The Civil War was, without question, one of the most impactful events in U.S. history. After four years of the toughest combat America has ever faced, Congress finally banned slavery — with a catch. As stated by the 13th Amendment, slavery is still legal “as a punishment for crime.”
For nearly two centuries now, this loophole has been ruthlessly exploited for financial gain. Prisons would force their inmates to work long hours for almost no pay, and sometimes prisoners would literally be rented out to private corporations. Today, the “prison-industrial complex” remains obscenely profitable. Workers that earn a couple cents per hour generate billions of dollars every year.
Lately, Missouri’s been taking good steps. “The Workhouse,” a St. Louis prison known for its terrible working conditions, was demolished this September. Districts are embracing reformative and not punitive justice. Even so, our penal labor system is still a national problem. Our justice system should be about creating reformed citizens who don’t commit more crimes. It shouldn’t be about punishing people for the sake of doing so, and it definitely shouldn’t be about providing slave labor to multi-billion dollar corporations.
Our national anthem describes us as “the land of the free.”
Let’s keep it that way.
