“I spent 25 years in slavery. It was traumatizing, it was painful, physically and mentally. I felt sub-human, demeaned, socially dead.” Said Curtis Ray Davis, Executive Director of Decarcerate Louisiana, and formerly incarcerated
A staggeringly disproportionate number of Black Americans are part of the estimated 2 million people incarcerated in the United States right now. All of them are caught in a legal system of slavery.
Despite its stated objective to abolish slavery in 1865, under the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution slavery and involuntary servitude remain legal as punishment for a crime through the “Exception Clause”. This means that for incarcerated people, being subjected to forced labor behind bars is an everyday risk.
It is shocking that in the 21st century, the U.S. is still grappling with the legacy of racist policies in the form of a legal system of slavery perpetuated through mass incarceration and the prison industrial complex.
The exploitation of U.S. prison labor runs deep into our supply chains. Mechanisms such as the Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program, through which corporations are incentivized to “establish joint ventures with federal, local and tribal corrections agencies”, are indicative of an inherently exploitative system of intertwined government and corporate interests that create the conditions for forced and coerced labor in detention to thrive. The “Exception Clause” leaves incarcerated people completely unprotected from forced labor at the hands of corporations.
According to the Sentencing Project: “Black men are six times as likely to be incarcerated as white men […] For Black men in their thirties, about 1 in very 12 is in prison or jail on any given day. This is not only a human rights issue but a racial justice issue. As President Joe Biden announced at the start of Black History Month a few weeks ago, there is a need to “reckon with centuries of injustice and confront these injustices that still fester today”. Outlawing slavery is a good place to start.
Though the ILO states that incarcerated people should not be forced to work under threat of penalty it is evident how the prison industrial complex in the U.S. falls far short of these international standards. People incarcerated in the vast U.S. prison system report being threatened with solitary confinement, limited visitation rights, physical abuselimited access to food and longer sentences, if they refuse to work.
Fortunately, we are seeing progress. Last year, Senator Jeff Merkley and Representative Nikema Williams introduced the Abolition Amendment, a joint resolution to strike language permitting slavery as punishment for a crime from the U.S. Constitution.
Lawmakers across the US are also making progress to eliminate language in their state constitutions that still allow slavery as punishment for a crime. Since 2018, Colorado, Utah and Nebraska have successfully eliminated the “Exception Clause” from their constitutions. And in 2021, Senator Zellnor Myrie introduced a bill in New York state to prohibit involuntary employment of prisoners.
In a global campaign initiated by Freedom United, more than 13,000 have added their voice calling on Congress to pass the Abolition Amendment – but there is still a long way to go. That’s why it stressed the need to keep the spotlight on this issue to see Congress take action.
Reflecting on history, it becomes clear that the proliferation of forced prison labor is an intentional component of a fundamentally inhumane prison system designed to provide labor for pennies to line the pockets of corporations.
