The Thirteenth Amendment: Slavery & Imprisonment

“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, 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.”  The thirteenth amendment, ratified in 1865, after the Civil War, abolished slavery where one individual is the property of another. However, the “except as punishment for crime” clause still makes slavery legal in America. In fact, it sparked the increased growth of the prison population in American, especially among African Americans, that has existed for hundreds of years. Therefore the two million Americans that are currently incarcerated, are legal slaves, and can be used as free labor. 

This is often called “modern-day” slavery; however, it looks very similar to the chattel slavery that occured before the Civil War. After the constitution abolished slavery, states in the south created “black codes” that imprisoned Black people for minor, new, and essentially made up offenses such as not showing proper respect or staying up too late. Additionally, in 1871, Ruffin v. Commonwealth legally declared the distinction between enslaved people and incarcerated people. Therefore, America experienced a “prison boom” in the 19th century, particularly giving rise to the mass incarceration of Black Americans. In a system called “convict leasing”, incarcerated individuals would be leased as labor to private businesses such as plantations and mines. With the increase of incarcerated individuals, came the rise of large prisons, many of which were built on and named after old plantations. The free labor of black incarcerated individuals served as a replacement to the practice of chattel slavery. 

Today, Black people are still imprisoned at five times the rate of white people, and such prisons still exists. One example is the Louisiana State Penitentiary which is referred to as Angola, the name of the plantation on which it is built on. Prisoners at Angola and throughout the South are paid nothing for their labor, while all profits are given to private prison companies. The exception clause in the thirteenth amendment enables thousands of inmates, including those who are wrongly imprisoned, to be slaves, with prisons and organizations receiving the fruits of their labor.