Combine it with these observations:

1) Trials are increasingly rare, most criminals in prison never had one, they made a plea deal

2) The difference between a maximum sentence and a plea deal can be an order of magnitude (2 years instead of 20)

3) Dark skinned people can rationally expect that they won’t receive a fair trial, given bias in police investigations, DA practices, and juries.

... That adds up to a lot of innocent dark skinned people in prison, who quite rationally traded their civic rights for a smaller variability in their risk profile.

I guess what’s “better” about that than chattel slavery is that person had a possibility of release. So instead of 100% chance of incarceration and loss of civil rights, they had only an 80% chance of incarceration. Is that your position?

Personally, that doesn’t feel like a qualitative difference. Seems like the same situation just moved to a different psychic plane. But, interested in your thoughts.

These systems aren't as bad as chattel slavery because there is a strict legal requirement of when they must end (usually within a year), the citizen remains a citizen (albeit a military one as well) and thus still gets due process (outside of military punishments for, say, defecting or pointing a gun at a superior officer), the citizen can own property while doing their service, they get to do whatever they want with their own money, etc etc etc.

I still think they're wrong, for many reasons, but also because I don't believe there should be militaries designed for human-human conflict.