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this post was submitted on 18 Sep 2024
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United States | News & Politics
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Technically it doesn't legalize it, it just avoids the criminalization of it. This is significant because it makes it much easier to reform (which is how around half of states have reformed it at least a little), and this combined with the fact that most states lack significant reforms tells you a lot.
I think the text is pretty direct about permitting it. If it is listed as an exception to that which shall not exist, then it is explicitly allowed to exist.
It's not a de-facto exception by omission, it is named as permissable within the text of the amendment.
The previous commenter is technically correct— since slavery was already legal, the 13th simply carves out prison labor as an exception to the ban on slavery. And, as they pointed out, the legal distinction is important when it comes to individual states banning the practice of prison slave labor.
Sure, but also worth noting that some prisons are federally run, a state wouldn't have the jurisdiction to ban something that the fed controls. That is why reform needs to come from the top, not just at the state level.