This is not specific at all to the U.S. and the overwhelming majority of rational adults should be able to see that it’s a good thing for society to be able to legally remove members who pose a clear risk to the safety and function of it. Whether or not the 13th Amendment is administered fairly is a different conversation^1, but the false equivalency this post makes between legal imprisonment and chattel slavery is a fallacy.
Theres an argument to be made that by extracting a useful measure of work from them and mitigating the costs of jailing them it reduces the drain of an effective criminal justice system. But of course capitalism takes it to an absurd place where for profit prisons influence judges to impose harsher sentences and it becomes a corrupt shitshow.
There is a lot of ways it could be implemented ethically, but they would cost more and benefit the powerful less so they wont do it.
Its not the promise of more prison, its an offer of less prison. The difference between coercion and incentive. The issue is if a sentence of 5 years would become a sentence of 3 courts start making the sentence 7 so they get 5 years of work or if they degrade prison conditions intentionally to force inmates towards the work programs.
It also would hinge on the “work” being something worthwhile and skill building, not just assembly line work for big corporations looking to save a buck because inmates are cheaper than machines.
This is not specific at all to the U.S. and the overwhelming majority of rational adults should be able to see that it’s a good thing for society to be able to legally remove members who pose a clear risk to the safety and function of it. Whether or not the 13th Amendment is administered fairly is a different conversation^1, but the false equivalency this post makes between legal imprisonment and chattel slavery is a fallacy.
^1 It’s not.
This isn’t about removing people from society. It’s about the practice of using them to perform free labor.
rehabilitation please
Theres an argument to be made that by extracting a useful measure of work from them and mitigating the costs of jailing them it reduces the drain of an effective criminal justice system. But of course capitalism takes it to an absurd place where for profit prisons influence judges to impose harsher sentences and it becomes a corrupt shitshow.
There is a lot of ways it could be implemented ethically, but they would cost more and benefit the powerful less so they wont do it.
Yes, you can use slaves to offset the cost of their upkeep. That argument sucks.
I said ETHICALLY voluntarily entering into their work programs that offer a reduction in sentence or better conditions is not slavery.
ETHICALLY it’s not volunteering if it’s coerced, and I can’t think of many things more coercive than the promise of more prison.
Its not the promise of more prison, its an offer of less prison. The difference between coercion and incentive. The issue is if a sentence of 5 years would become a sentence of 3 courts start making the sentence 7 so they get 5 years of work or if they degrade prison conditions intentionally to force inmates towards the work programs.
It also would hinge on the “work” being something worthwhile and skill building, not just assembly line work for big corporations looking to save a buck because inmates are cheaper than machines.
No. There’s a distinction but not a difference.