Reply #74: While technically true it's more complicated than that due to other legal rulings. [View All]

[Sirveri]

Off the top of my head is Bailey v. Alabama, which eliminates debt peonage, but also established a broad view of the 13th Amendment. At the least it could be argued that any inmate in the system currently for fraud wouldn't be able to be used to perform any form of labor whatsoever simply due to that ruling. There is also the issue of the language of the 13th, which you have ignored. Slavery shall not exist withing the United states (being the basic gist of the statement, simply remove your bolded section and I suspect we'd both agree it said that). That would tend to indicate that slavery must be specifically given as a punishment for a crime on a case by case basis. Not having access to the legal backgrounds for all the inmates at these facilities it is impossible to go further on this tangent. The other issue is the wording behind the Bailey ruling. If a person is convicted of a crime 'owes a debt to society' for their actions, then we would once again trigger Bailey (as it specifically relates to debts), and thus be unable to compel their labor in such a manner. In fact the very reason for Bailey was to prevent the poor black rural underclass of the time from being placed into a form of bondage similar to that of slavery. Even though there were laws specifically designed to perform just that task. Need more hands to harvest the crops, send the constables out to arrest the negroes on the street for vagrancy, and you will get your farm hands from the legal system for free. It's the same thing, except color blind this time.