Ending America’s Exception to Slavery

This Labor Day weekend, we will celebrate the social and economic achievements of American workers. Many of us will enjoy a paid day off, while roughly 800,000 imprisoned people could be forced to work against their will. According to an ACLU report, over 1 million people are incarcerated in the United States, and two-out-of-three incarcerated individuals make up one of the most exploited labor forces in the nation. Incarcerated workers generate billions of dollars in goods and services, while they are paid pennies per hour, or no pay at all. These workers lack any control over their employment and are stripped of their most basic protections against abuse and exploitation from their employers — turning captive labor into an extension of America’s long history of slavery.

From the moment individuals are incarcerated, they lose all rights to decide whether or not they participate in work — thanks to a loophole embedded in the passage of the 13th Amendment. While the 13th Amendment outlawed chattel slavery and involuntary servitude in the U.S., with its exception of labor as a punishment for a crime, it ushered in a new era of slavery.

Mass incarceration in America is rooted in the legacy of the U.S. slave trade and steeped in racial segregation and white supremacy. This case is so elegantly laid out by the Equal Justice Initiative’s (EJI) Legacy Museum and National Memorial for Peace and Justice in Montgomery, Alabama — which I had the privilege of visiting alongside my colleagues from New America. After the Civil War, the promise of equality during the Reconstruction Era was swiftly dashed by a surge in racial lynching and white violence against newly freed Black Americans, paving the way for the Jim Crow era. This period codified segregation through discriminatory legal codes that disproportionately targeted Black people and effectively re-enslaved them due to increased policing. Our prison system still feels the impacts of this to this day — from the war on drugs to the “super-predator myth,” which results in Black children being prosecuted as adults, to police brutality and murder — the modern prison landscape is proof of the nation’s failure to shake its foundation of racial hierarchy.

“It is all a hallucination to suppose that we are ever going to get rid of African slavery; or that it will ever be desirable to do so.”
— European visitor in Richmond in 1855, quote featured in the Legacy Museum

In fact, individuals and institutions have violently and fiercely upheld the white supremacist beginnings of the nation. For example, Justice Lewis Powell, in his statement for the majority in the McCleskey v. Kemp case of 1987, said that apparent racial “disparities in sentencing are an inevitable part of our criminal justice system”. The McCleskey decision left a lasting stain of racial bias on America’s criminal justice system. It helped foster a court system that tended to value the life of white Americans infinitely more than those of Black Americans, accounting for significantly more convictions for white victims compared to Black victims: 17 times more. At every step, race has been a factor and the prevailing force that has allowed slavery to persist, even if it goes by a different name.

Slavery’s legacy — from its beginnings to today’s prison-industrial complex — has endured, and an end to slavery requires real reform. Reform has to be brought to our prison system, as many incarcerated individuals do seek out experiences and opportunities to build essential skills needed to find gainful employment after release. But rather than creating meaningful experiences for those in prison, this work very often “offers nothing beyond exploitation.”

In the current system, not only do imprisoned workers not consider these skills transferable, 76 percent report being forced to work or else face additional punishment. And for many, the system has made it hard to find work after release — and with little to no money, what options are left? The prison system has created an endless cycle, and an endless source of exploitative labor. No individual deserves to be enslaved, and the current system stands diametrically opposed to the notion of freedom that we claim is embedded into the fabric of the nation.

The American prison system, including prison work, has the potential to be rehabilitative, but can it move beyond its resting state of exploitation? Organizations like the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee are working to try, through prisoner-led efforts, to end “the criminalization, exploitation, and enslavement of working class people”. And politicians are even taking it a step further: trying to close the “slavery loophole” baked into the 13th Amendment with the introduction of the Abolition Amendment earlier this summer.

“The current system stands diametrically opposed to the notion of freedom that we claim is embedded into the fabric of the nation.”

The Abolition Amendment — promoted by Rep. Nikema Williams (D-Ga.) and Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.) — would close that loophole and stop the continuous oppression of Black Americans through mass incarceration. The bill has been introduced into Congress and referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, but still progress remains necessary.

The U.S. is far from being done with slavery: Nearly 160 years after the ratification of the 13th Amendment, the United States has still failed to effectively outlaw forced labor within its borders. Rep. Williams states that within this country we have “nearly 2 million incarcerated people…who are subject to forced labor, to slavery”. To ensure equity and justice, we must mobilize efforts to ensure that forced labor, slavery of any kind, has no place within our nation. Several states so far have already taken steps toward this end by ratifying their state constitutions — four states just last year passed measures to rein in the use of prison labor. But more still needs to be done, and on a federal level.

Currently, the passing of the Abolition Amendment is crucial. As we enjoy our day off, parade around in American garb, throw parties, and spend time with loved ones, we must not forget about the 800,000 forced to work. We must support the efforts of policymakers and advocates by sharing the story of those imprisoned and forced to work, educating more people, and urging them to fight to bring an end to the slavery exception — to create a better country for all of us.

Follow The Thread! Subscribe to The Thread monthly newsletter to get the latest in policy, equity, and culture in your inbox the first Tuesday of each month.