The 13th Amendment didn’t end slavery. It rebranded it.
“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as punishment for crime…” That single phrase is not a loophole. It’s the design. It’s how America ensured slavery would survive, hidden in plain sight, written into the Constitution, weaponized against the very people it promised to free.
Look at Angola Prison in Louisiana. Built on a slave plantation, it still works like one. Men plant and pick crops under the rifles of mounted guards. Their wages: nothing. Not pennies. Not scraps. Nothing. Swap the overseer’s whip for a guard’s gun, and the picture hasn’t changed in 150 years.
And Angola isn’t an exception. In Texas, Georgia, Florida, Alabama, Arkansas, Mississippi, South Carolina: the same Southern states that once lived off cotton now live off cages. They pay zero to incarcerated people. They squeeze labor out of Black bodies and call it justice.
“Swap the overseer’s whip for a guard’s gun and nothing has changed in 150 years.”
A Nation That Chose Chains
Let’s be clear: this wasn’t an accident. When Congress debated the 13th Amendment, Charles Sumner proposed a version rooted in equality before the law. It was struck down. Too radical. Too threatening. So, they copied the exact phrasing from the 1787 Northwest Ordinance, wording already designed to preserve slavery through punishment. The Senate chose compromise over freedom. They chose chains over equality. And they gave the South all it needed to resurrect slavery through Black Codes, convict leasing, and mass incarceration.
America didn’t stumble into this system. It built it.
Paid in Pennies or Nothing at All
Seven states pay nothing. Everywhere else, prison wages average 13 to 52 cents an hour. Even the “good jobs” in federal UNICOR factories max out at $1.15. Do the math: an eight-hour day can earn $1.04 to $4.16, or in the UNICOR system, $9.20 at the highest wage. A full week might cover the cost of toothpaste… Maybe.
These aren’t side hustles. These are the jobs that keep prisons running. Cooking meals. Cleaning floors. Fighting wildfires. Building furniture for government offices, even military gear. Judges sit on chairs built by men who can’t afford soap. The U.S. military gears up with equipment assembled by workers who can’t buy deodorant.
That isn’t rehabilitation. That’s exploitation.
“Judges sit on chairs built by men who can’t afford soap.”
The Company Store in Chains
And what little they earn? Snatched back. Prisoners must purchase basics, such as soap, shampoo, and toothpaste, at prices two to four times higher than those in the free world. Ramen noodles, 89 cents at Walmart, cost a day’s wage inside. A honey bun? Two days. A tube of antifungal cream? Four days of labor.
Families scrape together money to send in, only to see it swallowed by commissary markups and state kickbacks. Corrections departments literally profit from keeping people poor. They run a company store without the dignity of choice, bleeding families already on the edge.
As one man put it: “They pay me in pennies, then charge me in dollars. My mother sends money she doesn’t have so I can brush my teeth.”
Selling Family Ties
And the robbery doesn’t end there. Want to call your child? A 15-minute phone call can cost $3. In some states, a single call costs more than a full day’s prison wage. Families pay $300 a month “just” to stay connected. Departments of corrections pocket commissions off every minute spoken.
Think about that. A father working for free must beg his mother for money just to call his son. A grandmother skips groceries to fund a phone call. This is not about rehabilitation. It is about squeezing every last dollar out of human misery.
Slavery by Another Name
We need to stop pretending this is anything else. This is slavery. Dress it up in policy reports, budget line items, or corrections jargon all you want, the reality is men and women are forced to labor for the profit of the state while being charged for the privilege of survival.
Cotton fields became license plates. Overseers became wardens. Chains became paperwork. The brutality never ended; it just evolved.
“This isn’t rehabilitation. It’s slavery dressed in legal language.”
The Indictment
So ask yourself:
- Why does America still run on the blood and labor of its most powerless citizens?
- Why are we comfortable letting families starve to keep prisons fat with commissions and contracts?
- Why do we tolerate slavery dressed up as “justice”?
The 13th Amendment did not grant freedom. It was fraud. And every time we excuse it, we prove the system is working exactly as designed: to keep human beings in chains.
The Call
- Don’t tell me this is reformable at the edges.
- Don’t tell me soap and phone calls are luxuries.
- Don’t tell me slavery ended.
It’s here. It’s alive. It’s business as usual in America’s prisons.
The only question left is:
What are you going to do to end it?
