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.”It was used en masse with turn of the century vagrancy laws to arrest Black people who didn't have enough cash on hand, then send them to other states to work and/or die in coal mines as essentially slave labor.
Even happened to children who committed minor crimes.
The 13th Amendment provides incentive to incarcerate, and with private prison industries existing period, that incentive probably should not exist at all.
Good luck, the US is still trying to get the equal rights amendment (which everyone basically agrees with) ratified for going on 54 years now.
I cant imagine the process gyrations and political wrangling it would take to convince our political leadership in congress and basically every red state legislature to take on a new amendment specifically tuned just towards prisoner’s rights.
It's worse because slavery is a harmful incentive to keep people UNFAIRLY imprisoned.
Every single innocence project has years or decades of backlogged cases.
Permitted, not "enshrined". It doesn't mandate it, it allows it. And despite being allowed, all US convicts are paid wages. No one is sentenced to labor, hard or otherwise.
https://www.bop.gov/inmates/custody_and_care/work_programs.j...
I suppose you could consider 15 cents an hour “paid wages”, but to me that’s just a bad veneer for what our system truly is.