- produced by Hana Georg
- in
Chattel slavery was legally abolished in the US Constitution. The 13th Amendment ensured that "neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, shall exist within the United States." By making criminals an exception to the abolition of slavery, this amendment effectively transformed the American prison system into modern day slavery. Immediately after this date, prisons and jails experienced a sharp increase in working class people and people of color. Now that slavery was illegal, the government still needed some way to control people so they wouldn't unite and rise up. What better way than to criminalize them, lock them up, and then profit off their unpaid labor!