26 ms·
The US cares about small crimes to fill-in slave positions at jails.
by Pakdef 4y ago
The US cares about small crimes to fill-in slave positions at jails.
- mushbino 4y agoPeople talk about the 13th amendment ending slavery, but in reality it just codified it into the constitution. Jim Crow and then the prison industrial complex followed.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- kthielen 4y agoOh really? How did the 13th amendment codify slavery? For some reason I thought that the civil war ended slavery but you must know better. Please explain.
- travisjungroth 4y agoNeither 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.
- kthielen 4y agoSo the problem is that incarcerated criminals lose their freedom? That’s what you object to?
- batch12 4y agoCaptivity, forced labor, and unsafe conditions as a result of subjective sentencing and a fallible criminal justice system.
- kthielen 4y agoHuh, so what are you arguing for exactly? No justice system? What happens to murderers?
- betwixthewires 4y agoI don't think anyone is arguing for anything man, they're just pointing out that forcing people to work, conviction or not, is, in fact, slavery. If you think that slavery in those cases is justified, that's a different discussion. But it is slavery, plain and simple.
- kthielen 4y agoYou are right, except to the extent that “people SAY the 13th amendment ended slavery but it really codified it man” recasts what happened in the civil war and what purpose people had in fighting and dying to get it passed. Some people today want the glory of abolitionist revolution without having to pay with their own blood. Yeah, maybe you can make an argument that the justice system can work differently in one way or another with diff tradeoffs, but if you set up the argument so that you’re in a morally superior position to the people who fought and died in the civil war to end slavery, you should expect and you definitely deserve very strong opposition.
- markdown 4y agoNah, criminals all over the world lose their freedom. They aren't turned into slaves https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/15/us-prison-workers-low-wages-exploited https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/15/us-prison-wo...
- kthielen 4y agoIn some places, criminals are killed much more quickly as punishment. Should we do that instead, because some countries do it? Or maybe we should figure out what we want to do by argument and consensus, instead of blindly following the old colonialists and ex-fascists in Europe?
- markdown 4y ago> In some places, criminals are killed much more quickly as punishment. Should we do that instead, because some countries do it? You do. USA is a world leader in killing criminals. Only China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt kill more per year. > Or maybe we should figure out what we want to do by argument and consensus, instead of blindly following the old colonialists and ex-fascists in Europe? You don't do that. You blindly follow some 20yr old colonials who scribbled out a constitution 200 years ago.
- kthielen 4y ago> Only China, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt kill more per year. So you're saying we could do better I guess. > You don't do that. You blindly follow some 20yr old colonials > who scribbled out a constitution 200 years ago. I guess, but maybe better to follow 20 year old colonials who wrote a constitution 200 years ago than to blindly follow inbred royal families with even poorer claims to power? I mean, as long as we're just throwing insults at this point, you have to see that Europe is at least as ridiculous (and at least when it comes to politics, arguably much worse).
- markdown 4y agoAnd which royal families have claim to power? Do you really think kings and queens still rule in Europe, like in Disney fairytales?
- travisjungroth 4y agoNo, I answered your question before you edited it. You asked something to the effect of "How does the 13th amendment codify slavery?". This is Section 1 of the 13th amendment, that has an explicit exemption under which slavery is not unconstitutional.
- coddingtonbear 4y agoIf you give the 13th amendment a read, it contains this clause: > except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted It does otherwise end slavery, but provides the above loophole for continuing similar practices.
- kthielen 4y agoDo you object to the “duly convicted” part? What do you think should happen to convicted criminals instead?
- abvdasker 4y agoI think they object to the continuing to allow slavery part.
- kthielen 4y agoBut “slavery” for incarcerated criminals? What exactly do you want to do with them? Like, after you’ve convinced everyone that you’re morally superior to everyone else, do murderers get to walk free?
- bryanrasmussen 4y agoThe 13th amendment does not end incarceration it ends slavery and involuntary servitude. Thus it allows you to enslave criminals and force them to work for you without in any way taking away from the obvious ability to incarcerate them.
- abvdasker 4y agoThere's no reason for scare quotes given the specific carveout for slavery which exists in the Constitution. If you have an issue with that verbiage, take it up with the 38th United States Congress and Abraham Lincoln. > do murderers get to walk free? You're arguing against an extreme position that nobody actually holds. Most reasonable people would probably point to criminal justice as implemented in many European countries as exemplifying a more humane model which produces better long term results. The carveout for the enslavement of incarcerated people also created a perverse incentive which played out predictably in the wake of Reconstruction's failure. If you're interested in the long and painful history of this fact here's a useful resource: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4kI2h3iotA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j4kI2h3iotA
- evanb 4y agohttps://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-13/ https://constitution.congress.gov/constitution/amendment-13/ > 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. So XIII explicitly allows for criminals to be worked without reward. Of course equating that with chattel slavery (which was prohibited by XIII)...
- kthielen 4y agoRight, but what’s the problem exactly?
- yieldcrv 4y agoThat there is no rehabilitation, only punitive. This undermines the domestic security of the US (as the convicts are still in a marginalized status after the sentence is over and also not rehabilitated, promoting destructive behaviors) And its purpose is specially for a slave population. Some developed nations have reevaluated this, to have convicts be rehabilitated and more collaborative members of society. And the inhumane conditions in the US prisons - for slaves - being valid arguments to prevent extradition.
- pabs3 4y agoRehabilitative justice is better than retributive justice, but I'm partial to transformative justice; fix the system that lead to the crimes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restorative_justice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Restorative_justice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rehabilitative_justice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rehabilitative_justice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformative_justice https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transformative_justice
- evanb 4y agoI'm not interested in fighting on the internet. You asked > How did the 13th amendment codify slavery? It codified it the above sense.
- ETH_start 4y agoForced labor as a punishment for crimes is typically defined as slavery.
- ETH_start 4y ago*not defined
- mushbino 4y agoIt is, which is why it's specifically classified as such in the constitution. "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."
- ETH_start 4y agoThe amendment also references "involuntary servitude", which would apply to penal labor absent an explicit exemption on that.
- seizethecheese 4y agoWait, are people in jail forced to work or is it opt-in?
- bryanrasmussen 4y agoHow it works is up to the state, for example in Utah it is opt in if you are in a part of the system where you can work. However Utah has a parole board to determine when to release you on parole, thus if you get sentenced on a 2rd degree felony 1-15 years, then it is up to the Parole board if you do one year and get parole or 15 years without parole. So the system says they want everyone to have a job in the prison as part of their rehabilitation, if you refuse a job then you are obviously not trying to rehabilitate therefore when you come up to the parole board you will not be getting that 1 year parole, but serving out your sentence (next hearing 2 years probably) so when you want to not do 15 years you take the job and you do a good job to show the board you are getting rehabilitated. Of course the wages are very low, but still the monetary incentives to get a job still exist as you can purchase overpriced items from the commissary, and it can be nice to have those items, so people who don't have anyone to put money on their account will work to earn that money. I believe in a number of the Southern states, historically familiar with slavery, the forced labor emphasizes the forced much more.
- Pakdef 4y agoFor a lot of them, their slave work is basically sitting in a cell so that the for-profit prison gets a paycheck from the government. https://truthout.org/articles/for-profit-prisons-eight-statistics-that-show-the-problems/ https://truthout.org/articles/for-profit-prisons-eight-stati...
- dang 4y agoMaybe so, but please don't post unsubstantive comments to Hacker News. Especially not on inflammatory topics. It leads to dumbed-down, predictable conversation and that's what we're trying to avoid here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html