My guess it that the word "slavery" usually implies chattel slavery, whereas these people were serving sentences of penal servitude. Others have pointed this o

My guess it that the word "slavery" usually implies chattel slavery, whereas these people were serving sentences of penal servitude. Others have pointed this out, but penal servitude is alive and well in the US prison system as well [1] and it's not common to use the word slavery for that. Maybe they should, but it is arguably a different concept from chattel slavery. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labor_in_the_United_States http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penal_labor_in_the_United_State...