Slavery is explicitly permitted in prisons by the constitution.

> 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.

https://www.law.cornell.edu/constitution/amendmentxiii

>*Slavery is explicitly permitted in prisons by the constitution.

Slavery, the death penalty, the largest incanceration rates in the world.

And some natives consider the country some kind of champion for "freedom"...

Depending on what you mean by "native".

Mostly "locals".

It could be argued that prison labor is "cruel and unusual" by modern standards.

AFAIK it's voluntary, no? Also, given the choice between working 8(?) hours a day, or sitting staring at a cell wall for the same hours, which would you pick? (I'd pick the work)

I'd absolutely choose staring at walls to cleaning toilets for $5 a month.

But if it's completely voluntary, and you won't face any direct nor indirect retaliation for refusing, then I have less of a problem with it (it still distorts the labor market when they take jobs from people not incarcerated, and the taxpayers are the ones subsidizing those jobs.)

You still need stuff from the commissary though, so unless someone is putting money in your prison account you'll need to get money somehow. I'd rather clean toilets for $5/month than some of the other alternatives (I don't know what they would be but I imagine they're not pleasant).

It's voluntary in that you can choose to work or you can choose to be thrown in solitary, beaten, and starved, until you stop refusing to work.

Voluntary in the same way every mugging is voluntary.

Being in a work crew is optional. You can sit in your cell all day.

Anything could be argued. Doesn't mean there's any actual basis for the argument.

Compared to...? Because, compared to, you know, actual 5 star hotels, they kinda suck.

So I assume you're going to be checking in ASAP?

But being guilty isn't a criterion apparently.

http://www.npr.org/2011/03/09/134394946/illinois-abolishes-d...

Good general overview of prison labor: http://thesocietypages.org/socimages/2013/04/04/prison-labor...

More detailed account of prison labor in Nevada regarding casinos and construction. http://vltp.net/casinos-prison-labor-strange-bedfellows/

The slave market: http://www.unicor.gov/

You can even get slave labor to operate your call center: http://www.unicor.gov/services/contact_helpdesk/

Per the admendment:

>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.

It clearly does not abolish slavery nor involuntary servitude but instead limits it to being the punishment for a crime.

I see people everywhere saying slavery was abolished as if the entire latter 80% of Section 1 did not exist. I see government resources saying the same.

Let me make it clear.

Slavery was not abolished. The 13th amendment made slavery constitutional (within a defined scope).

> Slavery was not abolished.

Well, not by the 13th Amendment, at any rate. Arguably, it was abolished in theory by subsequent treaties to which the US is a party, though it clearly has not been abolished in fact in the United States.

> The 13th amendment made slavery constitutional (within a defined scope).

False. Slavery was expressly Constitutional (and, in fact, for a time protected against amendment) from day one, before any amendments were passed (See, Art. I, Sec. 9, Clause 1; Art. V.)

The 13th Amendment restricted the domain in which slavery and involuntary servitude were permitted under the Constitution, it is not accurate to claim that it made slavery constitutional (either in general, or even in any circumstances, as there were no circumstances in which slavery was Constitutional with the 13th Amendment but not without the 13th Amendment.)

If slavery on the inside is not controversial, even less so is "judicial rape", the expectations that prisoners get sexually assaulted in prison, along with their legal punishment.

I don't know why the government can't be sued when this happens. They have some responsibilities over this kind of things.

> I don't know why the government can't be sued when this happens.

Among other reasons, sovereign immunity.

The part that confuses me is what is the point of a minimum wage when some actors don't have to pay it? If you can get less than $1/hour work out of a prison in the united states doesn't that devalue the work of someone who is earning the minimum wage?

Apparently you don't understand what a prison is for or how those people got there. Your point a) implies you think prisoners are not bad people which stands out to me.

You are in prison to be punished for what you did AND pay back your debt to society.

If we only locked up truly guilty people up for truly bad things, that would be fine.

But even ignoring the large number of innocent people in prison; we have a lot of laws that are blatantly unjust. The biggest would be that about half of the prison population is there for minor drug offenses. A guy smoking a plant that makes him giddy and hungry is not worth locking up at substantial cost to taxpayers. Or you have the guy that spent six months in prison because he ordered a hentai comic book from Japan, and the postal inspector thought that the girl that looked 16 drawn in pencil was a real child being harmed. Or you have the elderly black woman who got put into what is essentially debtors prison because she couldn't pay her traffic tickets. Or the guy that got locked up for refusing to pay child support on a kid that turned out to not be his, but the judge didn't care about little things like facts. And on and on and on.

In fact, we have so many ridiculous laws that it's been said that the average American commits three felonies a day:

http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB100014240527487044715045744389...

http://www.threefeloniesaday.com/Youtoo/tabid/86/Default.asp...

So, we should let everybody go? You're complaining as if jails should be abolished and, seemingly, all laws, too.

While innocent people do go to jail, most people in jail are not innocent. You only hear about the innocent ones cause it makes the news but, by far, most people are in jail cause they deserve to be there.

I'm saying we shouldn't have unjust laws. But since we do, we shouldn't treat them all as slaves. I'm saying we shouldn't have innocent people in prison, but that's impossible to prevent. And since we do, again, we shouldn't treat them all as slaves.

I'm more interested in prison for rehabilitation than I am as punishment. I'd rather we reduce the recidivism rate than bask in schadenfreude. I'm more interested in addressing why we have the highest per capita incarceration rate of any first world nation.

You're being off topic. Straw man comes to mind.

Whether you agree or not with how they got to prison has nothing to do with how a prison should operate. The point is prison's do what they do with people incarcerated and no one should consider it as a nice place to spend some time.

What straw man? I've been arguing against forced prison labor this entire time, even before you joined the conversation. I haven't deflected any points you were making to some new topic.

And yes, I'm all for taking the TVs out of prisons and not having it be a good time. I'm also against mandatory labor. They're prisoners, but they're still human beings.

Others here have said it's voluntary, so if that's true, that's at least better. I still think they should be paid fairly so as to not displace jobs from people not in prison, though.

It's clear though that I'm against this, and you're not, so there's really no point in continuing on. I'll just say that I hope you never have to experience working for pennies a day.

There are a 10's of thousands of innocent people in prison making the punishment argument morally questionable .