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Should we ban slavery in the United States with zero exceptions?
13th: 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.
Quote:
Although the Thirteenth Amendment to the Constitution formally abolished slavery and involuntary servitude in 1865, the text created an exception for the punishment of crimes “whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.” Two years later, Congress passed The Anti-Peonage Act in an attempt to prohibit the practice of coerced labor for debt.
Yet, in the wake of the Civil War, Southern states innovated ways to impose peonage but avoid violations of the law, including criminal surety statutes that allowed employers to pay the court fines for indigent misdemeanants charged with minor offenses in exchange for a commitment to work.
Surplus from these payments padded public coffers (as well as the pockets of court officials), and when workers’ debt records were subsequently “lost” or there was an allegation of breach, surety contracts were extended, and workers became further indebted to local planters and merchants.
Several decades later in Bailey v. Alabama (1911) and United States v. Reynolds(1914), the Supreme Court invalidated laws criminalizing simple contractual breaches, which Southern states had used to skirt the general provisions of the Anti-Peonage Act. Yet, these decisions ultimately had little impact on the “ever-turning wheel of servitude,” and the practice persisted under alternative forms until after World War II.
There is also the issue of "debtor's prison" which was ruled unconstitutional via the 14th amendment in 1970 in the Williams vs. Illinois case. https://www.oyez.org/cases/1969/1089
Either way, it's odd to me that we passed the 13th amendment, only to leave a loophole which was quickly exploited after the Civil War. In fact, slavery as punishment for a crime still continues today in our prisons. Many States have a $0 MAXIMUM wage for incarcerated labor.
Do not get me wrong, prison is supposed to be a punishment, but there is incentive to put people in prison when public and private companies make money off that labor. That alone is questionable policy.
There is no way free men and women can compete with a $0 maximum wage.
Perhaps the guilty should be divided into two groups. Group A spends all day digging ditches on the west side of the prison. Group B spends all day filling in ditches on the east side.
The next day they swap places, and continue.
No competition with public jobs.
Except maybe road-repair crews who get $50/hr to (apparently) do the same thing.
Perhaps the guilty should be divided into two groups. Group A spends all day digging ditches on the west side of the prison. Group B spends all day filling in ditches on the east side.
The next day they swap places, and continue.
Sounds like something from the second book of the Divine Comedy.
lol What a silly poll. It's about defending rights and liberty. When you don't have a means to do so then rights don't matter so why have them at all.
I actually think this is an interesting thread.
I don't see work done in prison as a violation of any law. even at no or very low pay. although I have strange ideas about what prison should look like.
Depends on the job in prison. If it's stuff like cleaning or cooking, landscaping or minor repairs, that's basically taking care of your home. I don't get paid for taking care of my place.
When you start getting into things that should be handled by professionals, it gets gray.
I would like to see the jobs come with a track to certification if you don't pay them. Getting a culinary or plumbing certificate can help people when they get out.
If you paid minimum wage, the prison would start charging crazy fees and it'd be like the sharecropper mess. They'd probably wind up with less than they currently get.
I don't have a problem with prisoners being paid sub-minimum-wage for work done while incarcerated - after all they are being subsidized by taxpayers while in there and don't have to worry about paying numerous bills that apply to people outside of prison. (Although I think that any private companies they work for should be required to pay the difference between the actual pay the prisoner gets and how much they'd pay a non-incarcerated person to said level of government to eliminate the incentive to hire low- or no-cost prison labor.)
Last edited by KellyXY; 01-09-2018 at 08:01 AM..
Reason: clarification
This sounds like a poll that was started by a Liberal. Most people make a choice in committing a crime or not and some get caught. Why should we be soft on these people while their victims that did not make the choice to become a victim are still picking up the pieces?
I think we should be tougher on criminals and they might think twice about committing crimes.
For those that are still caught and go to prison I think it is better to have them doing something other then just sitting around. Maybe it is a form of slavery to have them work for pennies but at least it is optional.
I wonder if most of the world has the same concerns for the well being of their prisoners or is it only an American concern?
It's becoming increasingly apparent that as a mature society advances toward post-industrialism, filling the jobs nobody wants, and assuming the responsibilities nobody wants will become more of an issue; and that no matter how much the do-gooders deny it, vagrancy will be a growing problem. The ranks of those who can relate to the days when deaths of women in childbirth created a pool of unattached (and unwanted) men are diminishing rapidly.
Until the turn of the Twentieth Century, the law of the street was a simple "Work or suffer/die"; we won't go back to that, but a pattern is clearly evolving whereby those who absolutely refuse even to pay lip service to an increasingly-sensitized societal ethic are going to find themselves confined to an existence that offers very little -- in one way or another; the rest is mostly a matter of fine-tuning.
I don't have a problem with prisoners being paid sub-minimum-wage for work done while incarcerated - after all they are being subsidized by taxpayers while in there and don't have to worry about paying numerous bills that apply to people outside of prison. (Although I think that any private companies they work for should be required to pay the difference between the actual pay the prisoner gets and how much they'd pay a non-incarcerated person to said level of government to eliminate the incentive to hire low- or no-cost prison labor.)
Let them earn some of their subsidized stay in a cell, earn a little something, and develop skills they can use to work once out? Sounds like actually attempting to rehabilitate people. Marvelous!
We should bring back debtors prison too.
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