The 13th Amendment abolished slavery in the United States in 1865, with one exception: compulsory labor in prisons.
“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,” it reads.
Nearly 160 years later, the United States is one of only 17 countries that still impose compulsory work, according to a report released this week by Walk Free, an Australian human rights organization, in collaboration with the United Nations’ International Labor Organization and International Organization for Migration.
The category encompasses state-sanctioned forced labor in militaries, fields, factories and prisons. In many U.S. prisons, inmates are compelled to work for far below minimum wage and without other legal protections.
Types of state-imposed labor vary — from prisons, both state and federal, public and private, as in the United States, to the widespread use of work camps and abuse of conscripts in highly repressive countries […]
Why allow the “offenders” to work off some of the cost of their offences while being incarcerated by working on maintanence of public parks, cleaning streets and roadways, etc. What is gained by them sitting around in jails or prisons doing nothing productive?
I agree with you Wilma. I, however, would rather be killed than put into a prison, if I did something wrong, because I am not afraid of death.