> Yes, license plates are still made by cheap prison labor in most states. 80% of all license plates issued in the U.S. today were made by state prisoners, with only 12 states opting out of the practice. According to a 2022 ACLU report on prison labor in the U.S., many states offer no pay at all to prisoners, while the average hourly wage across the country was between 13 and 52 cents per hour
“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.”
Pro-slavery take. Don’t see those around here so often.
I’m anti-slavery, myself. Even when the government decides the person did something wrong, not really in favor of it. Sometimes the government gets a bit fast and loose on what a crime is and who has committed them.
"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." 13A
A. I guess I'm confused you ever thought it was dead.
B. The license plate programs are optional, and as I understand it most work details are a desirable distraction from the all encompassing boredom of prison life.
So I'm not sure it's anything but typing just to type to call it slavery, knowing full damn well it is nothing like the history you're tying it to.
A: Easy mistake to make. Let's take google results for "abolished slavery":
> When did slavery end around the world?
> After centuries of struggle, slavery was eventually declared illegal at the global level in 1948 under the United Nations' Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Mauritania was the last country to officially abolish slavery, with a presidential decree in 1981.
This is also what I was taught at school. Most people in my European country probably know that "legal" slavery (for example debt bondage) still happens in third world countries, but I'm almost sure most don't realise slavery is legal in the US too.
"Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime"
Mince words all you want, the constitution doesn't and makes it very clear that there is an exception for slavery. Of course we could simply pay people for work, as is our custom, and end this depressing argument once and for all.
In Kentucky, the old, pressed metal plates were made by prisoners at the state pen. A combination of COVID shutting down the prison along with running out of number-letter combinations forced the state to switch to printed license plates. The new "flat" plates are made by the same company that makes every other states' flat plates. No more prisoner labor for plates in KY.
If this is "slavery"... why should anyone care? The idea that they can be forced to work without pay bothers you, but that they can be forced to live in a cage doesn't?
Because literally no prisoner in the USA has been explicitly sentenced to this. If you are in prison your sentence is almost certainly restriction of your freedom for a period of time, and not imprisonment + "being forced to work". The fact that the prison system can benefit off of that should offend you and you should be outraged that this is happening across the country.
Ok, I stand corrected - but I imagine vast majority of prisoners haven't been sentenced to such(in fact have any such sentences ever been handed out in recent times?).
> Because literally no prisoner in the USA has been explicitly sentenced to this.
I think it's implied in the "incarceration" part of their sentences. But when and where it isn't, I'd be happy to include that in the sentence, if that's your only objection.
For the record, some sentences do seem to include the term "hard labor" and the like.
It's not only license plates. It's wildland firefighters protecting California mansions and assemblers of furniture to be sold at Walmart. China points this out as unethical labor practices, and they're exactly right.
It provides a perverse incentive for those running prisons (usually the government but also private owners) to put more people in prison for their slave labor.
It costs a lot more to incarcerate a prisoner than their labor will ever pay for, so there’s no meaningful incentive from the government itself.
Private prisons have an incentive to incarcerate more prisoners regardless of prison labor—as do corrections officer unions—and I can understand abolishing both of those (the unions are probably an even bigger problem). Nonetheless, judging by our high rates of violent crime, it seems clear to me that the United States isn’t incarcerating enough people.
So slavery's not dead, I guess.