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.
Idk about you but that seems to make it pretty cut and dry that slavery is illegal in the US. Prison is different because when you are convicted, you are stripped of many rights. I don’t agree with it, but it is what it is.
It’s forced labor, not actual chattel slavery in the sense that the state can’t actually buy and sell prisoners and is obligated to free them under certain conditions. Nor, unlike chattel slavery, can one be born into the status of prisoner.
If there’s an exception to a rule then it’s not a cut and dry rule. If slavery is illegal except when it affects certain people then it’s not illegal overall.
Because when you, for instance, kill someone, you can’t just simply walk free and do whatever it is that you want? That’s not an exception. Minorities in pre-1865 US (including Indians, this is coming from one himself) committed the crime of not being white with guns.
You have to pay penance of some kind, you really think the government is going to just take people’s money they use to feed and house your ass for free? I work in corrections mind you (fucking hate it but it’s either that or homelessness for my family) and I don’t think drug users should be imprisoned for usage, violent offenders and pedophiles though? Yes, put their asses to work.
I was so ready to just downvote for implying criminals don’t deserve rights and move on, but something about your argument does give me thought and I kinda wanna explore this more, especially since you’re working in this field yourself. Apologies if this is kinda ranty, I’m processing my thoughts and why the comment stuck with me as I go.
When people are put in jail, it costs money, like you said, it’s not free, so what do taxpayers expect to get out of that money? Depending on the answer to that question, yeah, it seems fair to think of manual labor as a way to offset the cost (though I doubt the taxpayer is seeing the benefits of those offset costs). I’d like to think in an ideal world however, what is being paid for is rehabilitation; turning criminals back into contributing members of society, in which case, their future productivity would ideally offset the costs to society of jailing them. I think there are enough stories of violent offenders who go on to be lawyers and such to show this is possible and what society should strive for, though I know it’s not easy and may not be possible in all cases. In this case, forced, manual labor would probably be counterproductive, but arguments could be made for voluntary or even paid labor that contributes to rehabilitation.
Outside of rehabilitation, there’s also the simple idea that jails are just paid to keep these people off the streets, in which case the consideration of cost is just, how badly do you not want these people in society? Following that idea, forced labor kind of makes sense, they’re just in jail to be off the streets, might as well make them useful while they’re removed from society, but then the argument is how much labor is ok?
Then again, if the idea is strictly punitive, any amount of forced labor becomes justified since the idea is that they are in there to suffer and serve penance. In this case I suppose the only consideration is whether the amount of penance in the form of labor fits the crime.
I’m just thinking out loud here, I don’t really know anything about this topic for certain. My background though is in special education, and I know from my early studies that whenever it’s tested, a lot of inmates turn out to have some sort of diagnosable learning difficulty, so I feel that the existence of jails to a large extent is a failure of society to support vulnerable people. At the same time, I do recognize that there are people who we really don’t want to be part of society and whom rehabilitation might not be possible, but then if I let my thoughts go down that direction the logical conclusion seems to be the death penalty? And that’s not something I’m really for, especially since there are already so many cases of wrongful death penalties.
tl;dr, I guess we really have to know what we want as the goals for jails as a society, communicate that clearly, and from there we can talk costs and the potential usefulness of forced labor.
Inmates DO have rights, most of the rights that you have, inmates have. It is namely the 2nd amendment that is taken away from specifically felons.
I do not nor have I ever supported the death penalty whatsoever, and that’s aside from exactly how inefficient the process is (the process leading up to death that is). I support rehabilitation, but rehabilitation outside of prison is for people addicted to crack, math, opiods, severely addictive substances like that. The rehabilitation for a murderer IS prison.
Work is not the only form of penance, as work in penance is just community labor. The penance is also paid in reflection and reconciliation.
I think the right to vote is also taken away in a lot of cases, right? But the part about rights wasn’t the main point I was trying to discuss.
I feel like reflection, reconciliation, rehabilitation, all those are processes that need to be facilitated to be effective, and at least from the outside, it doesn’t seem like that’s really happening in prisons. I’m not sure how prison can act as rehabilitation for murder in and of itself. I mean, in general, we know murder is bad, but there’s a lot that can be behind an individuals decision to kill someone and I’m not sure how being in jail by itself deals with that. I’m sure we’ve all heard the examples of say, someone killing the person who they found out was abusing their child, and generally people seem more sympathetic there, but in the end, it is murder. And yes, this is a fringe situation but for the sake of fleshing out ideas, does this person deserve to be put in jail and into forced labor? I feel like most people would say no, which means that even in the case of murder, there’s still some level of nuance as to what level of punishment is accepted by society.
Great! Which goes to show, murder is not always something society always wants to punish, so you can, in some cases, kill someone and walk free.
But that aside, we still have the question of should government money, people’s tax dollars, go to housing and feeding criminals “for-free”? Again, if the idea is that money is paying for the service of rehabilitation, then yeah, the cost from taxes make sense since it will reintroduce productive people back into society, and we should totally pay. If we can introduce labor that can somehow work towards rehabilitation/education while off-setting costs, great! But from what I’m hearing, especially with the recent stuff in Colorado about inmate labor, that’s not what’s happening.
The one rule of public policy, if they can do it to anybody, they have all the precedent they need to do it to you too, even if they swear you’re safe, oftentimes especially if they swear you’re safe.
Every rule has an exception, the better the rule the fewer exceptions. The perfect rule only has 1 exception. It’s the rule of exceptions to the rules. At least the people who wrote that were aware that exceptions needed to be included. Only sith speak in absolutes, with the exception of the speaker.
While I agree with you we must admit that this is not a democratic republic or a republic in any way if we acknowledge that the law allows the ability to restrict voting rights.
If it must be an absolute then even someone guilty of treason must still have a representative vote.
Which I would agree with, but that is neither here nor there about what currently is.
You: “lol I’m gonna ignore everything past that part to try and prove my incorrect point”
Edit: and also ignore the point itself. If you have to meet VERY SPECIFIC CONDITIONS to make something legal, then it’s safe to say it is not actually legal or even technically
Section 1
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.
Idk about you but that seems to make it pretty cut and dry that slavery is illegal in the US. Prison is different because when you are convicted, you are stripped of many rights. I don’t agree with it, but it is what it is.
deleted by creator
They stopped being humans when they decided to steal that bread to feed their children!!
/s
They stopped being humans when they decided to smoke that weed growing in the ditch or eat that wild growing mushroom.
/s
It’s forced labor, not actual chattel slavery in the sense that the state can’t actually buy and sell prisoners and is obligated to free them under certain conditions. Nor, unlike chattel slavery, can one be born into the status of prisoner.
deleted by creator
If there’s an exception to a rule then it’s not a cut and dry rule. If slavery is illegal except when it affects certain people then it’s not illegal overall.
What certain people? Criminals?
Because when you, for instance, kill someone, you can’t just simply walk free and do whatever it is that you want? That’s not an exception. Minorities in pre-1865 US (including Indians, this is coming from one himself) committed the crime of not being white with guns.
You have to pay penance of some kind, you really think the government is going to just take people’s money they use to feed and house your ass for free? I work in corrections mind you (fucking hate it but it’s either that or homelessness for my family) and I don’t think drug users should be imprisoned for usage, violent offenders and pedophiles though? Yes, put their asses to work.
That’s no more slavery than a child doing chores.
I was so ready to just downvote for implying criminals don’t deserve rights and move on, but something about your argument does give me thought and I kinda wanna explore this more, especially since you’re working in this field yourself. Apologies if this is kinda ranty, I’m processing my thoughts and why the comment stuck with me as I go.
When people are put in jail, it costs money, like you said, it’s not free, so what do taxpayers expect to get out of that money? Depending on the answer to that question, yeah, it seems fair to think of manual labor as a way to offset the cost (though I doubt the taxpayer is seeing the benefits of those offset costs). I’d like to think in an ideal world however, what is being paid for is rehabilitation; turning criminals back into contributing members of society, in which case, their future productivity would ideally offset the costs to society of jailing them. I think there are enough stories of violent offenders who go on to be lawyers and such to show this is possible and what society should strive for, though I know it’s not easy and may not be possible in all cases. In this case, forced, manual labor would probably be counterproductive, but arguments could be made for voluntary or even paid labor that contributes to rehabilitation.
Outside of rehabilitation, there’s also the simple idea that jails are just paid to keep these people off the streets, in which case the consideration of cost is just, how badly do you not want these people in society? Following that idea, forced labor kind of makes sense, they’re just in jail to be off the streets, might as well make them useful while they’re removed from society, but then the argument is how much labor is ok?
Then again, if the idea is strictly punitive, any amount of forced labor becomes justified since the idea is that they are in there to suffer and serve penance. In this case I suppose the only consideration is whether the amount of penance in the form of labor fits the crime.
I’m just thinking out loud here, I don’t really know anything about this topic for certain. My background though is in special education, and I know from my early studies that whenever it’s tested, a lot of inmates turn out to have some sort of diagnosable learning difficulty, so I feel that the existence of jails to a large extent is a failure of society to support vulnerable people. At the same time, I do recognize that there are people who we really don’t want to be part of society and whom rehabilitation might not be possible, but then if I let my thoughts go down that direction the logical conclusion seems to be the death penalty? And that’s not something I’m really for, especially since there are already so many cases of wrongful death penalties.
tl;dr, I guess we really have to know what we want as the goals for jails as a society, communicate that clearly, and from there we can talk costs and the potential usefulness of forced labor.
Inmates DO have rights, most of the rights that you have, inmates have. It is namely the 2nd amendment that is taken away from specifically felons.
I do not nor have I ever supported the death penalty whatsoever, and that’s aside from exactly how inefficient the process is (the process leading up to death that is). I support rehabilitation, but rehabilitation outside of prison is for people addicted to crack, math, opiods, severely addictive substances like that. The rehabilitation for a murderer IS prison.
Work is not the only form of penance, as work in penance is just community labor. The penance is also paid in reflection and reconciliation.
I think the right to vote is also taken away in a lot of cases, right? But the part about rights wasn’t the main point I was trying to discuss.
I feel like reflection, reconciliation, rehabilitation, all those are processes that need to be facilitated to be effective, and at least from the outside, it doesn’t seem like that’s really happening in prisons. I’m not sure how prison can act as rehabilitation for murder in and of itself. I mean, in general, we know murder is bad, but there’s a lot that can be behind an individuals decision to kill someone and I’m not sure how being in jail by itself deals with that. I’m sure we’ve all heard the examples of say, someone killing the person who they found out was abusing their child, and generally people seem more sympathetic there, but in the end, it is murder. And yes, this is a fringe situation but for the sake of fleshing out ideas, does this person deserve to be put in jail and into forced labor? I feel like most people would say no, which means that even in the case of murder, there’s still some level of nuance as to what level of punishment is accepted by society.
The right to vote is usually taken away but like firearms, it depends.
The hypothetical circumstance you explained doesn’t play out like you typically think, they don’t always go to prison
Great! Which goes to show, murder is not always something society always wants to punish, so you can, in some cases, kill someone and walk free.
But that aside, we still have the question of should government money, people’s tax dollars, go to housing and feeding criminals “for-free”? Again, if the idea is that money is paying for the service of rehabilitation, then yeah, the cost from taxes make sense since it will reintroduce productive people back into society, and we should totally pay. If we can introduce labor that can somehow work towards rehabilitation/education while off-setting costs, great! But from what I’m hearing, especially with the recent stuff in Colorado about inmate labor, that’s not what’s happening.
The one rule of public policy, if they can do it to anybody, they have all the precedent they need to do it to you too, even if they swear you’re safe, oftentimes especially if they swear you’re safe.
Every rule has an exception, the better the rule the fewer exceptions. The perfect rule only has 1 exception. It’s the rule of exceptions to the rules. At least the people who wrote that were aware that exceptions needed to be included. Only sith speak in absolutes, with the exception of the speaker.
What happens when you also create or enforce laws mainly against minorities?
That’s exactly what happened in the South.
Shhh. You’re giving away the punchline.
Constitution: slavery is legal under certain conditions.
You: “Idk about you but that seems to make it pretty cut and dry that slavery is illegal in the US”
While I agree with you we must admit that this is not a democratic republic or a republic in any way if we acknowledge that the law allows the ability to restrict voting rights.
If it must be an absolute then even someone guilty of treason must still have a representative vote.
Which I would agree with, but that is neither here nor there about what currently is.
You: “lol I’m gonna ignore everything past that part to try and prove my incorrect point”
Edit: and also ignore the point itself. If you have to meet VERY SPECIFIC CONDITIONS to make something legal, then it’s safe to say it is not actually legal or even technically