Politics Philosophized: The end of slavery — Part 2

Part 2: American slavery and the 13th Amendment

It is a common belief that slavery was abolished by the 13th Amendment, but a closer look at Section One of this amendment will disprove that idea.

I am not a member of the Black, Indigenous and People of Color community, and would like to acknowledge my privilege as a white person. I have never been impacted in the same way many within the BIPOC community have been by incarceration or forced servitude. But, I want to respectfully shed light on the effects of modern-day slavery on this community.

Slavery has always been constitutionally protected. The Three-Fifths Compromise is an important example of this. The U.S. Constitution allowed for the South to have more members in the federal House of Representatives by counting three-fifths of slaves toward the overall population of the state. The compromise also codified slavery as an American institution, which empowered slave owners.

The first major advancement toward the abolition of slavery was in 1807, when the slave trade was banned. Ending legal trade, however, did not truly impact the institution, as many American slaves remained in bondage and households still relied on their labor.

Traditional slavery continued legally until the 1865 passage of the 13th Amendment, which states that “neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted” is allowed in the United States. So, involuntary servitude — aka slavery — is still legal for those who are serving time for a crime.

As a result of this amendment, our country still manages to profit off of slavery.

Unpaid labor is rampant throughout U.S. correctional facilities. The Louisiana State Penitentiary, also dubbed Angola, is a perfect example. Once a plantation, Angola is now a prison that forces inmates to work on a large farm, with threats as severe as solitary confinement looming over those who refuse labor.

Even a liberal stronghold like the state of California benefits from the institution of prison labor. Prisoners were paid just $1.45 a day to do life-threatening work fighting the state’s wildfires — their labor was valued over their lives.

The 13th Amendment simply allowed a transfer of slave ownership from the individual to the state. With the highest number of prisoners around the globe, the United States is in turn the largest state-enforced system of modern slavery in the world.

You might be asking why this matters. Why should I care about the plight of the imprisoned?

First, you have to understand that more than 2 million people are currently incarcerated in the U.S. — again, the highest number worldwide.

Many of the products you consume were produced by prison labor, and you probably don’t even know it. Walmart used prisoners to build a store — until 2005, when the company decided it would not support prison labor — and even to scrape codes off of products so that they could be resold.

Victoria’s Secret used prison labor to manufacture its garments and lowered production costs by not adequately paying inmates. TJX continues to exploit prisoners for production and has faced legal ramifications from shareholders, but has since agreed to disclose information regarding its use of prison labor.

What should be done about this issue? Truthfully, I do not know what would reform a system we are so dependent on.

A simple solution is to pay prisoners a fair wage and work on removing the 13th Amendment’s provision allowing for state-based slavery. But those are just words. We must determine how to deconstruct a powerful American institution so we can enact fundamental change in the criminal justice system.