The 13th amendment to the United States Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude – as a punishment for a crime. This so-called “clause except” has been used for a long time to justify forced work in federal and state prison systems.
ASST. Professor Adam A. Davidson, Jd’17, disputes this interpretation.
“I do not remember a sentence, brief or appeal hearing that mentioned slavery or involuntary servitude as punishment,” he said.
This absence of direct recognition has resulted in Davidson to call “administrative slavery”, a system in which the imprisoned persons are forced to work in difficult conditions and for a meager salary, without any explicit designation that their sentence includes enslavement. Davidson explored this issue in depth in his 2024 article, “Administrative Escavement”, published in the Columbia Law Review.
“It is my attempt to understand how this state of the law has become,” he said.
The Davidson Stock Exchange focuses on the intersection of the race and the criminal justice system.
“To my heart, I am motivated by the desire to understand how the systems that create and maintain the race, the racial hierarchy and our criminal legal systems, and why these systems work as they do,” he said.
Thanks to his article, Davidson highlighted a problem that has received little attention and criticism before the courts, in part because forced work has long been linked to incarceration and the courts are generally not willing to question the functioning of prisons. His research reveals that in practice, forced work continues in prisons not as a form of punishment, but according to administrative decision -making.
“I am not the first person to identify this problem,” he said. “But my article really investigated how the law implemented this supposed punishment. I found all kinds of allusions at work of prisons as a punishment, but the affairs or the laws or the regulations which bind it to punishment are simply absent. ”
“ It is not modern slavery – it is slavery ”
In recent years, imprisoned people and the reform activists have more and more attracted attention to this issue.
A person formerly incarcerated In other words: “It is not modern slavery – it is slavery.” Last year, social activists and researchers from New York University published a book entitled Abolition Labour: the fight to end the slavery of the prisonwhich documents the lived experiences of prisoners subject to forced work.
Davidson considers this basic movement as a key engine of change.
“The non-avocados have the power to make the change-that the political construction of power is often which leads to a legal change and not on the contrary,” he said. “Now we are at the stage of this anti-slavery movement where lawyers come to formalize changes legally.”
Although the 13th amendment does not extend work protections to incarcerated individuals, the constitutions of certain states do it now. In response to the complaints of prisoners in progress, Colorado in 2018 adopted a constitutional amendment This dropped the clause except, officially prohibiting slavery and involuntary servitude in its entirety.
This amendment was interpreted as prohibiting prisons from punishing prisoners with practices such as cell isolation, if they refused to work. Alabama followed suit in 2022. Currently, anti-slavery amendments are pending in Nevada and California.
To document these developments, Davidson works on a follow -up article entitled “No exception”, which will be published in the Law review at the University of Chicago Later this year.
“After colorado adopted its constitutional amendment, nothing has really changed,” said Davidson. “So, the big question for me was, why has nothing changed after changing your constitution?”
The reality of the work of prisons and the way to follow
The new article examines these attempts at reform to better understand how the law can lead to real improvements. Davidson also collects first -hand accounts with imprisoned people to “document the reality” of prisons slavery.
He noted that many have expressed a humanitarian perspective on their own desire to change the system.
“There are real bad dignitaries by saying” you are legally enslaved “or” you are legally in unintentional servitude “,” said Davidson. “Just remove the legal label can have real advantages. Of course, many people want to go further than that, but in the heart, people in prison want to be recognized as human beings with dignity. ”
Davidson envisages a system where penitentiary work reflects a real job, with fair wages, safe conditions and real rehabilitation opportunities.
“What I think most people do not realize is that incarcerated individuals want to work,” he said. “They just want to work in a worthy way and in conditions that are at least tolerable. A study has shown that the average salary of a penitentiary worker is between ten and forty hundred per hour. ”
He also highlights broader economic damage. Family members often send money to support dear beings in prison, which forces finance already limited. Food of poor quality in prison can also lead to health problems which in turn lead to higher costs.
“It’s a domino effect,” said Davidson. “If all of a sudden, these communities are not financially drained because the person works and they get a real hourly wage, this could have real societal advantages.”
An example of imprisoned people is very proud of their work, even in the face of the real danger, it is California Firefighters program incarceratedwhich allows eligible prisoners to train and work as firefighters. Their salary is less than one dollar per hour and they are faced with increased risks of injuries compared to uncarcerated firefighters. But they acquire skills, experience and a sense of objective – some have reported that he has changed life – and can later apply for fire -fighting work at Liberation.
“What’s going on in prison does not stay in prison,” said Davidson. “The fact is that a overwhelming number of people who are imprisoned will be released and will be part of the company. The question is that the prisons do that will help them be better or worse when they are released?”
According to Davidson, if the courts are ready to interpret these constitutional amendments of the State robustly, this could provide proof of concept to what the work of prisons might look like.
“I think it looked much more rehabilitation,” he said, “what would be a transformer not only for prisoners, but for everyone in society.”
– adapted from a Article published for the first time by the Faculty of Law of the University of Chicago.
