white supremacy and human humiliation cannot be the foundation of a judicial system. We must abolish slavery without exception and drop the cards where they can.
Because what we can`t do is cling so much to our prison system that we are now knowingly engaging in slavery again. The United States cannot deal with the legacy of slavery in good faith while allowing the remnants of that economy to remain. Dehumanization allowed the evils of slavery. Dehumanization allows slavery and involuntary servitude to continue under the guise of a prison state. While it is not wise to merge the specific horrors of slavery equally with those of the modern prison state, we should use the teachings of slavery to inform what we do today.
