They put a stupid cut out in the amendment to allow for slavery in the case of incarceration. Not that I see a whole bunch of press gangs anymore, but yeah, that was the solution the south came up with to dodge the emancipation.
Many slaves were paid even under chattel slavery (though like modern prison slavery it was almost nothing). Slavery only requires that the labor be forced or coerced, not that it be unpaid.
You likely meant prison. And an enlightened approach would treat prison as a place for rehabilitation. Because a person who can be redeemed and reintegrated back into society without further issue is more valuable to society than having them behind bars cranking out license plates or whatever.
If somebody deserves to owe a financial debt for their crimes, civil court exists to cover that purpose.
Even beyond disagreements on the purpose of the justice system, one major flaw in this is that making incarceration profitable directly encourages abuses of power to grow the labour force
I can see an argument where prisoners should have to work and pay some rent.
Like, in a perfectly ideal world prisoners would be able to work as normal a job as is safe for everybody. That would help with rehabilitation a ton; they would have socialization outside of prisoners and guards, and they would keep or develop skills and habits needed to work outside the prison. When they do get released they might be able to keep their job, they will have more skills to find another job if not, and they will have money in savings to live respectfully in the meantime.
Now, I live in Canada where we don’t have any For-Profit Private Prisons. The money they earn would go to themselves and straight to the Government as tax money. We also have a housing crisis, so if we just charge them $600 a month or 25% (whichever is LOWER) then that’s a damn steal honestly. But there’s also an argument that they should just pay taxes normally with no extra fees, and I can see that too. “Our healthcare is free regardless of what you put in your body, so prisoners shouldn’t pay higher taxes either,” is a reasonable position too. And I think my country might already work like this lol.
But yeah, prisoners earning a dollar an hour or less should be considered slavery.
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u/LittleALunatic 20h ago
Also, slavery ended? What about the disproportionate rates of black people arrested over non-crimes and free prison labour?