In US constitution, the 13th amendment leaves out only prisoners from salvery clause. It was bit shocking because US constitution essentially says that government can use prisoners jus like slaves!
I feel our current system of punishments and prisoners is very barberic. In my experience, people change dramatically in beliefs and who the are every 7-10 years. So having a prison term longer than that is essentially same as transferring sentence to quite different person. Also things like solitary confinements are beyond bewildering. I hope future prisons are essentially closed large spaces where prisoners make their own sustainable living. Prison shouldn’t be about enslaving a person but rather isolating him/her from society for safety of others all the while retraining them to be part of society again after no more than 7-10 years.
What's so barbaric about insisting that rebels to the social contract learn how to work? Or demanding, even at metaphorical or literal gunpoint, that they work to support themselves, just as the rest of society must?
Now, I would like to say that this comment only applies to serious crimes. Murder, violence, kidnapping, theft. People who have proven that they cannot currently function in normal company. Labor and honest sweat can serve a great role in teaching a man the value and positive power of his hands, even if they were once bloody. In fact, you admit almost as much in the phrase "make their own sustainable living".
That said, the current system strays a little far from that script, for two reasons: overcriminalization and unregulated for-profit prisons. I have no problem with forcing a serious criminal to work, or work profitably, but a hard-working blue collar guy who was caught with drugs doesn't deserve to be forced through the same program that's designed to rehabilitate thieves! At the same time, the work they endure should be no more extraordinary, or less regulated, than what a person on the outside must do. The fruits of their labor should be mainly culled to offset the cost of their incarceration, just as most of our pay is taken by the bank and the landlord, but the wages should be fair, and saving some money should be allowed. The only option that should be denied them is laziness.
> In US constitution, the 13th amendment leaves out only prisoners from slavery clause. It was bit shocking because US constitution essentially says that government can use prisoners just like slaves!
It’s definitely a shocking feature of the constitution. I’ve been wondering lately if it really can be (or has been) used to justify things like forced labor benefiting a for-profit corporation at below the legal minimum wage. The text says “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime...”. Couldn’t one argue that being in prison is the punishment - but working in a corporate sweatshop is additional servitude used not as punishment but as abuse of people already being punished?
Well, it's antiquated. Back in the day the basics were expensive, so just keeping someone alive who wasn't working to pull his weight was basically unthinkable. If you fed people for nothing, back then, people would commit crimes just for the sake of being imprisoned.
But now that food is way cheaper, and so is clothing and shelter (not the real estate and finance component--just the construction), I think the rationale is out of date.
I feel our current system of punishments and prisoners is very barberic. In my experience, people change dramatically in beliefs and who the are every 7-10 years. So having a prison term longer than that is essentially same as transferring sentence to quite different person. Also things like solitary confinements are beyond bewildering. I hope future prisons are essentially closed large spaces where prisoners make their own sustainable living. Prison shouldn’t be about enslaving a person but rather isolating him/her from society for safety of others all the while retraining them to be part of society again after no more than 7-10 years.