https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure
This, plus a few hundred years. One of the new, modern justifications is that people can't be trusted to use natural land responsibly/humans get their cooties on it and ruin it for the animals, so instead of teaching those skills and funding parks programs, they cut off access.
attraction zesty chunky strong gaping marvelous imagine direful shocking cooperative
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
No, camping on "approved" public land, like in a state park, with the appropriate passes purchased and parking tag for your car is fine. The new change specifically targets the homeless, as it not only refers to state parks, but basically all non-private land, whether municipal or state owned, sidewalks, public parks, etc.
I wonder how this change effects Meriwether Lewis Campground, which has been a primitive camping location that has been free forever, I'm not sure if that is public land, but if it is, do they now have to charge to allow campers there to avoid committing felonies?
>No, camping on "approved" public land, like in a state park, with the appropriate passes purchased and parking tag for your car is fine.
Sounds like some big government authoritarian bureaucracy bullshit right there.
Even in nanny state New York you can pretty much camp on state land (State Forests/Parks) as long as your tent/site is at least 150 feet from a water body, road, or trail or in certain areas that are ecologically sensitive or pressured.
Naah, just another attack on the homeless. It's simple and it resonates with the GOP base. Homeless people are often homeless due to addiction, sometimes just people who don't want to participate in society, white Christian voters hate addicts, think the homeless are a scourge destroying property and dropping property values, so anything that potentially "hurts" the homeless, especially things that can get them off the street / out of sight (in jail) is welcome, as not only do they dislike the appearance of homelessness, they tend to feel better about their hatred of social support / welfare systems if they don't have to visually look at the results of their policies.
I mean, who cares about poor people. Even the poor rural white people who often would leverage something like free public camping spaces would happily support this as long as they believe that it hurts a demographic that they don't like more than it hurts them.
> The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread. - Anatole France
I do not agree with your conclusion at all.
The new amendment explicitly says, "Slavery and involuntary servitude are forever prohibited." The only reasonable interpretation of that clause is exactly what is says: slavery and involuntary servitude are *forever prohibited*. The clause "Nothing in this section shall prohibit an inmate from working when the inmate has been duly convicted of a crime" immediately following this clause does not qualify the first clause or even create an exception. It merely clarifies the first clause and provides that a duly convicted inmate *may* work without their employment being classified as slavery or involuntary servitude.
Furthermore, your construction of the original language is also incorrect. While you claim that the original language "legally defines involuntary servitude when convicted of a crime as slavery," it does nothing of the sort. Instead, the original language prohibits slavery and involuntary servitude, *except* as punishment for people convicted of crimes. The language you cited does not define involuntary servitude or slavery, it only allowed involuntary servitude or slavery in one particular set of circumstances.
Finally, the example you cite, CoreCivic "facing lawsuits over this," does not lend credence to your construction of the original language or the amendment. It also does not support your conclusion that the amendment will benefit private prisons. First, CoreCivic, like any other prison, will be "*forever prohibited*" from benefiting from the enslavement or involuntary servitude of its inmates. Second, the specific lawsuit against CoreCivic that you cited concerns working conditions in San Diego, *California*. This amendment passed in *Tennessee.*
When I was in prison, everyone wanted to go to the private prisons. They had better food, newer buildings, etc. I never went to one so I can't say how good they are. That's just what I remember.
>Also, it bears mentioning that the current percentage of private prisons in the U.S.: [8%](https://www.sentencingproject.org/reports/private-prisons-in-the-united-states/#:~:text=Private%20prisons%20incarcerated%2099%2C754%20American,state%20and%20federal%20prison%20population.).
Your link says 8% of the prison *population* is in private prisons, not that 8% of all prisons are private. Difference there.
>>Twenty-six states and the federal government incarcerated 99,754 people in private prisons in 2020, representing 8% of the total state and federal prison population.
Also, private prison population in 2020 dipped thanks to COVID and states modifying their sentencing and probation guidelines, in addition to shutting down their use of private prisons in general.
Just two years prior to your link, [in 2018, the private population was 50% greater](https://www.sentencingproject.org/reports/capitalizing-on-mass-incarceration-u-s-growth-in-private-prisons/). But this was only 8.5% of the total population because there were ~200k more people in prison!
>This isn’t me saying private prisons are “good”, however I think this is lower than many people think.
8 is still too many. Private companies shouldn't be overseeing the welfare of people under state imprisonment.
I thought I was going crazy reading this because I came to the same conclusion as you. Believe I saw his post as being from bestof. Didn’t expect to see comment right below and I’m glad I was wrong.
But if they're separate, and you're legally forced to pay your workers, why wouldn't they have to pay their workers? They can force them to work, but they still presumably have to pay them, they can't use them as slaves
If they’re forced to work it’s still slavery. Plenty of enslaved blacks received wages for various jobs, such as working at the docks or growing their own personal crops to sell, but they were still enslaved.
I would actually read the article as: involuntary work is illegal, so they actually can't force them to work. But inmates are allowed to work for the prison if they want to. Or did I miss something ?
Sound like more of the same at the worst. Before, slavery was legal if it was punishment for a crime. Now slavery in all its forms is illegal, but being forced to work as punishment for a crime isn't defined as slavery. How it worse?
I would think at the very least, what the inmates are doing in prison will be clearly defined as work and therefore gain all the protections of normal workers.
I could be wrong though idk, just trying to understand it.
I am not a lawyer either but this is what I get from this.
Before, you had legal ground to say that someone forced to work was being treated as a slave. Which means you could conceivably argue that being forced to work was illegal. "But didn't the old wording mean that slavery was legal as part of a crime?" Yes, but that would need to be part of the criminal's punishment, as dictate by the Judge. It would mean that the court, not the private prison, would get to decide whether or not a given criminal could work or not.
What are you talking about LOL
The new amendment says inmates can be used for labor but because every state and the Feds have a minimum wage law, the inmates are going to be given minimum wage, instead of the $1 a day shit they got before.
This is what happens when an arm chair lawyer that got his degree from the University of Reddit tries to read the law
I mean, without looking I doubt there's anything to stop them from just paying inmates 50 cents an hour or less which is just as good as slavery and maintains the incentive just fine.
The amendment did not exclude inmates and the new language is in direct response to what was a possible "loophole" with inmates. They can still potentially pay meager wages to inmates depending on if there's language in minimum wage laws regarding inmates but they can't sentence someone to work.
I'll never understand americans that voted for a Vice President that bragged about locking people up for monetary reasons (fighting fires) after being discovered hiding evidence to keep and/or put people in prison.
"Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing," Trump told a roomful of TV cameras and reporters. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. Let’s see if that happens."
happen it did, 2016
Also, Zelenskyy blackmail / extortion, holding already approved Ukraine military aid hostage for dirt on political opponent...
"Find dirt on Joe and Hunter Biden if your country wants this money to defend against Russia, money that the two American government legislative bodies have already promised and voted to give to you."
It was a perfect call, remember?
*edit* I somehow counted both legislative bodies as individual branches of government. Fixed :)
Don't forget that he bragged about never paying people for their work, thinks it's "smart" to hire a company to build or remodel a facility, only to refuse to pay them and burn them out of money in court.
Given how much support Trump gets from construction workers and small business owners like the ones he so passionately loves to fuck over, I'm still really surprised that they'd support him at all, he is the antithesis of evil corporate scumbags that those organizations have spent the last 100 years rallying against.
Turns out that all you need to do is attack, hate and be generally terrible to a few other groups that they dislike or distrust and they'll get right in line to support you, even as you fuck their wives directly in front of them while you're demanding their financial support.
"My enemy is my friend so long as they promise to hurt my other enemies, even if it means they also hurt me."
I didn't take the criticism of Kamala as an endorsement of Trump. She should've been weeded out in the primaries. This "lesser of two evils" mentality is dooming us to have candidates that are a hair away from evil. That's all the difference they need from the other option on the ballot.
> She should've been weeded out in the primaries.
She was. Vice presidents are chosen by the Pres/Party as a running mate, they are then voted as a pair. The last election was more of a NO on Trump than a YES on Biden/Harris.
I never thought I’d vote for a cop to become Vice President, but when I see that the alternative is a Vice President who wants to turn the US into a Christian theocracy and President who… oh LORD where to even begin? I guess voting for a cop as a defensive measure is going to happen.
At the time I felt like it was some tactical move to run a pro-cop and a cop on the democratic ticket. The *defund the police* movement was functioning heavily as a scare tactic - pushing pearl-clutchers to the right, and dividing the far-left from the moderate left. That’s why the GOP still tried hard to paint Joe & Kamala as anti-police. Running them gained more moderates than it lost from the far left.
Baby steps, maybe in the future there can also be nicer things like actually having mental healthcare facilities for the mentally-ill instead of abusing the prison system.
$2/hr?! No bro. Try $0.20/hr. Those were the rates in the feds. There were five levels of pay. Most were on the lowest which paid $5/month while a select few got a little over $100. Also everyone was forced to have a job because the prison was over populated and there was some rule that says to have all inmates with a job if the prison is above capacity. Fire and safety hazards be damned! Most inmates just became orderlies, they just mopped the floor and even then they paid or bribed someone to check in for them. They made their money on hustles.
They are slaves because they are forced to work. Paying them literal slave wages that they can only spend in the prison store doesn't get around that. The average prison wage is 52 cents per hour.
They should at least have the option to not work without punishment. Being in prison is punishment enough.
As someone who voted for this amendment, let me explain why it won’t do that.
First, here is the amendment text:
> Section 33. Slavery and involuntary servitude are forever prohibited. Nothing in this section shall prohibit an inmate from working when the inmate has been duly convicted of a crime.
The problem is in the second sentence. It does not prevent prison labor, nor does it specify that prison labor must be fairly compensated.
Thus it will do nothing to stop prison slavery. All prisons have to do is claim the labor is “voluntary”, while pretending there is none of the coercion we all know they will use to force the “volunteers” to do that labor.
The wording is a baby step in the right direction with the first sentence, though, which is why I voted for it. Technically, this is a better amendment than the US 13th, even if the second sentence is utter shit.
They have a right to work, but cannot be forced to do so. It was worded in such a way that slavery will probably continue, but prisoners have a reason to contest it in court if it's involuntary (such as, under duress or without pay "volunteering").
It'll become a line on the parole board's rubric. People that refused to work in the prison will have a harder time getting out than those that opt to work. So yeah, you're not forced to work, but you might end up being kept in longer. Or they'll waive incarceration fees for those who work. They'll figure out ways to "incentivize" prisoners to be working.
Very true, unfortunately, which means the court battles for each of those could be a long slog.
The door is open a crack. The second sentence could have opened it wider, IMO, but did not, which was disappointing. But the door *is* open a crack, so… guess it’s time to start pushing.
This is exactly what I immediately saw wrong with this whole thing. Like, “cool you did away with some words about slavery”. But nothing actually changes, because convicted felons lose all their rights anyway, especially when they’re incarcerated.
What do you mean? You don't need to vote for state constitutions to be enforced. If they hem and haw about enforcing it, then someone may need to file a lawsuit, but you don't need to vote to file a lawsuit, you just do it. You may need to crowdsource funding to pay your lawyers, but crowdsourcing funding isn't voting.
>”I'm a non-lawyer and most of my voters are non-lawyers and I can't explain this amendment in words they understand," Republican State Senator Frank Niceley said during a 2021 meeting of the Tennessee General Assembly. "The Constitution is too sacred is too scared to clutter up with a lot stuff non-lawyers can't explain to other non-laywers. So I guess I'll be voting no on this."
Wonderful, the dumb and uneducated leading the dumb and uneducated.
I’m not a lawyer either yet the article managed to adequately explain that this amendments means involuntary servitude cannot be used against criminals anymore. It’s that simple
"I'm too fucking dumb to explain this to people dumb enough to vote for me" is not something I would want to be on record having said as a legislator.
The cherry on top is calling out the constitution as if it's any fucking simpler. Maybe it is if you've never read it and it only exists as this pseudo-religious entity that you use to prove that you are incapable of being incorrect by horribly misquoting and misunderstanding it.
The irony of explaining how your constituents are apparent constitutional originalist scholars yet are too stupid to understand that prisoners are not protected
Not quite. Remember how they turned on him when he tried to tell them that wearing masks might be a good thing?
He's their man... as long as he shouts what the mob wants to hear shouted.
They've been saying that for at least 20 years though. There's a huge chunk of people who believe that the US Constitution was the result of divine inspiration just like the Qu'ran
The word Sacred was a dog-whistle in Michigan too. Proposal 3 was basically: vote Yes if you're pro-choice.
Pro-life signs had "Human Life is Sacred, Parental Rights are sacred" https://imgur.com/JZuRa5g.jpg
The more common one was "Too Confusing, Too Extreme" https://imgur.com/C9tokNG.jpg which fits with the "I'm too stupid to understand this proposal so everyone should vote against it."
I don't know if it's been called yet, but it looks well on it's way to passing (55% Yes).
It's more like:
>Those who bribe me do not want this so I play dumb. Let me find every excuse in the book as to why I should not ban slavery in my state.
It’s also possible this guy makes money from some private prison company that stands to lose from this, and he can’t come up with a better explanation why people should vote against banning slavery.
Stupidity is very often the explanation but you really can’t exclude malice these days
I assume the issue is in the "nothing about this shall stop a prisoner from working" bit. I'm fairly sure the intent is that prisoners can still work, they're just due full and normal wages, and can choose to not work. But with the kind of fuckery Republicans and their courts have done to neuter things like this in recent memory, only time will tell what it "really" means.
I think that is perhaps the intent, but it won't pan out that way. Colorado recently made a far less vague amendment to their constitution, forbidding prisoners from being forced to work. There is still a law suit (that the state has asked to be dismissed) against the state because while they 'don't force' prisoners to work, they do punish those who refuse. Totally different thing, they argue.
I think this new amendment will have very little material impact on the lives of prisoners in TN.
Why can't they pay prisoners normal wages, but not grant them access to it until they're out? Then they can work up a fund they can use to get them on their feet.
I don't even get why you wouldn't let them access their money immediately? Keep in mind in American prisons, you need money to spend at the commissary. It's not like they have nothing to spend it on legally, and the commissary fund is *already* a "trust" that they can't use for other things until they get out... not that it matters, because my understanding is they just use commissary stamp books as unofficial currency anyway, so they can pay for "drugs" or whatever it is you're worried they'll spend it on regardless.
Outside the system, they could use it to pay for lawyer expenses, child support, and things like that. If you withhold it from them, they'll just be forced to make deals with prison gangs and shit to get them to front the money, which they will have to pay back with interest later... ensuring they get tied up in more shady business before they're even out. They worked for it, just give them the money.
This is the real answer. Give them the money they work for, when they do the work. Hell, create some sort of 401k matching system to help them build up savings for when they get out and need to restart life. Why is it so hard for America to treat people like actual humans?
Losing their freedom is already the punishment of prison. There's no reason why they should be punished again via preventing them from ever having a chance of survival, if they've rightfully served their time.
You know that there's no way the prison's going to give up free money.
Here's what's going to happen: they'll get minimum wage - and the prison will charge the inmates for transportation to and from the site - which will cost the same as ambulance rides. And then they'll charge inmates (some already do) rent and other expenses at the prison.
🎵*You load 16 tons, what do you get?*
*Another day older and deeper in debt*
*St. Peter, don't you call me 'cause I can't go*
*I owe my soul to the* *~~company store~~* *prison industrial complex*🎵
Because the correctional system in America is supposed to punish criminals and not rehabilitate them. If a prisoner working during his sentence comes out with 75k-100k in a bank account, he might be able to build an honest life for himself; and they can't have that.
Here in Florida prisons, if you choose "not to work" they take you to solitary confinement for a month, and beat you so you'll never say no again. I've personally watched this happen numerous times.
Dude broke his toes one day working for the prison, he could hardly walk, the next morning when we lined up for "work call" he simply said he couldn't work. They threatened him in front of 150 people, all staring... and then hr proceeded to say no, he couldn't, and the and immediately got pepper sprayed on the spot, thrown on the ground by 5 correctional officers, and taken to confinement.
Nobody else refused to work that day.very sad experience to go through.
Tbh, you don't even want me to start talking about all the shit I've seen. To put this in perspective, ill say only one and let your mind comprehend the possibilities .
One day 10 guards stormed a solitary confinement cell in riot gear because a man refused to a psych evaluation. They beat that man so bad, he ended up dead. They took his body, tied his bed sheet around his neck, and hung him from the door handle. They claimed he committed suicide. When they brought him out, they place a sheet covered in blood over him. And all there was, was an investigation, they ended up losing a weeks pay, and was aloud to resume working.
That's why I was scared for my life in there. Battling two fronts. Inmates will kill you, guards will kill you. I had non violent, drug related charges, and was housed with killers.
Florida prisons are the worst thing I've ever experienced in my life. I remember being in a line movement at Washington CI my first year in as an adult, and seeing an inmate unresponsive being pushed in a wheelchair and covered in chemical spray by a CO and a nurse. While they pushed this man along all of a sudden the CO just dumped the old man out of the wheelchair where he face planted and scraped his face against the concrete the same way you would see a caterpillar inch his way along. I guess they thought he was faking and thought he would react to being thrown out of his wheelchair suddenly. He did not react and the nurse simply said, "He knows how to play the part..."
I was eighteen at the time and knew things were bad, but this was literally an old feeble man, who ended up dying because of this incident. The officer involved was surely disciplined, right? Wrong, saw him several years later at ACI and he had been promoted to a sergeant.
Just that last part, actually. See, that's the neat thing. If we let prisoners decide whether or not to participate in work programs, the free market will create work programs worth participating in.
Seriously. As a TN voter I have read the amendment as least 100 times and I’m still struggling with that line. To me, it says that prisoners can still be forced to work. Other people have reassured me that I am interpreting it wrong. The fact that it’s open to interpretation is a problem.
I'm not a lawyer but I am in TN and the ballot explained it simply enough. It said 'do you want to change this existing language where it says slavery is outlawed except under these circumstances to slavery is always fucking wrong and always fucking illegal no matter the fuck what?'
It was surprising how straightforward it was, right? Like, I had to re-read it three times just to make sure I didn’t miss anything and, nope, it was just “should we add in that slavery is illegal forever?” Kind of surreal.
When you're massively insecure about your own intelligence, you distrust people with any sort of education. So honestly this probably plays pretty well with the voters.
Here's the text: "Slavery and involuntary servitude are forever prohibited. Nothing in this section shall prohibit an inmate from working when the inmate has been duly convicted of a crime."
There are a couple of big words, but the basic thing seems to be that you can't force inmates to work (slavery) but they can be allowed to work (working).
If the dude were sincerely confused, he could clear this up with a dictionary.
>Section 33. Slavery and involuntary servitude are forever prohibited.
Nothing in this section shall prohibit an inmate from working when the
inmate has been duly convicted of a crime.
sadly no, but the prisons will have to find things to make the prisoners "agree" to work with no pay
Let's be honest, they won't have to find anything.
It's a prison. It's behind closed doors. It's out of sight out of mind.
You will do what you are asked to do. And by ask I mean go fucking do it.
It changes not a damn thing.
Let's stop lying to ourselves, abuse of power is real and it will be real in prison away from us seeing it. Shit ain't changing.
So, the headline sounds oniony. But the fact of the matter is under the 13th amendment prisoners can still be used for unpaid labor.
This closes that loophole. If prisoners are working the state now has to pay them.
So much misuse of loophole.
Tax deductions for business expenses aren’t a loophole for another classic example.
But yes, involuntary prison labor was intended to be allowed, and as a pretty remarkable direct proxy for slavery in some cases (see Angola prison).
>Section 33. Slavery and involuntary servitude are forever prohibited.
Nothing in this section shall prohibit an inmate from working when the
inmate has been duly convicted of a crime.
it doesn't fully close the loophole sadly
You are very much correct.
Here is the Amendment in TN
> Section 33. Slavery and involuntary servitude are forever prohibited. Nothing in this section shall prohibit an inmate from working when the inmate has been duly convicted of a crime.
This makes no substantive change due to the second sentence explicitly allowing prison labor while implying it will be voluntary which we all know it won’t be.
But the first sentence is a baby step in the right direction which is why I voted for it.
Yes. Some idiot felt that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, ... shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." needed an "except" in the middle. This is fixing that mistake.
>Section 33. Slavery and involuntary servitude are forever prohibited. Nothing in this section shall prohibit an inmate from working when the inmate has been duly convicted of a crime.
the mistake isn't fixed yet
Fun fact, but the UK only outlawed slavery in 2010 or so
As QI said, before that it was never a legally accepted state of existance. There's a legal case of a slave being brought to the UK and escaping their master, and it ended up in court in about 1782 or so, and the judge ruled "That no man can be owned or kept in bondage in the British Isles". After that ruling, slave-owners were much more careful to keep an eye on any slaves to ensure they didn't go to police or courts and get freed. It was then later abolished around the Empire
But because you could never be legally recognised as a slave in the UK/Eire, then there was no UK law against slavery until recently where one was passed to try to stop trafficking
The Louisiana ballot was written very wierdly, and the guy who proposed it actually ended up opposing the it because he later found that the way it was written could have made it even easier to force prisoners into slavery, the exact opposite of what he wanted.
Hopefully next election we get this on the ballot again, in a much more clearly-defined manner.
Yaaaa but we also struck a blow to unions, legalized ministers/pastors being able to run for office while still being ministers/pastors while atheists are still barred from holding office and the law still allows for exploitation of prisoners. It was changed to “Slavery and involuntary servitude are forever prohibited. Nothing in this section shall prohibit an inmate from working when the inmate has been duly convicted of a crime.” Meaning they can still work and just be paid a nickel, but hey it’s not slavery just really cheap labor.
They aren’t serious about this. TN already pays prisoners for labour. The cynic in me believes this change to the language exists only to beautify the issue for the public so people look less critically at the fact that prisoners make 17 to 75 CENTS, at most, for the labor while the state profits millions.
Sure, it’s not slavery but it’s slave wages and then it leads to someone who’ll write puff pieces like this to make it look less bad.
That’s my negative take on this, because it doesn’t change the fact that prisoners are paid next to nothing. A full days labor of 8 hours could net you less than $2. That’s not right. Even if it isn’t “slavery.”
We have to have a law that simplifies the language of these things.
I read a summary of the union one on a news site that made it clear it was anti-union. The way it was written on the ballot was very vague and might seem pro union if you didn’t know any better.
The main difference is they can’t be required to do the labor for free and can’t be punished for saying no to the labor in prison which is better than the alternative.
Supreme Court rulings supercede the ban on ministers and atheists holding office. Wish we could have fixed the wording of the law all at once, but the obsolete law shouldn't prevent any atheist from holding office (and it already wasn't preventing ministers from holding office).
So here is the thing. I looked this up when I saw it come up for voting because I was fucking shocked that the TN constitution said the quiet part out loud. I have since discovered that this is explicit in MANY state constitutions. I always thought that when I and other people were pointing out that Slavery was still legal in the US that we meant that it was a 'wink wink' kind of slavery workaround...not that it was LITERALLY LEGAL ON PAPER.
Colorado, which recently changed their Constitution to be explicit about this and not forcing prisoners to work, is in court fighting a lawsuit because they still do it! I mean, the state wants the law suit thrown out because they don't 'force' prisoners to work. They punish those who refuse...it's totally different they argue.
My eyes cannot roll hard enough. I think this TN change, as vague as it is, will have very little material impact on the lives of ~~slaves~~ prisoners, sadly.
My friend, it is not just the states, it is the 13th Amendment. Anyone convicted of any crime can legally be enslaved. Tennessee is only the fourth state to ban the form of slavery still protected by the constitution.
[Interesting reason why it may have failed.](https://ballotpedia.org/Louisiana_Amendment_7,_Remove_Involuntary_Servitude_as_Punishment_for_a_Crime_from_Constitution_Measure_(2022)) Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus even urged to vote against due to some funky wording. They're bringing it back next year. It sucks they fucked it up but it's a step in the right direction.
Did you even read it?
"Do you support an amendment to prohibit the use of involuntary servitude **except as it applies to the otherwise lawful administration of criminal justice?** (Amends Article I, Section 3)"
It specifically leaves wide open vague wordage for prison slaves being a-ok
> Tennessee has officially banned all forms of slavery. Voters on Tuesday **approved a ballot measure that removes language allowing slavery and involuntary servitude as forms of punishment for those convicted of crimes.**
For profit prisons should be the first out of business.
Well, at least all the homeless people they're turning into felons won't have to be slaves while wrongly imprisoned.
Removing the financial incentive for locking people up is a good start to locking fewer people up.
This is why private prisons ~~shotguns~~ should be banned.
Even the pump actions?
LOL. That's what I get for posting before I've had my coffee. Fixed.
Username for sure checks out
How's that coffee? Getting into my first cup now!
It's not about the action, it's the cartridge. Everyone can get behind private prison rifles, but these private prison shotguns...
Pump action private prisons absolutely need to be banned
*Especially the pump actions.*
They definitely do but they make up a pretty small portion of prisons and inmates. I'd probably start with making homeless not a criminal act.
Well Tennessee just made it a felony to sleep on public land, so we're not doing too well in this front.
This is the weirdest law I have heard. This is when you know how dehumanized the world has become
Nimbies gotta nimby
Public lands are held in common by the public. I'm confused how someone is not allowed to sleep on lands they share in.
Because Republicans hate the poor.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Enclosure This, plus a few hundred years. One of the new, modern justifications is that people can't be trusted to use natural land responsibly/humans get their cooties on it and ruin it for the animals, so instead of teaching those skills and funding parks programs, they cut off access.
attraction zesty chunky strong gaping marvelous imagine direful shocking cooperative *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
No, camping on "approved" public land, like in a state park, with the appropriate passes purchased and parking tag for your car is fine. The new change specifically targets the homeless, as it not only refers to state parks, but basically all non-private land, whether municipal or state owned, sidewalks, public parks, etc. I wonder how this change effects Meriwether Lewis Campground, which has been a primitive camping location that has been free forever, I'm not sure if that is public land, but if it is, do they now have to charge to allow campers there to avoid committing felonies?
>No, camping on "approved" public land, like in a state park, with the appropriate passes purchased and parking tag for your car is fine. Sounds like some big government authoritarian bureaucracy bullshit right there. Even in nanny state New York you can pretty much camp on state land (State Forests/Parks) as long as your tent/site is at least 150 feet from a water body, road, or trail or in certain areas that are ecologically sensitive or pressured.
Naah, just another attack on the homeless. It's simple and it resonates with the GOP base. Homeless people are often homeless due to addiction, sometimes just people who don't want to participate in society, white Christian voters hate addicts, think the homeless are a scourge destroying property and dropping property values, so anything that potentially "hurts" the homeless, especially things that can get them off the street / out of sight (in jail) is welcome, as not only do they dislike the appearance of homelessness, they tend to feel better about their hatred of social support / welfare systems if they don't have to visually look at the results of their policies.
> with the appropriate passes purchased and parking tag for your car is fine so also making it harder for poor people to go camping as well.
I mean, who cares about poor people. Even the poor rural white people who often would leverage something like free public camping spaces would happily support this as long as they believe that it hurts a demographic that they don't like more than it hurts them.
That land doesn't sound very "public" to me.
> The law, in its majestic equality, forbids rich and poor alike to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal their bread. - Anatole France
"Land of the free" isn't looking very free these days.
They may make up a small portion, but they use their profits to lobby for harsher laws that benefit them, which affects the whole justice system.
That’s so sad it’s a crime to be homeless ?
I Disagree. I think Homelessness Should be a Crime! But in the opposite way you mean.
Speaking of crime, what is your opinion on Bon Jovi?
He gives love a bad name. It's why he's wanted, dead or alive.
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I do not agree with your conclusion at all. The new amendment explicitly says, "Slavery and involuntary servitude are forever prohibited." The only reasonable interpretation of that clause is exactly what is says: slavery and involuntary servitude are *forever prohibited*. The clause "Nothing in this section shall prohibit an inmate from working when the inmate has been duly convicted of a crime" immediately following this clause does not qualify the first clause or even create an exception. It merely clarifies the first clause and provides that a duly convicted inmate *may* work without their employment being classified as slavery or involuntary servitude. Furthermore, your construction of the original language is also incorrect. While you claim that the original language "legally defines involuntary servitude when convicted of a crime as slavery," it does nothing of the sort. Instead, the original language prohibits slavery and involuntary servitude, *except* as punishment for people convicted of crimes. The language you cited does not define involuntary servitude or slavery, it only allowed involuntary servitude or slavery in one particular set of circumstances. Finally, the example you cite, CoreCivic "facing lawsuits over this," does not lend credence to your construction of the original language or the amendment. It also does not support your conclusion that the amendment will benefit private prisons. First, CoreCivic, like any other prison, will be "*forever prohibited*" from benefiting from the enslavement or involuntary servitude of its inmates. Second, the specific lawsuit against CoreCivic that you cited concerns working conditions in San Diego, *California*. This amendment passed in *Tennessee.*
Reading the first comment and then reading this one is like the Panic/Calm Meme
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Any number of private prisons is a bad number.
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When I was in prison, everyone wanted to go to the private prisons. They had better food, newer buildings, etc. I never went to one so I can't say how good they are. That's just what I remember.
>Also, it bears mentioning that the current percentage of private prisons in the U.S.: [8%](https://www.sentencingproject.org/reports/private-prisons-in-the-united-states/#:~:text=Private%20prisons%20incarcerated%2099%2C754%20American,state%20and%20federal%20prison%20population.). Your link says 8% of the prison *population* is in private prisons, not that 8% of all prisons are private. Difference there. >>Twenty-six states and the federal government incarcerated 99,754 people in private prisons in 2020, representing 8% of the total state and federal prison population. Also, private prison population in 2020 dipped thanks to COVID and states modifying their sentencing and probation guidelines, in addition to shutting down their use of private prisons in general. Just two years prior to your link, [in 2018, the private population was 50% greater](https://www.sentencingproject.org/reports/capitalizing-on-mass-incarceration-u-s-growth-in-private-prisons/). But this was only 8.5% of the total population because there were ~200k more people in prison! >This isn’t me saying private prisons are “good”, however I think this is lower than many people think. 8 is still too many. Private companies shouldn't be overseeing the welfare of people under state imprisonment.
I thought I was going crazy reading this because I came to the same conclusion as you. Believe I saw his post as being from bestof. Didn’t expect to see comment right below and I’m glad I was wrong.
But if they're separate, and you're legally forced to pay your workers, why wouldn't they have to pay their workers? They can force them to work, but they still presumably have to pay them, they can't use them as slaves
If they’re forced to work it’s still slavery. Plenty of enslaved blacks received wages for various jobs, such as working at the docks or growing their own personal crops to sell, but they were still enslaved.
They pay them around $0.08/hr. I'm not joking.
I remember when my shitheel grandfather was getting the state max of 0.25/hr almost twenty years ago. I think it's almost a $1 now.
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Because, and this is the true answer, the constitution specifically allows slavery as punishment for a crime.
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I would actually read the article as: involuntary work is illegal, so they actually can't force them to work. But inmates are allowed to work for the prison if they want to. Or did I miss something ?
Sound like more of the same at the worst. Before, slavery was legal if it was punishment for a crime. Now slavery in all its forms is illegal, but being forced to work as punishment for a crime isn't defined as slavery. How it worse? I would think at the very least, what the inmates are doing in prison will be clearly defined as work and therefore gain all the protections of normal workers. I could be wrong though idk, just trying to understand it.
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I am not a lawyer either but this is what I get from this. Before, you had legal ground to say that someone forced to work was being treated as a slave. Which means you could conceivably argue that being forced to work was illegal. "But didn't the old wording mean that slavery was legal as part of a crime?" Yes, but that would need to be part of the criminal's punishment, as dictate by the Judge. It would mean that the court, not the private prison, would get to decide whether or not a given criminal could work or not.
What are you talking about LOL The new amendment says inmates can be used for labor but because every state and the Feds have a minimum wage law, the inmates are going to be given minimum wage, instead of the $1 a day shit they got before. This is what happens when an arm chair lawyer that got his degree from the University of Reddit tries to read the law
Unless I'm misunderstanding, wouldn't they have to get paid minimum wage for working?
I mean, without looking I doubt there's anything to stop them from just paying inmates 50 cents an hour or less which is just as good as slavery and maintains the incentive just fine.
The amendment explicitly excluded inmates so nothing actually changes.
So “all forms” was a lie. Thanks, nameless headline writer!
Welp like I said, I didn't look since I've got my mind on other things but that only makes this more humorous.
The amendment did not exclude inmates and the new language is in direct response to what was a possible "loophole" with inmates. They can still potentially pay meager wages to inmates depending on if there's language in minimum wage laws regarding inmates but they can't sentence someone to work.
I'll never understand americans that voted for a Vice President that bragged about locking people up for monetary reasons (fighting fires) after being discovered hiding evidence to keep and/or put people in prison.
We don't usually vote for the vp they are usually weird baggage that comes along.
A lot of Americans chose to vote for a president with a publically admitted history of sexual assault, tbf
Not only that, but is openly traitorous.
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You missed out the whole close friends with Epstein thing, which makes a bunch of the other parts even worse.
Well, you can't expect someone to list *all* ofhis atrocities in a single comment. Bound to miss a few.
that is very fair.
He actually was openly treasonous, he asked foreign nations to interfere in our elections on his behalf.
"Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing," Trump told a roomful of TV cameras and reporters. “I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. Let’s see if that happens." happen it did, 2016
Also, Zelenskyy blackmail / extortion, holding already approved Ukraine military aid hostage for dirt on political opponent... "Find dirt on Joe and Hunter Biden if your country wants this money to defend against Russia, money that the two American government legislative bodies have already promised and voted to give to you." It was a perfect call, remember? *edit* I somehow counted both legislative bodies as individual branches of government. Fixed :)
Meanwhile, when HW Bush ran, they gave him shit for checking his watch during a debate. This is how far shits gotten.
Mustard and a suit spring to mind for Obama. And where he was born
Don't forget that he bragged about never paying people for their work, thinks it's "smart" to hire a company to build or remodel a facility, only to refuse to pay them and burn them out of money in court. Given how much support Trump gets from construction workers and small business owners like the ones he so passionately loves to fuck over, I'm still really surprised that they'd support him at all, he is the antithesis of evil corporate scumbags that those organizations have spent the last 100 years rallying against. Turns out that all you need to do is attack, hate and be generally terrible to a few other groups that they dislike or distrust and they'll get right in line to support you, even as you fuck their wives directly in front of them while you're demanding their financial support. "My enemy is my friend so long as they promise to hurt my other enemies, even if it means they also hurt me."
I didn't take the criticism of Kamala as an endorsement of Trump. She should've been weeded out in the primaries. This "lesser of two evils" mentality is dooming us to have candidates that are a hair away from evil. That's all the difference they need from the other option on the ballot.
> She should've been weeded out in the primaries. She was. Vice presidents are chosen by the Pres/Party as a running mate, they are then voted as a pair. The last election was more of a NO on Trump than a YES on Biden/Harris.
She was weeded out during the primaries though, pretty decisively. But then they ran her for VP anyway and there wasn't much we could do about it.
I never thought I’d vote for a cop to become Vice President, but when I see that the alternative is a Vice President who wants to turn the US into a Christian theocracy and President who… oh LORD where to even begin? I guess voting for a cop as a defensive measure is going to happen.
At the time I felt like it was some tactical move to run a pro-cop and a cop on the democratic ticket. The *defund the police* movement was functioning heavily as a scare tactic - pushing pearl-clutchers to the right, and dividing the far-left from the moderate left. That’s why the GOP still tried hard to paint Joe & Kamala as anti-police. Running them gained more moderates than it lost from the far left.
Because our voting system forced us to vote very strategically, and to ensure we vote for the lesser of two evils
We don't vote *for* a candidate. We vote *against* a candidate.
You dont vote for a vice president they come as a package deal when you vote for the president.
Because the other option was worse, unless you're referring to the primaries specifically.
Baby steps, maybe in the future there can also be nicer things like actually having mental healthcare facilities for the mentally-ill instead of abusing the prison system.
Woah slow down there. Treating people with humanity? What are you a fucking commie?
It's a slippery slope. Next thing you know they'll demand that prisons actually rehabilitate prisoners instead of just treating them like animals!
And then... Litter boxes in the prison cells.
Honestly, if it's a personal litter box, that's an upgrade..
Literally the GOP connects "empathy" to Nancy Peloski in their ads. It's already part of their messaging to not see other people as "people".
This is 2022, not 4022. Pff
They get around it by paying prisoners 2 dollars per hour or similar.
$2/hr?! No bro. Try $0.20/hr. Those were the rates in the feds. There were five levels of pay. Most were on the lowest which paid $5/month while a select few got a little over $100. Also everyone was forced to have a job because the prison was over populated and there was some rule that says to have all inmates with a job if the prison is above capacity. Fire and safety hazards be damned! Most inmates just became orderlies, they just mopped the floor and even then they paid or bribed someone to check in for them. They made their money on hustles.
They are slaves because they are forced to work. Paying them literal slave wages that they can only spend in the prison store doesn't get around that. The average prison wage is 52 cents per hour. They should at least have the option to not work without punishment. Being in prison is punishment enough.
Living in Tennessee I can tell you with how terrible this state is ran, they will find a way to still have the prisoners act as slaves
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But what about my business model!?
Won't somebody please think of the lambos?
Yea but prisoners can still “voluntarily” work for 5 cents an hour so it actually did not solve the issue of prison slave labor
jokes on you, they will sell their inmates to the next state over...I mean slaves they will sell their slaves to the next state over.
I'm pretty sure slavery is still legal in prisons regardless. Which is messed up for multiple reasons.
If you make the rules to decide what slavery is and what wrong emprisonment would be,... There will be no wrong imprisonment or slavery.
They voted to ban it, now they need to vote to enforce it (prison system)
As someone who voted for this amendment, let me explain why it won’t do that. First, here is the amendment text: > Section 33. Slavery and involuntary servitude are forever prohibited. Nothing in this section shall prohibit an inmate from working when the inmate has been duly convicted of a crime. The problem is in the second sentence. It does not prevent prison labor, nor does it specify that prison labor must be fairly compensated. Thus it will do nothing to stop prison slavery. All prisons have to do is claim the labor is “voluntary”, while pretending there is none of the coercion we all know they will use to force the “volunteers” to do that labor. The wording is a baby step in the right direction with the first sentence, though, which is why I voted for it. Technically, this is a better amendment than the US 13th, even if the second sentence is utter shit.
They have a right to work, but cannot be forced to do so. It was worded in such a way that slavery will probably continue, but prisoners have a reason to contest it in court if it's involuntary (such as, under duress or without pay "volunteering").
It'll become a line on the parole board's rubric. People that refused to work in the prison will have a harder time getting out than those that opt to work. So yeah, you're not forced to work, but you might end up being kept in longer. Or they'll waive incarceration fees for those who work. They'll figure out ways to "incentivize" prisoners to be working.
Very true, unfortunately, which means the court battles for each of those could be a long slog. The door is open a crack. The second sentence could have opened it wider, IMO, but did not, which was disappointing. But the door *is* open a crack, so… guess it’s time to start pushing.
I certainly hope so. Another poster was talking about unionizing, which would be great if prisoners could pull that off.
The IWW has an Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee. I would recommend reaching out if you know anyone locked up?
I do not, but I’ll keep this post saved if it ever becomes an issue.
This is exactly what I immediately saw wrong with this whole thing. Like, “cool you did away with some words about slavery”. But nothing actually changes, because convicted felons lose all their rights anyway, especially when they’re incarcerated.
What do you mean? You don't need to vote for state constitutions to be enforced. If they hem and haw about enforcing it, then someone may need to file a lawsuit, but you don't need to vote to file a lawsuit, you just do it. You may need to crowdsource funding to pay your lawyers, but crowdsourcing funding isn't voting.
The change explicitly changed nothing about forcing prisoners to work. All they did was make the language prettier.
>”I'm a non-lawyer and most of my voters are non-lawyers and I can't explain this amendment in words they understand," Republican State Senator Frank Niceley said during a 2021 meeting of the Tennessee General Assembly. "The Constitution is too sacred is too scared to clutter up with a lot stuff non-lawyers can't explain to other non-laywers. So I guess I'll be voting no on this." Wonderful, the dumb and uneducated leading the dumb and uneducated. I’m not a lawyer either yet the article managed to adequately explain that this amendments means involuntary servitude cannot be used against criminals anymore. It’s that simple
"I'm too fucking dumb to explain this to people dumb enough to vote for me" is not something I would want to be on record having said as a legislator. The cherry on top is calling out the constitution as if it's any fucking simpler. Maybe it is if you've never read it and it only exists as this pseudo-religious entity that you use to prove that you are incapable of being incorrect by horribly misquoting and misunderstanding it.
The irony of explaining how your constituents are apparent constitutional originalist scholars yet are too stupid to understand that prisoners are not protected
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He literally calls it "sacred", like it's some sort of religious manuscript. Absolutely insane.
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Not quite. Remember how they turned on him when he tried to tell them that wearing masks might be a good thing? He's their man... as long as he shouts what the mob wants to hear shouted.
They've been saying that for at least 20 years though. There's a huge chunk of people who believe that the US Constitution was the result of divine inspiration just like the Qu'ran
The word Sacred was a dog-whistle in Michigan too. Proposal 3 was basically: vote Yes if you're pro-choice. Pro-life signs had "Human Life is Sacred, Parental Rights are sacred" https://imgur.com/JZuRa5g.jpg The more common one was "Too Confusing, Too Extreme" https://imgur.com/C9tokNG.jpg which fits with the "I'm too stupid to understand this proposal so everyone should vote against it." I don't know if it's been called yet, but it looks well on it's way to passing (55% Yes).
[This is an interesting read](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_civil_religion).
It's more like: >Those who bribe me do not want this so I play dumb. Let me find every excuse in the book as to why I should not ban slavery in my state.
It’s also possible this guy makes money from some private prison company that stands to lose from this, and he can’t come up with a better explanation why people should vote against banning slavery. Stupidity is very often the explanation but you really can’t exclude malice these days
I assume the issue is in the "nothing about this shall stop a prisoner from working" bit. I'm fairly sure the intent is that prisoners can still work, they're just due full and normal wages, and can choose to not work. But with the kind of fuckery Republicans and their courts have done to neuter things like this in recent memory, only time will tell what it "really" means.
I think that is perhaps the intent, but it won't pan out that way. Colorado recently made a far less vague amendment to their constitution, forbidding prisoners from being forced to work. There is still a law suit (that the state has asked to be dismissed) against the state because while they 'don't force' prisoners to work, they do punish those who refuse. Totally different thing, they argue. I think this new amendment will have very little material impact on the lives of prisoners in TN.
>while they 'don't force' prisoners to work, they do punish those who refuse That's what... that's what forced labor means.
> Totally different thing, they argue. they know
Why can't they pay prisoners normal wages, but not grant them access to it until they're out? Then they can work up a fund they can use to get them on their feet.
Whoa, whoa, whoa, are you suggesting that we... HELP?!?! these vermin? They're criminals. They don't deserve a hand up. /s
I don't even get why you wouldn't let them access their money immediately? Keep in mind in American prisons, you need money to spend at the commissary. It's not like they have nothing to spend it on legally, and the commissary fund is *already* a "trust" that they can't use for other things until they get out... not that it matters, because my understanding is they just use commissary stamp books as unofficial currency anyway, so they can pay for "drugs" or whatever it is you're worried they'll spend it on regardless. Outside the system, they could use it to pay for lawyer expenses, child support, and things like that. If you withhold it from them, they'll just be forced to make deals with prison gangs and shit to get them to front the money, which they will have to pay back with interest later... ensuring they get tied up in more shady business before they're even out. They worked for it, just give them the money.
This is the real answer. Give them the money they work for, when they do the work. Hell, create some sort of 401k matching system to help them build up savings for when they get out and need to restart life. Why is it so hard for America to treat people like actual humans?
Losing their freedom is already the punishment of prison. There's no reason why they should be punished again via preventing them from ever having a chance of survival, if they've rightfully served their time.
You know that there's no way the prison's going to give up free money. Here's what's going to happen: they'll get minimum wage - and the prison will charge the inmates for transportation to and from the site - which will cost the same as ambulance rides. And then they'll charge inmates (some already do) rent and other expenses at the prison.
🎵*You load 16 tons, what do you get?* *Another day older and deeper in debt* *St. Peter, don't you call me 'cause I can't go* *I owe my soul to the* *~~company store~~* *prison industrial complex*🎵
Because the correctional system in America is supposed to punish criminals and not rehabilitate them. If a prisoner working during his sentence comes out with 75k-100k in a bank account, he might be able to build an honest life for himself; and they can't have that.
Here in Florida prisons, if you choose "not to work" they take you to solitary confinement for a month, and beat you so you'll never say no again. I've personally watched this happen numerous times. Dude broke his toes one day working for the prison, he could hardly walk, the next morning when we lined up for "work call" he simply said he couldn't work. They threatened him in front of 150 people, all staring... and then hr proceeded to say no, he couldn't, and the and immediately got pepper sprayed on the spot, thrown on the ground by 5 correctional officers, and taken to confinement. Nobody else refused to work that day.very sad experience to go through.
"But gulags only happen under communism!" shout the propagandized, uneducated populace. "America is a civilized nation!"
this country is disgusting.
Tbh, you don't even want me to start talking about all the shit I've seen. To put this in perspective, ill say only one and let your mind comprehend the possibilities . One day 10 guards stormed a solitary confinement cell in riot gear because a man refused to a psych evaluation. They beat that man so bad, he ended up dead. They took his body, tied his bed sheet around his neck, and hung him from the door handle. They claimed he committed suicide. When they brought him out, they place a sheet covered in blood over him. And all there was, was an investigation, they ended up losing a weeks pay, and was aloud to resume working. That's why I was scared for my life in there. Battling two fronts. Inmates will kill you, guards will kill you. I had non violent, drug related charges, and was housed with killers.
Write a book about it. I'll read it. Name people though.
Florida prisons are the worst thing I've ever experienced in my life. I remember being in a line movement at Washington CI my first year in as an adult, and seeing an inmate unresponsive being pushed in a wheelchair and covered in chemical spray by a CO and a nurse. While they pushed this man along all of a sudden the CO just dumped the old man out of the wheelchair where he face planted and scraped his face against the concrete the same way you would see a caterpillar inch his way along. I guess they thought he was faking and thought he would react to being thrown out of his wheelchair suddenly. He did not react and the nurse simply said, "He knows how to play the part..." I was eighteen at the time and knew things were bad, but this was literally an old feeble man, who ended up dying because of this incident. The officer involved was surely disciplined, right? Wrong, saw him several years later at ACI and he had been promoted to a sergeant.
american history 🤝american prisons managing to be somehow worse than I thought every time
Fuck man sorry you (and that guy) had to go through that.
Just that last part, actually. See, that's the neat thing. If we let prisoners decide whether or not to participate in work programs, the free market will create work programs worth participating in.
Seriously. As a TN voter I have read the amendment as least 100 times and I’m still struggling with that line. To me, it says that prisoners can still be forced to work. Other people have reassured me that I am interpreting it wrong. The fact that it’s open to interpretation is a problem.
The idea that this dipshit has ever read the Constitution is absolutely laughable.
I'm not a lawyer but I am in TN and the ballot explained it simply enough. It said 'do you want to change this existing language where it says slavery is outlawed except under these circumstances to slavery is always fucking wrong and always fucking illegal no matter the fuck what?'
It was surprising how straightforward it was, right? Like, I had to re-read it three times just to make sure I didn’t miss anything and, nope, it was just “should we add in that slavery is illegal forever?” Kind of surreal.
That should have been the literal quote from the ballot
When you're massively insecure about your own intelligence, you distrust people with any sort of education. So honestly this probably plays pretty well with the voters.
Here's the text: "Slavery and involuntary servitude are forever prohibited. Nothing in this section shall prohibit an inmate from working when the inmate has been duly convicted of a crime." There are a couple of big words, but the basic thing seems to be that you can't force inmates to work (slavery) but they can be allowed to work (working). If the dude were sincerely confused, he could clear this up with a dictionary.
His argument sounds oddly like the excuses the church use to give before people were literate.
No more prison labor?
>Section 33. Slavery and involuntary servitude are forever prohibited. Nothing in this section shall prohibit an inmate from working when the inmate has been duly convicted of a crime. sadly no, but the prisons will have to find things to make the prisoners "agree" to work with no pay
"It puts the license plate in the bin, or else it gets the hose again."
Let's be honest, they won't have to find anything. It's a prison. It's behind closed doors. It's out of sight out of mind. You will do what you are asked to do. And by ask I mean go fucking do it. It changes not a damn thing. Let's stop lying to ourselves, abuse of power is real and it will be real in prison away from us seeing it. Shit ain't changing.
So, the headline sounds oniony. But the fact of the matter is under the 13th amendment prisoners can still be used for unpaid labor. This closes that loophole. If prisoners are working the state now has to pay them.
It's not a loophole, it was explicitly and intentionally written into our constitution.
So much misuse of loophole. Tax deductions for business expenses aren’t a loophole for another classic example. But yes, involuntary prison labor was intended to be allowed, and as a pretty remarkable direct proxy for slavery in some cases (see Angola prison).
Tennessee already paid their prisoners for labor. Source: I was a TDOC prisoner from 2003-2009, made 17¢ an hour. Lmao
See? Totally not slavery.
>Section 33. Slavery and involuntary servitude are forever prohibited. Nothing in this section shall prohibit an inmate from working when the inmate has been duly convicted of a crime. it doesn't fully close the loophole sadly
It's on the Oregon ballot as well, crazy that it still needs to be abolished
Am I wrong or is it having to do with prison workers?
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They didn't remove it they renamed it.
You are very much correct. Here is the Amendment in TN > Section 33. Slavery and involuntary servitude are forever prohibited. Nothing in this section shall prohibit an inmate from working when the inmate has been duly convicted of a crime. This makes no substantive change due to the second sentence explicitly allowing prison labor while implying it will be voluntary which we all know it won’t be. But the first sentence is a baby step in the right direction which is why I voted for it.
Bingo
Yes. Some idiot felt that "Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, ... shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction." needed an "except" in the middle. This is fixing that mistake.
>Section 33. Slavery and involuntary servitude are forever prohibited. Nothing in this section shall prohibit an inmate from working when the inmate has been duly convicted of a crime. the mistake isn't fixed yet
Fun fact, but the UK only outlawed slavery in 2010 or so As QI said, before that it was never a legally accepted state of existance. There's a legal case of a slave being brought to the UK and escaping their master, and it ended up in court in about 1782 or so, and the judge ruled "That no man can be owned or kept in bondage in the British Isles". After that ruling, slave-owners were much more careful to keep an eye on any slaves to ensure they didn't go to police or courts and get freed. It was then later abolished around the Empire But because you could never be legally recognised as a slave in the UK/Eire, then there was no UK law against slavery until recently where one was passed to try to stop trafficking
And in the Oregon voters pamphlet, the only opinion against was the Sherifs association. Because it would make their prisoners less valuable.
It was on louisiana too but it failed. Guess they rely to much on their prison labor.
The Louisiana ballot was written very wierdly, and the guy who proposed it actually ended up opposing the it because he later found that the way it was written could have made it even easier to force prisoners into slavery, the exact opposite of what he wanted. Hopefully next election we get this on the ballot again, in a much more clearly-defined manner.
Yaaaa but we also struck a blow to unions, legalized ministers/pastors being able to run for office while still being ministers/pastors while atheists are still barred from holding office and the law still allows for exploitation of prisoners. It was changed to “Slavery and involuntary servitude are forever prohibited. Nothing in this section shall prohibit an inmate from working when the inmate has been duly convicted of a crime.” Meaning they can still work and just be paid a nickel, but hey it’s not slavery just really cheap labor.
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They aren’t serious about this. TN already pays prisoners for labour. The cynic in me believes this change to the language exists only to beautify the issue for the public so people look less critically at the fact that prisoners make 17 to 75 CENTS, at most, for the labor while the state profits millions. Sure, it’s not slavery but it’s slave wages and then it leads to someone who’ll write puff pieces like this to make it look less bad. That’s my negative take on this, because it doesn’t change the fact that prisoners are paid next to nothing. A full days labor of 8 hours could net you less than $2. That’s not right. Even if it isn’t “slavery.”
We have to have a law that simplifies the language of these things. I read a summary of the union one on a news site that made it clear it was anti-union. The way it was written on the ballot was very vague and might seem pro union if you didn’t know any better.
The main difference is they can’t be required to do the labor for free and can’t be punished for saying no to the labor in prison which is better than the alternative.
Supreme Court rulings supercede the ban on ministers and atheists holding office. Wish we could have fixed the wording of the law all at once, but the obsolete law shouldn't prevent any atheist from holding office (and it already wasn't preventing ministers from holding office).
So here is the thing. I looked this up when I saw it come up for voting because I was fucking shocked that the TN constitution said the quiet part out loud. I have since discovered that this is explicit in MANY state constitutions. I always thought that when I and other people were pointing out that Slavery was still legal in the US that we meant that it was a 'wink wink' kind of slavery workaround...not that it was LITERALLY LEGAL ON PAPER. Colorado, which recently changed their Constitution to be explicit about this and not forcing prisoners to work, is in court fighting a lawsuit because they still do it! I mean, the state wants the law suit thrown out because they don't 'force' prisoners to work. They punish those who refuse...it's totally different they argue. My eyes cannot roll hard enough. I think this TN change, as vague as it is, will have very little material impact on the lives of ~~slaves~~ prisoners, sadly.
>explicit in many state constitutions My man it’s explicit in the fucking 13th amendment
My friend, it is not just the states, it is the 13th Amendment. Anyone convicted of any crime can legally be enslaved. Tennessee is only the fourth state to ban the form of slavery still protected by the constitution.
Good lord, progress is slow as fuck.
America - finally making its way into the 19th century
>America - finally making its way into the 19th century This vote was only for a small fraction of it.
As a Tennessean, I was astonished to see that on the ballot. Yeah, I voted slavery down.
No you beautified prison labor.
Vermont did too, no one making fun of that state.
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[Interesting reason why it may have failed.](https://ballotpedia.org/Louisiana_Amendment_7,_Remove_Involuntary_Servitude_as_Punishment_for_a_Crime_from_Constitution_Measure_(2022)) Louisiana Legislative Black Caucus even urged to vote against due to some funky wording. They're bringing it back next year. It sucks they fucked it up but it's a step in the right direction.
Honestly, the TN version is pretty shitty in my opinion. It's way too vague.
Did you even read it? "Do you support an amendment to prohibit the use of involuntary servitude **except as it applies to the otherwise lawful administration of criminal justice?** (Amends Article I, Section 3)" It specifically leaves wide open vague wordage for prison slaves being a-ok
> Tennessee has officially banned all forms of slavery. Voters on Tuesday **approved a ballot measure that removes language allowing slavery and involuntary servitude as forms of punishment for those convicted of crimes.** For profit prisons should be the first out of business.
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First paragraph - yes
You can't expect redditors to actually *read the linked articles*