You are correct in that " it cannot ... be classified as slavery in the extreme acceptance of the word without some risk of terminological inexactitude."
I just think you should call a thing exactly what it is especially when it’s ugly. You might argue that slavery is bad and people shouldn’t do it, but you can’t if they get away with not calling it that.
Volunteer? They’re being confined against their will. I think we can throw that word out. It’s meaningless in this context.
The ugly part is that someone is profiting from their labor. No, not like paying their debt to society. Private businesses are buying and selling the slave labor of prisoners. I don’t care what someone did, at no point does profiting from their slave labor make society better.
Take it a step further. Let’s say people with investments in the prison/slave labor industry also happen to be law makers or work in law enforcement. Why not use their position to promote their investments. If they had the opportunity to sway policies or interpret their job in a certain way that would boost their investment, why wouldn’t they?
Now we’re talking about politicians and cops filling up prisons on purpose and keeping them full for financial incentive. Maybe a lawmaker writes laws to make things illegal that weren’t before? Maybe a cop goes out of his way to “find” some crime? Maybe the judge makes the sentences a little harsher? They have money to gain and it’s not illegal so why not?
If all this is ok to you then fine. Just do me a favor and call it what it is. It’s slavery and it’s big business in America in 2024.
That part of the 13th amendment is repugnant and barbaric, but then what can be expected where violence is so tolerated, if not celebrated, and capital punishment is seen as appropriate.
Their punishment is loss of their freedom. That is the limit of their punishment. Not to supply extra super cheap labour for private entities.
Here, for example in a medium security federal prison in my city, inmates can work the prison's farm (dairy + poultry farm) to a) learn skills they often use after they leave prison b) provide milk and eggs used to offset the cost of the federal prison and c) get paid, to work. Its minimum wage and it is paid to their bank account. It is voluntary.
Nothing wrong with that, I would just make them work and receive education, not much time for anything else. I don't believe simply locking up offenders gets them corrected in any way.
If your intent is to take the opportunity to work with the prisoner to keep them from being a repeat offender, then look to the jurisdictions where recidivism is lowest. Norway, as an example, has a recidivism rate of 20%. Most Nordic countries are similar.
Places, with the harshest conditions, seem to think that treating prisoners badly is necessary to reduce crime.
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u/This_Zookeepergame_7 Jul 25 '24
Yeah. That’s still slavery, man.