Voters in the United States have been told repeatedly over recent months (for good reason): “Democracy is on the ballot.” As we continue to wait for results from the final key US House and Senate races, it’s a good time to remember that in five states, something else — indeed, something fundamental to democracy — was on the ballot during yesterday’s elections: freedom from slavery. Voters in Louisiana, Alabama, Tennessee, Oregon, and Vermont were asked to approve or reject measures to amend their state constitutions to prohibit the use of slavery and involuntary servitude as punishment for a crime.
The measures passed in four of these states; but in Louisiana, 61 percent of voters said no, cementing for the foreseeable future the legal authority to enslave individuals convicted of crimes in Louisiana. (When this blog was written, over 95 percent of votes had been counted.) Across the United States, incarcerated individuals are disproportionately Black, Brown, and low-income. In Louisiana, where the infamous Angola prison — “the prison where slavery never ended” — is located, Black individuals make up over two-thirds of the incarcerated population, despite making up less than one-third of the state population. Nearly 700 out of every 100,000 Louisianians are incarcerated. These individuals are not allowed to vote — a bleak reminder that policies inflicting harm on communities of color are rarely ushered in by those most affected.
Even now, well over a dozen state constitutions allow forced labor for convicted individuals. As we wrote in a report released last week, US corporations routinely exploit this captive labor force for profit — and those private incentives bolster the politics of white supremacy, mass incarceration, the erroneous myth that coerced labor is “rehabilitative,” and the dehumanizing and deplorable American trope that the incarcerated are somehow less human, less important, and less deserving of rights. Even in states where there is constitutional protection from forced labor within prisons (Colorado, Utah, Nebraska, and Rhode Island), incarcerated workers suffer immensely.
How, in 2022, is any of this possible? The answer is easy, even if the history from which it springs is difficult to swallow: fourteen words in the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution make forced labor in prisons not only legal at the federal level, but constitutionally enshrined.
“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.”
That single phrase has allowed forced labor to continue in the United States since the Thirteenth Amendment’s ratification in 1865.
There is, however, good news! Yesterday’s election results gave momentum to a national movement to #endtheexception (led by the Abolish Slavery National Network). We urge everyone, as you wait for the balance of power in Congress to be decided, to contact your representatives and demand they pass House Joint Resolution 53 and Senate Joint Resolution 21, identical proposals to amend the US Constitution “to prohibit the use of slavery and involuntary servitude as a punishment for a crime.”
Democracy is in peril in the United States — for new and old reasons. No matter the results of the 2022 midterm elections, we have an opportunity to dismantle at least one racist, punitive institution that continues to hold our country hostage to our own history. Let’s take it.
Reynolds Taylor is a Staff Attorney at Corporate Accountability Lab and co-author of our recent report, Convicted: How Corporations Exploit The Thirteenth Amendment’s Loophole For Profit.
