PROBLEM

Systemic racism has continued to thrive in this country whilst having modern slavery through the prison industrial complex under the 13th amendment’s exception clause for involuntary servitude.

Private prisons should be illegal and non-profit in nature. The Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program and Prison Industries Act incentivizes corporations to pay for wage deductions at a fraction of the cost it would take for a free person to be hired. Private prisons build facilities before they're needed, with the intent of filling up beds. Prisons have contracts to fill these beds up, and ALEC (The American Legislative Exchange Council) is responsible for consuming corporate lobbying to write bills to place individuals within this cycle, 40% of them being African American, and the rest of the majority being minorities.

The 13th Amendment clearly states:

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.

The first section of the amendment clearly has an exception to the abolishment of slavery if you're convicted of a crime. We have laws in place that allow a perpetual system incentivizing the incarceration of individuals for monetary gain. We haven't abolished slavery, we've recreated it. We have more African American prisoners than we did slaves, the system has abhorrently failed in eliminating the crisis, they've just re-architected the model in which it exists.

"Involuntary servitude" is defined as:

"a person laboring against that person's will to benefit another, under some form of coercion other than the worker's financial needs."

By The Department of Justice's own definition of involuntary servitude within Section 1581 of U.S.C 18, they would be contradicting themselves and committing a crime if this clause wasn't explicitly written in the 13th amendment.

U.S.C 18 - Section 1581

Involuntary Servitude

"Section 1581 of Title 18 makes it unlawful to hold a person in a condition of slavery, that is, a condition of compulsory service or labor against his/her will."

SOLUTION

1. Draft and ratify a bill removing the exception and involuntary servitude clause from the first section of the 13th amendment.

2. Draft and ratify a bill making for-profit prison's illegal, convert all existing publicly traded and privately held companies into a non-profit structure or face fines and jail time. If any other company had a business where humans were kept in cages and trading labor for pennies on the dollar, it would be human trafficking, which is ironically defined under involuntary servitude in U.S.C 18 - Section 1581. These are the new slave masters of America.

3. Draft and ratify a bill abolishing corporate use of prison labor at a reduced wage. This also incentivizes companies to keep the prison industrial complex thriving, utilizing labor at a fraction of the cost it would take to hire a free person. A better solution would be to hire prisoners at the federal minimum wage standard.

4. Draft and ratify a bill barring corporate lobbying from influencing ALEC proposals, it is after all, supposed to be non-profit, and allowing monetary influences to structure the laws of this country is egregious.