The 13th Amendment states “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.”
While we may think slavery was abolished after the Civil War, it still continues and is supported by the Constitution. The prison industrial complex is something that none of the presidential candidates seem to look at.
The privatization of prisons is a major problem Americans seem not to care about. Americans want to save Darfur but do not want to save people of color in prisons who are nothing more than 21st century slaves in the “prison industrial complex.”
This is not provocative, it is the truth. The 13th Amendment says so.
Blacks make up 12 percent of the American population but represent around 40 percent of the prison population. Chicano/Latinos represent 15 percent of the American population but represent around 20 percent of the prison population. If we look at history, corporations and the state have been making money from black labor since after the Civil War, and this is called convict leasing.
I am not undermining the fact that there are whites in prison, but not to the extent of blacks and Chicano/Latinos. The majority of people who are imprisoned are underemployed the year before their imprisonment or lack employment at all. Thus, is it a problem of people of color’s criminal nature? No! It is a problem of capitalism and racism.
Kyle Mays
social relations and policy senior (also a YDS/W.E.B Dubois Society Member)
Published on Tuesday, January 15, 2008
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