Exception for No Slavery in America

We Americans think there is no slavery in America. I know where to find one exception to this idea: prison. 

I give you another, that echoes what I heard at Fort Dix FCI: The 13th Amendment’s fatal flaw created modern-day convict slavery by Kwasi Konadu and Clifford C. Campbell.

“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude,” the amendment reads, “except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

In other words, slavery still exists in America, but the only people whose labor can be enslaved are those convicted of a crime.

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Today, the United States has the largest prison population in the world, with an estimated 2.2 million incarcerated people. For many of them, the 13th amendment’s exception has become a rule of forced labor. Over 20 states still include the exception clause in their own state constitutions. Thirty-eight states have programs in which for-profit companies have factories in their prisons. Prisoners perform everything from picking cotton to manufacturing goods to fighting forest fires.

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 In some cases, inmates are paid less than a penny an hour. And many who served their sentences leave prison in debt, having worked without the protections of the Fair Labor Standards Act or the National Labor Relations Act."

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 But given the political realities and economic imperatives at play, free prison labor will persist in America for the foreseeable future, leaving in serious doubt the idea of American freedom – and abundant evidence of modern-day convict slavery.

No mention of the federal prison system's Unicor program. The east compound of Fort Dix FCI broke down computers. Not sure how that helped any of its employees re-enter civil society. You might also want to read Apparel Jobs Are Still Available In Federal Prison - Is That What We Want? from Forbes.

Think about it. 

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 1/27/22