Correction: The US still has not abolished slavery.
It is still legal in the case of prisoners: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteenth_Amendment_to_the_Un...
It is still legal in the case of prisoners: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thirteenth_Amendment_to_the_Un...
there is zero financial motivation for the state for prevention or rehab or any other activities to reduce imprisonment rates
did I mention disenfranchisement of the imprisoned?
That seems…unlikely.
i.e. its not a good motivation to increase the number of prisoners (even if one looses less money per prisoner, more prisoners will mean more loss), but it does motivate investigating ways on how one can minimize the loss on individual prisoners.
The explosion of incarceration and the private prisons resulting from that largely come from "the war on drugs". The book The New Jim Crow is pretty good if you're interested in the topic.
For state employees (i.e. representatives, judges, etc.)? Some get kickbacks.
See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kids_for_cash_scandal
See: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/dhs-contractors-told-wh...
Alas, the "kids for cash" scandal was such a big news event that it dominates the results for any search you'd do on the subject of private prison corruption, but it's hardly the only example.
The interests of the criminal justice system on the other hand is heavily financially benefited from the current state of affairs. More incarcerations means more judges, more lawyers, more job security.
Moves to correct this are labeled as “soft of crime” and surely my opponent Congresswoman Y isn’t pro crime?
"What's the financial motivation for the state" is way too blinkered and makes at least 2 different false assumptions. There are other motivations besides financial, and it doesn't have to be the state's own motivation for the state to end up doing something.
Countless government policies and programs exist which give no legitimate benefit to the state or the people, no legitimate motivation, financial or otherwise, yet they exist anyway because they do benefit and motivate someone, financially or otherwise, who has some mechanism of influence to cause it to happen.
This is almost like asking "Why would anyone do something bad?" Gosh golly why indeed? 517,000 reasons and 124 new ones every day.
and the state as all citizens, including those affected by gang and drug related violence also would benefit from dong things differently.
it's those who benefit off the current prison labor system who lobby to keep it running, and they make it seem "natural" and "without alternatives"...
and "the state" (as the tax collecting entity) pays for the prisons and the inmates while the labor "providing" companies benefit off the labor.
it's a very very clever system.
enslavement without being called such.
and I agree, no, "the state" (as the totality of citizens) doesn't benefit.
only "the state" as the entity that's controlled by lobbyists and _pretends_ being by the people, for the people, that has no motivation to change this.
"Jarvious Cotton cannot vote. Like his father, grandfather, great-grandfather, and great-great-grandfather, he has been denied the right to participate in our electoral democracy"
Prisoners aren't 'slaves'. They are being punished for crimes they committed. Very dofferent than being born into it and bought/sold to the highest bidder.
The punishment is being locked up in a cell. Being forced to work on top of that is the slavery.
Why is it not part of the punishment?
I think it is dependent upon interpretation. Otherwise arresting and locking up can be interpreted as kidnapping and so on.
I do agree that they should be fairly compensated though.
Indeed it is part of the punishment. As an earlier comment in this thread points out from the 13th amendment:
> "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime" (emphasis added by me)
They're not. That's why it's slavery. And slavery of prisoners is permitted by the Constitution, which is the main point here.
AMENDMENT XIII
Section 1. 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.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
And yes indeed you are correct that the sate does commit theft and declare it legal for itself.
Prisoners that are made to perform any useful work that anyone else benefits from are slaves, not merely prisoners.
If you want to invoke the word "logic" you should actually employ it.
It's also trivially easy to not end up in involuntary servitude.
Stupid people always say nonsense like this as if no person in prison is innocent.
If you happen to be the one dying for no reason would you consider that just a trivial unfortunate edge case?
Educate yourself:
https://deathpenaltyinfo.org/policy-issues/policy/innocence
Every day I am happy many here are techies and not politicians.
Look, you're not entirely wrong. But you're not entirely right, either.
In some states, the prisons are privately run and the prison labour is part of the profit motive. They have no incentive to rehabilitate and the states with these "programs" have some of the highest recidivism rates in the USA.
That also ignores the fact that some people are born into situations that make it far harder to live a "legit" life than others, and I'm not even talking about historical racism as part of that equation (which certainly does contribute).
I'm also NOT saying that prisoners shouldn't be made to work, but it should be outside of a system designed to exploit them.