Five U.S. states will vote this November on whether to eliminate language in their state constitutions that allows a form of slavery as a punishment in prisons, an exception written into the 13th Amendment abolishing slavery when it passed more than 150 years ago.
Experts say the bills — which are on the ballot in Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, Oregon and Vermont — could buoy growing prison-reform efforts in a country where roughly 800,000 prisoners work, often being forced to do so and for little to no pay. The 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution bans slavery or involuntary servitude, except when it is used as punishment for a crime.
If passed, the proposals would wholly abolish slavery in those states, though they would not automatically change protocols on prison labor or inmate pay. While not all states have constitutions that explicitly permit slavery and involuntary servitude as criminal punishments, only three have passed similar legislation to remove the exception — Colorado was the first to do so in 2018, followed by Nebraska and Utah two years later.
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“This is the beginning of a wave,” said Sharon Dolovich, a law professor at the University of California at Los Angeles and an expert on prison law. “I suspect that in 10 years maybe we’ll be horrified that, in 2022, most states had this on the books.”
Experts say that the bills, in spirit, open a conversation about greater issues with the U.S. prison system, which has the highest incarceration...
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