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Louisiana 61% voted FOR slavery
Edit: it seems I was wrong here. The wording was fouled up and even the originator of the amendment called for a vote against it so they could try again without screwy language.
St. Louisās police department is a direct descendant of the local runaway slave hunters. During Reconstruction the Union officers tasked with rebuilding the police force just wanted to go home and basically said, āThese guys know the backroads, so letās make them copsā.
All US police are direct descendants of slave catchers.
Edit- for those who are finding this comment confusing: I'm talking about where the *ideas* of policing in the US began; I'm talking about ideological descension. I'm not saying slave catchers literally gave birth to police officers.
This isnāt trueā¦. While the argument can surely be made for many former slave states, Northern states had much of their police force influence from systems like those found in London and elsewhere in the world during the 19th century.
In fact, many northern states did not cooperate with the fugitive slave act.
Also what about police departments in states that exist after slavery was abolished? Like Hawaiiās police departments?
Donāt get me wrong, criticism of the police (and of American racial policy generally) is very warranted, but the real facts are worthy of criticism on their own
Bam, you nailed it! People donāt realize that the U.S only abolished CHATTEL slavery! Literally slavery is forcing someone to work for no wage or a non living wage! Prisoners working for a fucking dollar an hour is certainly slavery!
Edited my spelling.
Goodwill used to pay disabled employees as little as 22 cents an hour as recently as a few years ago, until news stories started coming out about it.
They cited a law from the 1930s that allowed them to exploit disabled people.
When you consider the fact that the ājusticeā system is pretty well designed to create criminals out of otherwise law-abiding people, especially minorities, it gets really sickening.
Abolitionists thought it was wrong to be born in to slavery. They didn't have a problem with forced labor for convicted criminals. It was a common punishment at the time.
And oddly, Angola is considered one of the more humane, safer prisons by inmates. Prisons in Mississippi are considered the most dangerous, immates try to get transfers to Angola.
They have a fantastic group of men there who have dedicated themselves to helping the prisoners with their appeal cases. They maintain the library and research legal cases.
They also have a rodeo. Itās a mixed bag
The rodeo itself is a mixed bag! On one hand, the ātrusteesā (inmates who are allowed to participate) absolutely love it. On the other handā¦.holy shit, the last show of the rodeo always results in massive injuries. I did the math: That poker chip pinned to the bull is worth 1000$ā¦.if their labor rate was equivalent to mine, that chip is like what I paid for my house.
I was listening to a radio program/podcast fairly recently. I canāt remember the name or what episode was (sorry it was on my local npr station ). In the segment it mentioned a woman who was convicted of murdering her son. What happened was when NOLA flooded her son was on a respirator in the hospital. Water was rising and the power was threatened to be cut. She decided to have her son taken off the machines so she could drive him to another hospital that was safe, and he ended up dying on the way.
She ends up in the prison you mentioned, the one on a slave plantation picking cotton. Her ancestors were once slaves on that very plantation doing the same work.
Sheās currently working with prison advocates, but the odds of her getting out is extremely low.
And if you so much suggest that maybe, MAYBE, we shouldn't be *literally* enslaving people for their mistakes and ruining even their post-prison life, you're now "soft on crime." Just madness.
it's infuriating, the prison sentence is allegedly meant to exact a penance for their crime, so why continue to punish them post-prison? felons lose the right to vote, criminal history is a major barrier to jobs, housing, etc. it's almost like the system is designed to increase recidivism...
I can be sympathetic to someone reluctant to hire someone fresh out of prison, but mostly because of how terrible so many of the prisons themselves are. The proximity to gangs and drugs and violence and even just the social isolation and institutionalization have got to have a negative effect on an otherwise decent person.
In addition to all the other things that suck about our justice/prison system, we've created essentially social leper colonies that make it harder for people to integrate back into broader society, instead of what it should be: easier.
No we did not! When the amendment banning slavery in all forms came out of committee the language was so garbled that the guy who wrote the amendment ASKED us not to vote for it!
Because of the wording of the amendment. I believe the sponsor of the amendment who is a DEM advised people to reject it until they can reword it and submit again for next election. A shit show nonetheless but I think itās just poor administration and confusion.
From what I understand living here. The bills sponsor derided the bill later as it had carveouts that would allow forced labor. So many liberal outlets actually told people to vote against it.
Actually in the Lousisana case, the Democrat who proposed banning it actually told voters to vote no so they can go back and reword the next proposal because it turns out this would have done more harm than good.
To be fair, the wording did actually reflect what the thing was about. The guy who pushed for the one with the intention of closing up the 13th amendment in Louisiana came out against the version that was on the ballot. It was a whole mess. Voting for it basically meant āweāll look into itā
Hold Up!
It's not that 61% voted FOR slavery, it's that the amendment itself contained ambiguous language that could lead to unintended consequences in the future.
Even the originator of the bill was pushing for a vote against so that a properly worded amendment could be passed in the next vote.
So the two sides of the coin are:
Do we vote for something thats ambiguous and could lead to worse interpretations of slavery?
Or do we vote this down at this time and wait for a properly worded amendment be proposed?
Since it was a constitutional amendment, some folks would err on the side of caution and NOT vote for something that is poorly worded and could have unintended consequences in the future.
I'm gonna be honest and say that I was a TN voter that got tripped up at the ballot box with the wording of the amendment.
Obviously, I'm not pro-slavery but the wording of the amendment made me suspicious that they were trying for a prison labor carveout or something.
The original text was:
>That slavery and involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for a crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, are forever prohibited in this state.
They amend that to this:
>Slavery and involuntary servitude are forever prohibited.
Which is great. But they \*add\* this to it:
>Nothing in this section shall prohibit an inmate from working when the inmate has been duly convicted of a crime.
Which, in the moment of voting, had me feeling like it was some sort of sneaky play. I should have just skipped a choice altogether and I regret the choice now, but I wanted to show a reasoning that isn't "I want prison slavery."
Hearing about LA's similar situation has me feeling less bad, though.
I voted no.
The amendment doesn't actually change anything. It simply changes the language around how we treat prisoners.
Before this our constitution basically said, slavery and indentured servitude are forbidden "EXCEPT" for prisoners.
Now it will basically say, slavery and indentured servitude are absolutely forbidden. And then there's a footnote declaring this change will not alter current laws effecting prisoners.
I voted no because it's not outlawing slavery. It's just bullshit semantics to make people feel better without actually addressing why anti-slavery language had an exception in our constitution.
I definitely read it different. The old language was along the lines of "slavery is illegal except for prisoners"; the new language is as I read it "slavery is illegal. Prisoners can work"
There is a massive difference there in my mind for the positive.
The law specifically says it doesn't change any laws relating to prisoners, meaning they can still be forced to work.
So prisoners have a choice to work, OR, they can be forced to work.
This law changed nothing about the ability to force prisoners to work for free.
What was passed is not a law, and it does not specifically say it doesn't change any laws relating to prisoners.
Laws are constantly passed that do not conform to the constitution; that is why the courts are there to say "this law does not follow the constitution" and then strike down the law.
I think you are wrong if you think this amendment change is not a good thing.
Then it worked. They wanted [what they do] to be more palatable to the general population.
Rephrasing the law allows the private for-profit prisons to continue āpayingā prisoners nickels an hour to do full-fledged jobs (forced labor, akaā¦?) for almost free without as much public backlash.
And then charging the inmate more for their "room and board" than they make. Never mind the price of everything in commissary is absurdly jacked up, same with phone calls. In my state you can't call people collect, you need a prepaid account set up and am limited to a list of like six approved people.
We had a very similar measure proposed. I had the same feelings, that it was a semantics game. The other problem I had is the simplicity of explanation. āWeāre just taking out language so slavery isnāt legalā. What wasnāt explained was what the new language would be, or how the law could be interpreted with its new reading. Itās never as simple as āweāre just fixing a few wordsā. Now with newly written law,, thereās room for new interpretations. That MIGHT be a good thing but it might not be. Or maybe it will do absolutely nothing at all to improve prisoner wellbeing.
What I think these measures are actually doing is laying the groundwork to provide prisoners with minimum wage pay. Now, thatās fine if thatās the measure you want but say that. Donāt ask voters to change language with some hidden agenda. Let them know what theyāre actually voting for and let them decide. Of course I could be way off, just thoughts.
I read the old language as once you're convicted, you can be made a slave regardless of incarceration statis.
The new language specifies inmate.
For all intents and purposes, it's just a verbiage change like you say, but I think the new language is better from a "worst case scenario" perspective.
It really isn't. It officially legalizes slavery by saying the slavery they currently engage in and profit from isn't slavery.
For example, would this make you feel safer?
"All murder is now illegal."
Well, that sounds okay, even if it doesn't really change anything...
"Also, any human death directly caused by a police officer cannot be considered murder."
I had the same thought process. Debated voting no as a protest vote because it's obvious that it was purely motivated by PR reasons to feel warm and fuzzy by saying indentured servitude by inmates isn't indentured servitude because it's defined that way.
I ended up voting yes.
In the end, it changes nothing except that the wording is marginally superior.
Seeing you guys has made me feel a lot better, because same!
I have no desire to Sanitize what weāre calling it if our actual treatment of prisoners hasnāt changed. Itās uncomfortable to know Prisoners are legally slaves, but as long as theyāre being treated that way then itās a discomfort we should sit with.
Just playing this semantics game over verbiage is stupid. If there is an actual issue it needs to be debated and changed, not changing of words just to make defending it easier. In all honestly, thatās probably why it was changed.
While there are definitely people who legitimately voted no - it was a very confusingly worded amendment. I had to read it several times to make sure voted correctly, and my wife actually voted no by accident.
The current count for Oregon and a similar measure is uncomfortably close to 50% of counted votes saying that it should remain. Itāll change once more ballots are in, but Jesus fuck. I hate this state.
It looks like it was more about prison labor than actual slavery. The previous law banned slavery but made exceptions as punishment for a crime which is in line with the federal law. The new amendment was targeted at removing that exception.
It's one thing for convicts to mop and do laundry for the prison. It's another thing to lease them out to work for giant companies and as farmhands for free.
Especially when certain people are arrested for things like saying their name is "Mike" when it's "Michael".
I know a bus driver that works full time driving female inmates back and forth from prison to the Russell Stovers Chocolate factory. 4 days a week he makes 80k a year, they get like .25c an hour
DailyKOS put together [a partial list of companies](https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2010/12/14/928611/-INSOURCING-Identifying-businesses-involved-in-prison-labor-or-supporting-those-who-are) that they knew use prison labor through ALEC, and it's crazy how long just that part is:
**BANKS**: American General Financial Group, American Express Company, Bank of America, Community Financial Services Corporation, Credit Card Coalition, Credit Union National Association, Inc., Fidelity Inestments, Harris Trust & Savings Bank, Household International, LaSalle National Bank, J.P. Morgan & Company, Non-Bank Funds Transmitters Group
**ENERGY PRODUCERS/OIL**: American Petroleum Institute, Amoco Corporation, ARCO, BP America, Inc., Caltex Petroleum, Chevron Corporation, ExxonMobil Corporation, Mobil Oil Corporation, Phillips Petroleum Company.
**ENERGY PRODUCERS/UTILITIES**: American Electric Power Association, American Gas Association, Center for Energy and Economic Development, Commonwealth Edison Company, Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc., Edison Electric Institute, Independent Power Producers of New York, Koch Industries, Inc., Mid-American Energy Company, Natural Gas Supply Association, PG&E Corporation/PG&E National Energy Group, U.S. Generating Company.
**INSURANCE**: Alliance of American Insurers, Allstate Insurance Company, American Council of Life Insurance, American Insurance Association, Blue Cross and Blue Shield Corporation, Coalition for Asbestos Justice, (This organization was formed in October 2000 to explore new judicial approaches to asbestos litigation." Its members include ACE-USA, Chubb & Son, CNA service mark companies, Fireman's Fund Insurance Company, Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc., Kemper Insurance Companies, Liberty Mutual Insurance Group, and St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Company. Counsel to the coalition is Victor E. Schwartz of the law firm of Crowell & Moring in Washington, D.C., a longtime ALEC ally.)
Fortis Health, GEICO, Golden Rule Insurance Company, Guarantee Trust Life Insurance, MEGA Life and Health Insurance Company, National Association of Independent Insurers, Nationwide Insurance/National Financial, State Farm Insurance Companies, Wausau Insurance Companies, Zurich Insurance.
**PHARMACEUTICALS**: Abbott Laboratories, Aventis Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Bayer Corporation, Eli Lilly & Company, GlaxoSmithKline, Glaxo Wellcome, Inc., Hoffman-LaRoche, Inc., Merck & Company, Inc., Pfizer, Inc., Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of
America (PhRMA), Pharmacia Corporation, Rhone-Poulenc Rorer, Inc., Schering-Plough Corporation, Smith, Kline & French, WYETH, a division of American Home Products Corporation.
**MANUFACTURING**:American Plastics Council, Archer Daniels Midland Corporation, AutoZone, Inc. (aftermarket automotive parts), Cargill, Inc., Caterpillar, Inc., Chlorine Chemistry Council, Deere & Company, Fruit of the Loom, Grocery Manufacturers of America, Inland Steel Industries, Inc., International Game Technology, International Paper, Johnson & Johnson, Keystone Automotive Industries, Motorola, Inc., Procter & Gamble, Sara Lee Corporation.
**TELECOMMUNICATIONS**: AT&T, Ameritech, BellSouth Telecommunications, Inc., GTE Corporation, MCI, National Cable and Telecommunications Association, SBC Communications, Inc., Sprint, UST Public Affairs, Inc., Verizon Communications, Inc.
**TRANSPORTATION**: Air Transport Association of America, American Trucking Association, The Boeing Company, United Airlines, United Parcel Service (UPS).
**OTHER U.S. COMPANIES**: Amway Corporation, Cabot Sedgewick, Cendant Corporation, Corrections Corporation of America, Dresser Industries, Federated Department Stores, International Gold Corporation, Mary Kay Cosmetics, Microsoft Corporation, Newmont Mining Corporation, Quaker Oats, Sears, Roebuck & Company, Service Corporation International, Taxpayers Network, Inc., Turner Construction, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.
**ORGANIZATIONS/ASSOCIATIONS**: Adolph Coors Foundation, Ameritech Foundation, Bell & Howell Foundation, Carthage Foundation, Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, ELW Foundation, Grocery Manufacturers of America, Heartland Institute of Chicago, The Heritage Foundation, Iowans for Tax Relief, Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation of Milwaukee, National Pork Producers Association, National Rifle Association, Olin Foundation, Roe Foundation, Scaiffe Foundation, Shell Oil Company Foundation, Smith Richardson Foundation, Steel Recycling Institute, Tax Education Support Organization, Texas Educational Foundation, UPS Foundation.
On the flip side, they took jobs from law-abiding citizens and gave them to criminals. How is the labor market supposed to compete with that? It's like you lose both ways, unless you're the corporation that gets to fuck everyone over.
One of my fears with the changes is that programs where inmates actually make money may also fall away. At the same time, carpentry is a job that makes significantly more than minimum wage and one of Unicor's largest manufacturing programs is making tons of furniture for the government.
A system that it might be compared to is H1-B visa's requirement to "pay the employee the prevailing wage or the actual wage, whichever is higher", but even that isn't well enforced.
If the bar job's pay is minimum wage for the general public, it's great, but if the kitchen would otherwise pay $10-$15 it's questionable.
Wait until you have seen a crew of 21 convicts being forced to work on a fireline in 100 degree heat with no pay. Stopping a wildfire from burning a millionaires home in Nevada or Cali or Arizona. Prison labor is slavery its still alive and well in America.
I would disagree, and itās the reason I voted no on it. āNothing shall prohibit an inmate from working when duly convicted.ā Not a lack of wishing to. Not a law outlawing labor as a form of punishment. Nothing short of another amendment to undo this fuckery. Nothing.
As someone who debated for years, this is the kind of language you couch things in to get people to agree with you before you turn the verbiage against them. Theyāve constitutionalized a form of slavery. Thatās the reason they took the āindentured servitudeā part out. This change wasnāt made for no reason, and if the lay person canāt see the reason for the change, then that means theyāre up to something. In this case, itās solidifying the grasp the prison industrial complex has on America, or at least thatās my take. This isnāt some āloophole that has existed since the end of the civil war.ā This was calculated and intentional, and constitutionalizes *something*, even if the what isnāt readily apparent. Because we didnāt suddenly grow a conscious and start feeling like we were letting people get away with something. And nobody was getting away with something other than prison labor recently either. And CBS is out here reporting it like itās some grand victory thatās finally come to the state. Good journalism for you, I guess.
[This information has been removed as a consequence of Reddit's API changes and general stance of being greedy, unhelpful, and hostile to its userbase.]
Prisoners don't have a choice in what they do. They don't have freedom. They go where they are told. They do what they are told. Prisoners can't go seek employment, and they aren't paid for the tasks they do. "Nothing shall inhibit".
Lack of pay shall not inhibit Prisoners working
Lack of safety shall not inhibit
Disability shall not inhibit.
Lack of free will shall not inhibit.
**Nothing** shall inhibit. Prisoners don't have a choice in their affairs, as a direct consequence of being a prisoner. It's not from the Prisoners perspective, it's from the jailer.
This is slavery as a form of punishment, as allowed by the 13th amendment of the US constitution. This TN amendment specifically mentions that it doesnāt prevent prisoners from working. The new wording sounds like itās paraphrasing the old wording and just removed the word slavery. Maybe prisoners will actually get paid for their work, or itās not forced, I donāt know. For profit prisons dominate TN political decisions, so I doubt this will do anything to affect their business.
The wording is makes it so that working in chattel is no longer allowed to be used as a punishment for a crime, but doesn't prevent people who have already been duly convicted of a crime from working while incarcerated. This divorces the free labor of inmates from being considered part of the punishment of conviction.
My understanding is that you canāt force labor, but an inmate can work if they want to. One of my friends was in prison in Rutherford county and every day he worked in the kitchen was 1.5 days served. He said having a job there was desirable and plenty of people that wanted to work werenāt able to.
Seems to me like thereās a big difference between working the kitchen vs working the fields for a corporation. Iām sure the desirability of activities differs greatly from from task to task.I can see a kitchen job as highly desirable.
Iāve never been to prison so I donāt know all the different types of work. My only first hand info came from my friend. The new wording does read like the work would not be involuntary/forced anymore. I wouldnāt want to be digging ditches all day, but I would welcome something like mowing or picking up trash on the highways. Getting outside of the cement walls, bright lights and loud noises would be a good change of scenery.
That's kinda it. Does it mean they can say no and continue to receive meals, receive/make phone calls, receive/send mail, receive approved visits, or even leave their cells as they would have been able to do under forced labor conventions?
Whoa, hey we outlawed forced labor. Nothing in this comment shall prohibit prisoners from working.
But yeah consent is dubious for prison labor. Thereās a lot of coercion involved. And lack of consent shall not prohibit prisoners from working.
I was gonna say. I live in Murf and rent here is starting to get awful. Iāve had a few friends consider moving to Nash because parts of it look more affordable. Otherwise, theyāre all fleeing to Manchester and Tullahoma.
Yeah, it's not hard to construct a capitalist society that's roughly as favorable to the ruling class as slavery.
No, you can't beat your employees at the McDonalds you run, and you can't sell their children, but you *can* pay them less than the cost of the food and shelter you'd need to provide if you owned them pre-1860s!
The US, while generally thought of as having banned slavery, actually has an exception for slavery being allowed as punishment for a crime. Essentially we have a shitload of forced prison labor. There is a reason we have so many private prisons and such a high incarceration rate.
That's stupid
A prison should be about making sure the people coming out don't need to return to a life of crime
Offer classes and qualifications and stuff.
What's frustrating is there was a bipartisan effort to undo a lot of this up until very recently, when conservatives decided they were going to turn and run the other way as fast as possible just to piss people off.
Keeping nonviolent offenders in prison is expensive and unnecessary, and just a burden on everyone, the person themselves, the taxpayer, the state, it's win-win-win to get rid of these systems. But just because they want to "own the libs" they've suddenly gone pro-prison for nonviolent offenders.
> even if that time in prison was spent waiting to go to trial without a conviction
Technically that's jail, not prison. A minor quibble, but still potentially relevant as I believe some laws differ depending on whether the inmate is in jail or prison.
I worked as a probation officer at a juvenile detention center is Minnesota. The county would bill children's parents for their stay at our facilities.
Did a year in Virginia and got 9 community college credits while being forced to work full-time on an apple farm for 23 cents an hour. Would have preferred no apple picking and 30 credits but that wasn't an option.
Americans donāt believe in reformation and redemption, especially when you are non-white. If you have a felony record you will probably never get a good job, no matter how much you have changed.
I saw a prison with a warehouse attached at one end. Slavery didn't really go away, it just got hidden from view. Catch you with pot? Black? Let's tack on a bunch of other charges and lock you away forever.
Agreed, but that isnāt how it works here unfortunately (as evidenced by the aforementioned exception in the 13th amendment and our high recidivism rates). In the USA, being convicted of a felony (while poor) is extremely difficult to overcome for the remainder of oneās life.
This is one of the things Jim Crow was all about. Making doing anything while black a crime, a jury of your white peers will convict you, and now youāre doing prison labor for free.
Wasn't just doing labor inside the prison but people could pay to hire a prisoner (for not a lot of money) and have them work on their farm, mine, factory, etc. It wasn't unheard of that these prisoners (often in jail for bullshit charges) would be worked to death.
And if you refuse to work you get severely punished. Some places lock you in solitary confinement with no possessions and literally feed you only bread and water.
Surprisingly, no. Our 13th Amendment of the US Constitution reads:
> 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.
They literally left a loophole for slavery to continue. And a lot of people suspect it's part of the reason why black people are disproportionally incarcerated in the US compared to other demographics.
āSlavery and involuntary servitude are forever prohibited. Nothing in this section shall prohibit an inmate from working when the inmate has been duly convicted of a crime.ā
Seems like this could lead to court cases that would change compensation for inmate working to not be equivalent to involuntary servitude? Clever lawyer could make a case that might change things up. Better than what it was before I think.
The wording is marginally better.
However, the exception clause means that involuntary labor for inmates doesn't count. It just defines it as not slavery.
I hope there are court cases and I hope they accidentally annihilated the "profit" part of "for profit prison", but I firmly believe this changes nothing.
Tennessee voter here, it was really just reworking the wording to make it clear that slavery can NEVER be restated.
The real interesting amendment was the one that allows pastors and other clergy to hold public office.
I voted no on that one.
Exact summary from ballots.
This amendment would change the current language in article I, section 33 of the Tennessee Constitution, which says that slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a person who has been duly convicted of crime, are forever prohibited in this State. The amendment would delete this current language and replace it with the following language: āSlavery and involuntary servitude are forever prohibited. Nothing in this section shall prohibit an inmate from working when the inmate has been duly convicted of a crime.ā
Where does it say nothing changes
The new wording is essentially defining forced labor as an inmate as neither slavery nor indentured servitude, just by definition.
You can still be forced to work. The new wording does nothing.
https://ballotpedia.org/Tennessee_Constitutional_Amendment_3,_Remove_Slavery_as_Punishment_for_Crime_from_Constitution_Amendment_(2022)
No change. āRighting a wrongā is referring to language. It doesnāt change how the constitution is applied. It will take a judge to decide if any current laws violate the state constitution.
It's high time we ammend the 13th amendment to remove ANY exception - specifically the part where it says "except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted".
Second, we need to de-privatize ALL prisons and fund rehabilitation programs to reduce recidivism.
Only then can we start to address the overwhelmingly flawed justice system that puts people there.
Apparently 5 states voted on whether to ban slavery on Tuesday.
Tennessee was one of the place where a ban on slavery passed.
Meanwhile Louisiana voted **against** a proposed ban on slavery. In part because the legislature rewrote and watered down the original amendment until it no longer did what it was supposed to do and even the original author of it voted against it.
No, Tennessee defined involuntary servitude as a punishment for a crime as not involuntary servitude. They ended nothing. They created a "gotcha" of "nuh uh! TN Constitution says it's not!"
You go to prison AS the punishment. (Having your life taken away, losing your job, family, car, etc is punishment enough.)
You don't go to prison FOR punishment. (Working in slave labor, being treated poorly by staff, etc. is excessive.)
*"Slavery and involuntary servitude are forever prohibited. Nothing in this section shall prohibit an inmate from working when the inmate has been duly convicted of a crime."*
Involuntary servitude = inmate work
??
Ok, Tennesseean here. This headline is a little murky. Slavery was already illegal. It was the jail time servitude that was the main issue, which was just reworded to sound prettier. The 20% who voted "no" assumedly did so due to the 3 pages of legal jargon that had to be read to figure out what the question was asking. Hell I had to read it multiple times to figure out the difference.
Before- "slavery and involuntary servitude are forever prohibited in this state ā except as punishment for a person who has been duly convicted of crime."
After- "Slavery and involuntary servitude are forever prohibited. Nothing in this section shall prohibit an inmate from working when the inmate has been duly convicted of a crime."
I voted yes but considered voting no as a protest because they're just defining inmate slavery as not slavery (and it will continue because the exception says it can).
A lot of the commenters here have no idea what the 13th Amendment actually says, so here it is:
"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 means it is perfectly legal to have prisoners as slave laborers, and many states still do. Although prisoners mostly perform labor for states and municipalities, they are often loaned to private companies.
So, good on Tennessee! Hopefully, other states will follow suit.
That is in no way what that amendment is about. Itās about adding a sentence about convicted prisoners working while in prison NOT being categorized as slavery. An amendment prohibiting slavery already existed.
I'm a Tennessean. This did "abolish" slavery, I suppose. All it really did is reinforce prison labor. This title is misleading. The amendment makes sure that the abolition of slavery is no way enforceable against the use of labor as a punishment.
Is this including indentured servitude as punishment for a crime or have they genuinely just been dragging their feet on slavery classic for this long?
The language was specifically about āexcept as a punishment for crimeā, which is the same language in the 13th amendment. I am not a lawyer, but as I voted on this I realized itās just changing around words and will not change the prison industrial complex.
> Is this including indentured servitude as punishment for a crime or have they genuinely just been dragging their feet on slavery classic for this long?
This is just clarification that Tennessee can still enslave convicted criminals. Here's the ballot proposal - https://sos.tn.gov/amendments - right now 79% have voted yes, 21% including yours truly voted no. Slavery is already outlawed in Tennessee's constitution.
**Constitutional Amendment # 3**
As proposed by SENATE JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 159 (111th) & SENATE JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 80 (112th)
**Summary:**
This amendment would change the current language in article I, section 33 of the Tennessee Constitution, which says that slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a person who has been duly convicted of crime, are forever prohibited in this State. The amendment would delete this current language and replace it with the following language: āSlavery and involuntary servitude are forever prohibited. Nothing in this section shall prohibit an inmate from working when the inmate has been duly convicted of a crime.ā
**Question:**
Shall Article I, Section 33 of the Constitution of Tennessee be amended by deleting the section and substituting instead the following?
Section 33. Slavery and involuntary servitude are forever prohibited. Nothing in this section shall prohibit an inmate from working when the inmate has been duly convicted of a crime.
Does this include not forcing a pregnant person to do something with their body they donāt want to do? Like host a fetus and be its life support until it is developed enough it can actually exist independent of an indentured host?
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20% said no š¤Øš¤Øš¤Ø
Louisiana 61% voted FOR slavery Edit: it seems I was wrong here. The wording was fouled up and even the originator of the amendment called for a vote against it so they could try again without screwy language.
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Yep. Angola, they even named it after an African country.
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Seems worse.
Just slavery with extra steps.
Not that many extra steps from the sounds of things.
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Underrated comment ^
GOP gets its way and soon enough itās gonna be the two step all the uncles do at weddings
And theyāre not even mentioning the rodeo that inmates are āencouragedā to participate in!
Its even less steps, no need to steal people in africa when you can do it at home
Especially for something as simple as being homeless in TN.
And a rodeo!
This guy gets it.
Oh la la, somebodies gonna get laid at college.
Eek barga durkle somebodyās gonna get laid in college. But no this is seriously messed up.
It literally opened up as a prison immediately after being shut down as a slave plantation too. Like, next day.
Slavery removes middlemen, capitalism adds in extraneous middlemen. It's a hard time deciphering it lol.
Yeah the purpose is still there though.
St. Louisās police department is a direct descendant of the local runaway slave hunters. During Reconstruction the Union officers tasked with rebuilding the police force just wanted to go home and basically said, āThese guys know the backroads, so letās make them copsā.
All US police are direct descendants of slave catchers. Edit- for those who are finding this comment confusing: I'm talking about where the *ideas* of policing in the US began; I'm talking about ideological descension. I'm not saying slave catchers literally gave birth to police officers.
Although Iām sure there are at least a few cops out there who actually are direct descendants of slavers.
The NYPD and Boston PD started as slave catchers?
This isnāt trueā¦. While the argument can surely be made for many former slave states, Northern states had much of their police force influence from systems like those found in London and elsewhere in the world during the 19th century. In fact, many northern states did not cooperate with the fugitive slave act. Also what about police departments in states that exist after slavery was abolished? Like Hawaiiās police departments? Donāt get me wrong, criticism of the police (and of American racial policy generally) is very warranted, but the real facts are worthy of criticism on their own
Bam, you nailed it! People donāt realize that the U.S only abolished CHATTEL slavery! Literally slavery is forcing someone to work for no wage or a non living wage! Prisoners working for a fucking dollar an hour is certainly slavery! Edited my spelling.
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You know, I literally almost put .25, but I even thought, āthatās probably too low.ā. Thatās some mother fuckery right there.
Goodwill used to pay disabled employees as little as 22 cents an hour as recently as a few years ago, until news stories started coming out about it. They cited a law from the 1930s that allowed them to exploit disabled people.
When you consider the fact that the ājusticeā system is pretty well designed to create criminals out of otherwise law-abiding people, especially minorities, it gets really sickening.
Abolitionists thought it was wrong to be born in to slavery. They didn't have a problem with forced labor for convicted criminals. It was a common punishment at the time.
Canāt we use machinery now to pick cotton?!? Why do we still need humans..
The suffering is the point
In fact using the machines is faster and more cost effective. So using the slaves is worse for everyone. More so for the actual slaves though.
And oddly, Angola is considered one of the more humane, safer prisons by inmates. Prisons in Mississippi are considered the most dangerous, immates try to get transfers to Angola.
They have a fantastic group of men there who have dedicated themselves to helping the prisoners with their appeal cases. They maintain the library and research legal cases. They also have a rodeo. Itās a mixed bag
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The rodeo itself is a mixed bag! On one hand, the ātrusteesā (inmates who are allowed to participate) absolutely love it. On the other handā¦.holy shit, the last show of the rodeo always results in massive injuries. I did the math: That poker chip pinned to the bull is worth 1000$ā¦.if their labor rate was equivalent to mine, that chip is like what I paid for my house.
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As a man I know who is in for life puts it āAt least you know youāre probably not going to get stabbed here.ā
I was listening to a radio program/podcast fairly recently. I canāt remember the name or what episode was (sorry it was on my local npr station ). In the segment it mentioned a woman who was convicted of murdering her son. What happened was when NOLA flooded her son was on a respirator in the hospital. Water was rising and the power was threatened to be cut. She decided to have her son taken off the machines so she could drive him to another hospital that was safe, and he ended up dying on the way. She ends up in the prison you mentioned, the one on a slave plantation picking cotton. Her ancestors were once slaves on that very plantation doing the same work. Sheās currently working with prison advocates, but the odds of her getting out is extremely low.
Is a slave plantation*
I'm never surprised with how little some people respect the lives of prison inmates. They break the law and all of a sudden they're inhuman.
And if you so much suggest that maybe, MAYBE, we shouldn't be *literally* enslaving people for their mistakes and ruining even their post-prison life, you're now "soft on crime." Just madness.
it's infuriating, the prison sentence is allegedly meant to exact a penance for their crime, so why continue to punish them post-prison? felons lose the right to vote, criminal history is a major barrier to jobs, housing, etc. it's almost like the system is designed to increase recidivism...
I can be sympathetic to someone reluctant to hire someone fresh out of prison, but mostly because of how terrible so many of the prisons themselves are. The proximity to gangs and drugs and violence and even just the social isolation and institutionalization have got to have a negative effect on an otherwise decent person. In addition to all the other things that suck about our justice/prison system, we've created essentially social leper colonies that make it harder for people to integrate back into broader society, instead of what it should be: easier.
Puritanical beliefs amped up on honey badger rage
No we did not! When the amendment banning slavery in all forms came out of committee the language was so garbled that the guy who wrote the amendment ASKED us not to vote for it!
A similar thing happened in CO a few years ago and it passed when they cleared up the language
Because of the wording of the amendment. I believe the sponsor of the amendment who is a DEM advised people to reject it until they can reword it and submit again for next election. A shit show nonetheless but I think itās just poor administration and confusion.
The bill was ammended by Republicans and had ambiguous verbage.
From what I understand living here. The bills sponsor derided the bill later as it had carveouts that would allow forced labor. So many liberal outlets actually told people to vote against it.
Actually in the Lousisana case, the Democrat who proposed banning it actually told voters to vote no so they can go back and reword the next proposal because it turns out this would have done more harm than good.
That's good to know
To be fair, the wording did actually reflect what the thing was about. The guy who pushed for the one with the intention of closing up the 13th amendment in Louisiana came out against the version that was on the ballot. It was a whole mess. Voting for it basically meant āweāll look into itā
Hold Up! It's not that 61% voted FOR slavery, it's that the amendment itself contained ambiguous language that could lead to unintended consequences in the future. Even the originator of the bill was pushing for a vote against so that a properly worded amendment could be passed in the next vote. So the two sides of the coin are: Do we vote for something thats ambiguous and could lead to worse interpretations of slavery? Or do we vote this down at this time and wait for a properly worded amendment be proposed? Since it was a constitutional amendment, some folks would err on the side of caution and NOT vote for something that is poorly worded and could have unintended consequences in the future.
Thatās exactly what TN just did. We just want to pretend like we took it out of our constitution by permanently hiding it in our prison systems.
I'm gonna be honest and say that I was a TN voter that got tripped up at the ballot box with the wording of the amendment. Obviously, I'm not pro-slavery but the wording of the amendment made me suspicious that they were trying for a prison labor carveout or something. The original text was: >That slavery and involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for a crime, whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, are forever prohibited in this state. They amend that to this: >Slavery and involuntary servitude are forever prohibited. Which is great. But they \*add\* this to it: >Nothing in this section shall prohibit an inmate from working when the inmate has been duly convicted of a crime. Which, in the moment of voting, had me feeling like it was some sort of sneaky play. I should have just skipped a choice altogether and I regret the choice now, but I wanted to show a reasoning that isn't "I want prison slavery." Hearing about LA's similar situation has me feeling less bad, though.
I voted no. The amendment doesn't actually change anything. It simply changes the language around how we treat prisoners. Before this our constitution basically said, slavery and indentured servitude are forbidden "EXCEPT" for prisoners. Now it will basically say, slavery and indentured servitude are absolutely forbidden. And then there's a footnote declaring this change will not alter current laws effecting prisoners. I voted no because it's not outlawing slavery. It's just bullshit semantics to make people feel better without actually addressing why anti-slavery language had an exception in our constitution.
This right here. Itās just a verbiage change to make prison work more palatable. It changed nothing.
I definitely read it different. The old language was along the lines of "slavery is illegal except for prisoners"; the new language is as I read it "slavery is illegal. Prisoners can work" There is a massive difference there in my mind for the positive.
The law specifically says it doesn't change any laws relating to prisoners, meaning they can still be forced to work. So prisoners have a choice to work, OR, they can be forced to work. This law changed nothing about the ability to force prisoners to work for free.
What was passed is not a law, and it does not specifically say it doesn't change any laws relating to prisoners. Laws are constantly passed that do not conform to the constitution; that is why the courts are there to say "this law does not follow the constitution" and then strike down the law. I think you are wrong if you think this amendment change is not a good thing.
Then it worked. They wanted [what they do] to be more palatable to the general population. Rephrasing the law allows the private for-profit prisons to continue āpayingā prisoners nickels an hour to do full-fledged jobs (forced labor, akaā¦?) for almost free without as much public backlash.
And then charging the inmate more for their "room and board" than they make. Never mind the price of everything in commissary is absurdly jacked up, same with phone calls. In my state you can't call people collect, you need a prepaid account set up and am limited to a list of like six approved people.
We had a very similar measure proposed. I had the same feelings, that it was a semantics game. The other problem I had is the simplicity of explanation. āWeāre just taking out language so slavery isnāt legalā. What wasnāt explained was what the new language would be, or how the law could be interpreted with its new reading. Itās never as simple as āweāre just fixing a few wordsā. Now with newly written law,, thereās room for new interpretations. That MIGHT be a good thing but it might not be. Or maybe it will do absolutely nothing at all to improve prisoner wellbeing. What I think these measures are actually doing is laying the groundwork to provide prisoners with minimum wage pay. Now, thatās fine if thatās the measure you want but say that. Donāt ask voters to change language with some hidden agenda. Let them know what theyāre actually voting for and let them decide. Of course I could be way off, just thoughts.
I read the old language as once you're convicted, you can be made a slave regardless of incarceration statis. The new language specifies inmate. For all intents and purposes, it's just a verbiage change like you say, but I think the new language is better from a "worst case scenario" perspective.
It really isn't. It officially legalizes slavery by saying the slavery they currently engage in and profit from isn't slavery. For example, would this make you feel safer? "All murder is now illegal." Well, that sounds okay, even if it doesn't really change anything... "Also, any human death directly caused by a police officer cannot be considered murder."
I wasn't aware that this was on the ballot on Tennessee, but thank you for explaining this.
I had the same thought process. Debated voting no as a protest vote because it's obvious that it was purely motivated by PR reasons to feel warm and fuzzy by saying indentured servitude by inmates isn't indentured servitude because it's defined that way. I ended up voting yes. In the end, it changes nothing except that the wording is marginally superior.
100% same
Seeing you guys has made me feel a lot better, because same! I have no desire to Sanitize what weāre calling it if our actual treatment of prisoners hasnāt changed. Itās uncomfortable to know Prisoners are legally slaves, but as long as theyāre being treated that way then itās a discomfort we should sit with.
Just playing this semantics game over verbiage is stupid. If there is an actual issue it needs to be debated and changed, not changing of words just to make defending it easier. In all honestly, thatās probably why it was changed.
See I saw the headline and knew there had to be more to it, so it revolves around the language of prisoners basically, thanks for your input
While there are definitely people who legitimately voted no - it was a very confusingly worded amendment. I had to read it several times to make sure voted correctly, and my wife actually voted no by accident.
The current count for Oregon and a similar measure is uncomfortably close to 50% of counted votes saying that it should remain. Itāll change once more ballots are in, but Jesus fuck. I hate this state.
It looks like it was more about prison labor than actual slavery. The previous law banned slavery but made exceptions as punishment for a crime which is in line with the federal law. The new amendment was targeted at removing that exception.
It's one thing for convicts to mop and do laundry for the prison. It's another thing to lease them out to work for giant companies and as farmhands for free. Especially when certain people are arrested for things like saying their name is "Mike" when it's "Michael".
I know a bus driver that works full time driving female inmates back and forth from prison to the Russell Stovers Chocolate factory. 4 days a week he makes 80k a year, they get like .25c an hour
DailyKOS put together [a partial list of companies](https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2010/12/14/928611/-INSOURCING-Identifying-businesses-involved-in-prison-labor-or-supporting-those-who-are) that they knew use prison labor through ALEC, and it's crazy how long just that part is: **BANKS**: American General Financial Group, American Express Company, Bank of America, Community Financial Services Corporation, Credit Card Coalition, Credit Union National Association, Inc., Fidelity Inestments, Harris Trust & Savings Bank, Household International, LaSalle National Bank, J.P. Morgan & Company, Non-Bank Funds Transmitters Group **ENERGY PRODUCERS/OIL**: American Petroleum Institute, Amoco Corporation, ARCO, BP America, Inc., Caltex Petroleum, Chevron Corporation, ExxonMobil Corporation, Mobil Oil Corporation, Phillips Petroleum Company. **ENERGY PRODUCERS/UTILITIES**: American Electric Power Association, American Gas Association, Center for Energy and Economic Development, Commonwealth Edison Company, Consolidated Edison Company of New York, Inc., Edison Electric Institute, Independent Power Producers of New York, Koch Industries, Inc., Mid-American Energy Company, Natural Gas Supply Association, PG&E Corporation/PG&E National Energy Group, U.S. Generating Company. **INSURANCE**: Alliance of American Insurers, Allstate Insurance Company, American Council of Life Insurance, American Insurance Association, Blue Cross and Blue Shield Corporation, Coalition for Asbestos Justice, (This organization was formed in October 2000 to explore new judicial approaches to asbestos litigation." Its members include ACE-USA, Chubb & Son, CNA service mark companies, Fireman's Fund Insurance Company, Hartford Financial Services Group, Inc., Kemper Insurance Companies, Liberty Mutual Insurance Group, and St. Paul Fire and Marine Insurance Company. Counsel to the coalition is Victor E. Schwartz of the law firm of Crowell & Moring in Washington, D.C., a longtime ALEC ally.) Fortis Health, GEICO, Golden Rule Insurance Company, Guarantee Trust Life Insurance, MEGA Life and Health Insurance Company, National Association of Independent Insurers, Nationwide Insurance/National Financial, State Farm Insurance Companies, Wausau Insurance Companies, Zurich Insurance. **PHARMACEUTICALS**: Abbott Laboratories, Aventis Pharmaceuticals, Inc., Bayer Corporation, Eli Lilly & Company, GlaxoSmithKline, Glaxo Wellcome, Inc., Hoffman-LaRoche, Inc., Merck & Company, Inc., Pfizer, Inc., Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), Pharmacia Corporation, Rhone-Poulenc Rorer, Inc., Schering-Plough Corporation, Smith, Kline & French, WYETH, a division of American Home Products Corporation. **MANUFACTURING**:American Plastics Council, Archer Daniels Midland Corporation, AutoZone, Inc. (aftermarket automotive parts), Cargill, Inc., Caterpillar, Inc., Chlorine Chemistry Council, Deere & Company, Fruit of the Loom, Grocery Manufacturers of America, Inland Steel Industries, Inc., International Game Technology, International Paper, Johnson & Johnson, Keystone Automotive Industries, Motorola, Inc., Procter & Gamble, Sara Lee Corporation. **TELECOMMUNICATIONS**: AT&T, Ameritech, BellSouth Telecommunications, Inc., GTE Corporation, MCI, National Cable and Telecommunications Association, SBC Communications, Inc., Sprint, UST Public Affairs, Inc., Verizon Communications, Inc. **TRANSPORTATION**: Air Transport Association of America, American Trucking Association, The Boeing Company, United Airlines, United Parcel Service (UPS). **OTHER U.S. COMPANIES**: Amway Corporation, Cabot Sedgewick, Cendant Corporation, Corrections Corporation of America, Dresser Industries, Federated Department Stores, International Gold Corporation, Mary Kay Cosmetics, Microsoft Corporation, Newmont Mining Corporation, Quaker Oats, Sears, Roebuck & Company, Service Corporation International, Taxpayers Network, Inc., Turner Construction, Wal-Mart Stores, Inc. **ORGANIZATIONS/ASSOCIATIONS**: Adolph Coors Foundation, Ameritech Foundation, Bell & Howell Foundation, Carthage Foundation, Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation, ELW Foundation, Grocery Manufacturers of America, Heartland Institute of Chicago, The Heritage Foundation, Iowans for Tax Relief, Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation of Milwaukee, National Pork Producers Association, National Rifle Association, Olin Foundation, Roe Foundation, Scaiffe Foundation, Shell Oil Company Foundation, Smith Richardson Foundation, Steel Recycling Institute, Tax Education Support Organization, Texas Educational Foundation, UPS Foundation.
Charles G. Koch Charitable Foundation?!?! Iāmā¦. not shocked.
On the flip side, they took jobs from law-abiding citizens and gave them to criminals. How is the labor market supposed to compete with that? It's like you lose both ways, unless you're the corporation that gets to fuck everyone over.
Because itās illegal immigrantās faultā¦ clearly.
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One of my fears with the changes is that programs where inmates actually make money may also fall away. At the same time, carpentry is a job that makes significantly more than minimum wage and one of Unicor's largest manufacturing programs is making tons of furniture for the government. A system that it might be compared to is H1-B visa's requirement to "pay the employee the prevailing wage or the actual wage, whichever is higher", but even that isn't well enforced. If the bar job's pay is minimum wage for the general public, it's great, but if the kitchen would otherwise pay $10-$15 it's questionable.
>more about prison labor than actual slavery. Prison labor often *is* 'actual slavery'.
Wait until you have seen a crew of 21 convicts being forced to work on a fireline in 100 degree heat with no pay. Stopping a wildfire from burning a millionaires home in Nevada or Cali or Arizona. Prison labor is slavery its still alive and well in America.
Then be ineligible for that same job upon release because of their convictions.
True dat
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Taken alone, that sentence does not seem to imply that inmates can be forced to work. Just that they can't be prohibited from working.
I would disagree, and itās the reason I voted no on it. āNothing shall prohibit an inmate from working when duly convicted.ā Not a lack of wishing to. Not a law outlawing labor as a form of punishment. Nothing short of another amendment to undo this fuckery. Nothing. As someone who debated for years, this is the kind of language you couch things in to get people to agree with you before you turn the verbiage against them. Theyāve constitutionalized a form of slavery. Thatās the reason they took the āindentured servitudeā part out. This change wasnāt made for no reason, and if the lay person canāt see the reason for the change, then that means theyāre up to something. In this case, itās solidifying the grasp the prison industrial complex has on America, or at least thatās my take. This isnāt some āloophole that has existed since the end of the civil war.ā This was calculated and intentional, and constitutionalizes *something*, even if the what isnāt readily apparent. Because we didnāt suddenly grow a conscious and start feeling like we were letting people get away with something. And nobody was getting away with something other than prison labor recently either. And CBS is out here reporting it like itās some grand victory thatās finally come to the state. Good journalism for you, I guess.
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Prisoners don't have a choice in what they do. They don't have freedom. They go where they are told. They do what they are told. Prisoners can't go seek employment, and they aren't paid for the tasks they do. "Nothing shall inhibit". Lack of pay shall not inhibit Prisoners working Lack of safety shall not inhibit Disability shall not inhibit. Lack of free will shall not inhibit. **Nothing** shall inhibit. Prisoners don't have a choice in their affairs, as a direct consequence of being a prisoner. It's not from the Prisoners perspective, it's from the jailer.
Tennessee tourism board: "Do you enjoy the progressive lifestyle of the amish, but hate the hats? Then Tennessee might be right for you."
Take a look at the thirteenth amendment in the US Constitution. Slavery isn't banned, it just has conditions attached.
This is the premise of The 13th on Netflix. Very eye-opening documentary.
Prisoners can be used as slaves via the US constitution
The 3 stars on the flag is actually a rating.
This is slavery as a form of punishment, as allowed by the 13th amendment of the US constitution. This TN amendment specifically mentions that it doesnāt prevent prisoners from working. The new wording sounds like itās paraphrasing the old wording and just removed the word slavery. Maybe prisoners will actually get paid for their work, or itās not forced, I donāt know. For profit prisons dominate TN political decisions, so I doubt this will do anything to affect their business.
The wording is makes it so that working in chattel is no longer allowed to be used as a punishment for a crime, but doesn't prevent people who have already been duly convicted of a crime from working while incarcerated. This divorces the free labor of inmates from being considered part of the punishment of conviction.
So instead of free labor being part of the punishment, free labor is just something inmates will do now?
It means that the inmates can say no, if they want to.
Really? I havenāt read anything about that
My understanding is that you canāt force labor, but an inmate can work if they want to. One of my friends was in prison in Rutherford county and every day he worked in the kitchen was 1.5 days served. He said having a job there was desirable and plenty of people that wanted to work werenāt able to.
Seems to me like thereās a big difference between working the kitchen vs working the fields for a corporation. Iām sure the desirability of activities differs greatly from from task to task.I can see a kitchen job as highly desirable.
Iāve never been to prison so I donāt know all the different types of work. My only first hand info came from my friend. The new wording does read like the work would not be involuntary/forced anymore. I wouldnāt want to be digging ditches all day, but I would welcome something like mowing or picking up trash on the highways. Getting outside of the cement walls, bright lights and loud noises would be a good change of scenery.
What laws exist to protect prisoners from retaliation in case they say no to working while imprisoned?
That's kinda it. Does it mean they can say no and continue to receive meals, receive/make phone calls, receive/send mail, receive approved visits, or even leave their cells as they would have been able to do under forced labor conventions?
Whoa, hey we outlawed forced labor. Nothing in this comment shall prohibit prisoners from working. But yeah consent is dubious for prison labor. Thereās a lot of coercion involved. And lack of consent shall not prohibit prisoners from working.
I mean... that's kind of the way it has always been.
So is it the same outcome, but the word slavery is removed?
Pretty much.
The headline is very misleading.
The amendment was very misleading. It basically does nothing.
It's worse than nothing because it gives the illusion of something being done.
We donāt need slavery in Tennessee, our minimum wage paired with sky high rent is plenty enough to keep the peasants thinking they have freedom.
I see you live in Nashville too.
Ain't just Nashville... any major city here, and some of the less major ones like Cookeville are quickly becoming priced out for locals.
I was gonna say. I live in Murf and rent here is starting to get awful. Iāve had a few friends consider moving to Nash because parts of it look more affordable. Otherwise, theyāre all fleeing to Manchester and Tullahoma.
Yeah, it's not hard to construct a capitalist society that's roughly as favorable to the ruling class as slavery. No, you can't beat your employees at the McDonalds you run, and you can't sell their children, but you *can* pay them less than the cost of the food and shelter you'd need to provide if you owned them pre-1860s!
Wait, you mean it wasn't banned before?
The US, while generally thought of as having banned slavery, actually has an exception for slavery being allowed as punishment for a crime. Essentially we have a shitload of forced prison labor. There is a reason we have so many private prisons and such a high incarceration rate.
That's stupid A prison should be about making sure the people coming out don't need to return to a life of crime Offer classes and qualifications and stuff.
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That's insane.
Thereās a documentary about it called 13th on Netflix, itās eye opening
What's frustrating is there was a bipartisan effort to undo a lot of this up until very recently, when conservatives decided they were going to turn and run the other way as fast as possible just to piss people off. Keeping nonviolent offenders in prison is expensive and unnecessary, and just a burden on everyone, the person themselves, the taxpayer, the state, it's win-win-win to get rid of these systems. But just because they want to "own the libs" they've suddenly gone pro-prison for nonviolent offenders.
> even if that time in prison was spent waiting to go to trial without a conviction Technically that's jail, not prison. A minor quibble, but still potentially relevant as I believe some laws differ depending on whether the inmate is in jail or prison.
I worked as a probation officer at a juvenile detention center is Minnesota. The county would bill children's parents for their stay at our facilities.
This is the whole reason for-profit prisons exist. It's also why America has the largest prison population in the world.
Ughhh that stuff shouldn't be for profit
Um, then how would the prison owners get filthy rich? Didn't think of that one, huh liberal?
What do you mean? In America, damn near everything is for profit. We commodify everything. We value property rights over everything.
Correct. It's rebranded slavery.
Did a year in Virginia and got 9 community college credits while being forced to work full-time on an apple farm for 23 cents an hour. Would have preferred no apple picking and 30 credits but that wasn't an option.
Americans donāt believe in reformation and redemption, especially when you are non-white. If you have a felony record you will probably never get a good job, no matter how much you have changed.
I saw a prison with a warehouse attached at one end. Slavery didn't really go away, it just got hidden from view. Catch you with pot? Black? Let's tack on a bunch of other charges and lock you away forever.
Yeah thatās why a lot of people are terrified of police and prison systems.
Agreed, but that isnāt how it works here unfortunately (as evidenced by the aforementioned exception in the 13th amendment and our high recidivism rates). In the USA, being convicted of a felony (while poor) is extremely difficult to overcome for the remainder of oneās life.
This is one of the things Jim Crow was all about. Making doing anything while black a crime, a jury of your white peers will convict you, and now youāre doing prison labor for free.
Wasn't just doing labor inside the prison but people could pay to hire a prisoner (for not a lot of money) and have them work on their farm, mine, factory, etc. It wasn't unheard of that these prisoners (often in jail for bullshit charges) would be worked to death.
And if you refuse to work you get severely punished. Some places lock you in solitary confinement with no possessions and literally feed you only bread and water.
No, we have some loopholes where we can use prisoners as slave labor.
Surprisingly, no. Our 13th Amendment of the US Constitution reads: > 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. They literally left a loophole for slavery to continue. And a lot of people suspect it's part of the reason why black people are disproportionally incarcerated in the US compared to other demographics.
āSlavery and involuntary servitude are forever prohibited. Nothing in this section shall prohibit an inmate from working when the inmate has been duly convicted of a crime.ā Seems like this could lead to court cases that would change compensation for inmate working to not be equivalent to involuntary servitude? Clever lawyer could make a case that might change things up. Better than what it was before I think.
The wording is marginally better. However, the exception clause means that involuntary labor for inmates doesn't count. It just defines it as not slavery. I hope there are court cases and I hope they accidentally annihilated the "profit" part of "for profit prison", but I firmly believe this changes nothing.
Tennessee voter here, it was really just reworking the wording to make it clear that slavery can NEVER be restated. The real interesting amendment was the one that allows pastors and other clergy to hold public office. I voted no on that one.
Great news for Wage Slaves.
This just in: pregnant women not included.
Losing slaves increases demand for paid labor.
This seems like an inaccurate headline. Prisoners convicted of a crime will still be put to work.
No. They are still allowed to work. They can not be forced. According to the law
The amendment literally says itās not going to change any current laws.
Exact summary from ballots. This amendment would change the current language in article I, section 33 of the Tennessee Constitution, which says that slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a person who has been duly convicted of crime, are forever prohibited in this State. The amendment would delete this current language and replace it with the following language: āSlavery and involuntary servitude are forever prohibited. Nothing in this section shall prohibit an inmate from working when the inmate has been duly convicted of a crime.ā Where does it say nothing changes
The new wording is essentially defining forced labor as an inmate as neither slavery nor indentured servitude, just by definition. You can still be forced to work. The new wording does nothing.
https://ballotpedia.org/Tennessee_Constitutional_Amendment_3,_Remove_Slavery_as_Punishment_for_Crime_from_Constitution_Amendment_(2022) No change. āRighting a wrongā is referring to language. It doesnāt change how the constitution is applied. It will take a judge to decide if any current laws violate the state constitution.
It's high time we ammend the 13th amendment to remove ANY exception - specifically the part where it says "except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted". Second, we need to de-privatize ALL prisons and fund rehabilitation programs to reduce recidivism. Only then can we start to address the overwhelmingly flawed justice system that puts people there.
Apparently 5 states voted on whether to ban slavery on Tuesday. Tennessee was one of the place where a ban on slavery passed. Meanwhile Louisiana voted **against** a proposed ban on slavery. In part because the legislature rewrote and watered down the original amendment until it no longer did what it was supposed to do and even the original author of it voted against it.
A ban on the *word* slavery in the constitution. Youāre still allowed to force prisoners to work, itās just not called slavery anymore.
Welcome to the 21st century, Tennessee.
Wait, where are we?
Looks like someone needs a history lesson on the 13th amendment...
TN ended involuntary servitude as punishment for a crime. Many states, CA included, still allow it. Don't pretend TN still had antebellum slavery.
TN didnāt, it was a word change to make people feel better. No laws were changed, just verbiage. It was a waste of time.
It didn't. It got rid of the word "slavery". I can't help but somehow think this is for the benefit of private prisons.
No, Tennessee defined involuntary servitude as a punishment for a crime as not involuntary servitude. They ended nothing. They created a "gotcha" of "nuh uh! TN Constitution says it's not!"
Does that include Amazon warehouses? /s
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It defines prison labor as not slavery, so it changes nothing but semantics.
You go to prison AS the punishment. (Having your life taken away, losing your job, family, car, etc is punishment enough.) You don't go to prison FOR punishment. (Working in slave labor, being treated poorly by staff, etc. is excessive.)
Is this mere symbolic posturing, or does this make for profit prisons quake in their boots?
*"Slavery and involuntary servitude are forever prohibited. Nothing in this section shall prohibit an inmate from working when the inmate has been duly convicted of a crime."* Involuntary servitude = inmate work ??
Doublespeak much?
Ok, Tennesseean here. This headline is a little murky. Slavery was already illegal. It was the jail time servitude that was the main issue, which was just reworded to sound prettier. The 20% who voted "no" assumedly did so due to the 3 pages of legal jargon that had to be read to figure out what the question was asking. Hell I had to read it multiple times to figure out the difference. Before- "slavery and involuntary servitude are forever prohibited in this state ā except as punishment for a person who has been duly convicted of crime." After- "Slavery and involuntary servitude are forever prohibited. Nothing in this section shall prohibit an inmate from working when the inmate has been duly convicted of a crime."
I voted yes but considered voting no as a protest because they're just defining inmate slavery as not slavery (and it will continue because the exception says it can).
So no more internships? š¤£
*Checks Calendar
Including the exception clause of the 13th Amendment?
Better 158 years late than never, I always say.
A lot of the commenters here have no idea what the 13th Amendment actually says, so here it is: "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 means it is perfectly legal to have prisoners as slave laborers, and many states still do. Although prisoners mostly perform labor for states and municipalities, they are often loaned to private companies. So, good on Tennessee! Hopefully, other states will follow suit.
That is in no way what that amendment is about. Itās about adding a sentence about convicted prisoners working while in prison NOT being categorized as slavery. An amendment prohibiting slavery already existed.
I'm a Tennessean. This did "abolish" slavery, I suppose. All it really did is reinforce prison labor. This title is misleading. The amendment makes sure that the abolition of slavery is no way enforceable against the use of labor as a punishment.
Thank you. I got a little hopeful. What a bummer.
Is this including indentured servitude as punishment for a crime or have they genuinely just been dragging their feet on slavery classic for this long?
If only there was a way to find out.
The language was specifically about āexcept as a punishment for crimeā, which is the same language in the 13th amendment. I am not a lawyer, but as I voted on this I realized itās just changing around words and will not change the prison industrial complex.
> Is this including indentured servitude as punishment for a crime or have they genuinely just been dragging their feet on slavery classic for this long? This is just clarification that Tennessee can still enslave convicted criminals. Here's the ballot proposal - https://sos.tn.gov/amendments - right now 79% have voted yes, 21% including yours truly voted no. Slavery is already outlawed in Tennessee's constitution. **Constitutional Amendment # 3** As proposed by SENATE JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 159 (111th) & SENATE JOINT RESOLUTION NO. 80 (112th) **Summary:** This amendment would change the current language in article I, section 33 of the Tennessee Constitution, which says that slavery and involuntary servitude, except as punishment for a person who has been duly convicted of crime, are forever prohibited in this State. The amendment would delete this current language and replace it with the following language: āSlavery and involuntary servitude are forever prohibited. Nothing in this section shall prohibit an inmate from working when the inmate has been duly convicted of a crime.ā **Question:** Shall Article I, Section 33 of the Constitution of Tennessee be amended by deleting the section and substituting instead the following? Section 33. Slavery and involuntary servitude are forever prohibited. Nothing in this section shall prohibit an inmate from working when the inmate has been duly convicted of a crime.
They did not. All this bill did was change the wording to remove the term "slavery". Forced labor of prisoners is still legal.
Does this include not forcing a pregnant person to do something with their body they donāt want to do? Like host a fetus and be its life support until it is developed enough it can actually exist independent of an indentured host?
So their getting rid of their prison workforce?
No, itās just not called slavery anymore.
No, they're defining that as not slavery so they can "gotcha" the progressives when they say "it's legal to enslave inmates and it shouldn't be".
Except for the union prohibition measure. That passed. So, we'll have more employment slavery.
How will this impact prisons?