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Arguementative essay about the thirteenth amendment
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There are many major problems in concerns to the American prison system that were presented within the movie ‘13th’ ; such as the fact that the government abused the 13th amendment by more or less throwing African americans who’d just been freed from slavery into prison systems that pushed them to forced labor. On top of this, the fact that a corporation such as ALEC can team up with other government officials and companies to enact laws that would benefit them financially and further themselves at a business standpoint.
All things considered, The government used the 13th amendment loophole to incarcerate the slaves that had been freed. Putting them into forced labor and stripping them of their rights while using them to increase the economy of the southern states. The fact that innocent African Americans who had been told they were free were put back into forced labor is horrific; and you can not even fathom how such subjugation and clear prejudice that they had to go through. Even so, there are still clear signs that this problem is still evident even today in modern 2017. As a matter of fact, there are accounts where prisoners are forced to do labor in the penitentiary, they are assigned to; most times without pay. Some of the largest businesses we see in everyday life support this; such as Walmart, Mcdonalds, and even whole foods. These corporations actively use products that
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These penitentiaries and businesses pertaining to the prison system are ultimately trying to convey that making money off of forced labor from ‘criminals’ in prison is a good thing that will help the American people further themselves. When in reality they wrongly imprison thousands of men and women and forcing them to work so that corporations and private prison owners like ALEC and Walmart can make more
The movie 13th mainly discusses the problem of racism and mass incarceration after the civil war. Specifically, it is covered in the documentary that many poor black people were put in jail due to minor misbehaviors and were forced to work for the country under convict leasing. Moreover, black people were treated unfairly and sometimes were tortured unlawfully in the society. The “War on drugs” declared by conservative Republicans were biased against black community and resulted in a significant increase in incarceration in the late 20th. In addition, a lot of companies such as Walmart cooperated with States in terms of private prison constructions and gained a huge amount of profits as a result.
The 13th, 14th, and 15th Amendments are the amendments adopted to the United States Constitution after the Civil War. In succession, these amendments were adopted to the Constitution.
The 13th amendment to the Constitution legally ended slavery, however, one could argue that socially and economically it did not. Once African Americans were free, they had nothing and were given very little. Due to the racist attitudes that were rampant in the South, it was nearly impossible to find anything but low paying, unskilled jobs. Because blacks needed work and plantation owners had vacant land they came to a compromise – sharecropping. Sharecropping was an agreement that in exchange for land, a cabin, and tools, at a very high interest rate, the landowner would receive a portion of the harvest. Although this may sound like a good deal, the high interest rates made the debt nearly impossible to repay, thus once again the African Americans were under control of the white race. The contracts also included clauses that were sim...
Instead of prisoners just sitting in a cell doing nothing, why not put them to work, "Every inmate that works saves taxpayers $5,000 a year"(Smith). There are prisoners that work in greenhouses, that generated $57 million in revenue. As budget cuts rise working prisoners become more and more valuable. Inmates are finding ways to save money by recycling there old mattress, that would of end up in landfills. Some prisons even have their inmates help clean up dirty parks around them. While the prisoners are doing this they are learning skills , that will help them with different jobs. Prisoners that do a good job get rewarded with money bonuses. Prisoners learning how to be more responsible and understand how to become a better person will help them in the up coming future. With the prisoners getting paid for bonuses for good work this will make it feel as if it’s a real job. The experience that the inmates are receiving will help them with jobs once they are released from prison. Prisoners will strive to do better with the bonuses they are receiving, and will understand again what its like work. Now with this happening this will ensure the prisoners will have a better and healthier
Many citizens in the United States were led to believe that after the Civil War, the United States and its’ territories had indeed freed all slaves from their masters but, what many did not see coming was a loophole in the 13th Amendment that would leave a major footprint in U.S history. The thirteenth amendment states, “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". However, the key phrase in this amendment was “except as a punishment for crime”. Since slavery was illegal because of the 13th amendment, many individuals and large corporations found a new and legal method to continue
Ratifying the thirteenth amendment was the pinnacle of the reconstruction era, and would change the United States for the rest of history. "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." Before December 6 1865, slavery consumed all of America, enslaving millions of innocent men, women, and children, for no other reason than the color of their skin or their birth. The ratification of this amendment granted them life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, inalienable rights
American prisoners receive free medical attention, housing, meals, utilities, use of exercise equipment, and laundry services. The cost of these services amount in the billions of dollars a year and government budgets are straining to accommodate these fiscal requirements. “There’s special urgency in prisons these days,” “As state budgets get constricted, the public is looking for ways to offset the cost of imprisonment” (Brown). This economic concern requires work programs to aid in the relief of financial burdens incurred from convicted criminals. Once found guilty of a crime the prisoner needs to take responsibility for the costs incurred. Prison labor has evolved from the day of hard labor, breaking rocks, and making license plates to manufacturing, data processing, electronics, farming, construction, and even customer relations. Prisoners in America need to work, not to be confused with slavery, for economical, recidivism, and responsibility concerns. Work programs are crucial if taxpayers are tired of paying the cost for prison's financial liability, prisoner's family support, and release support programs.
Therefore, they argued that the drive to fill new prisons with people were driven by the ideologies of racism and the pursuit of profit and money (Davis). Also, the prison industrial complex states that punishment is the result of economic and political structures as well as ideologies instead of trying to deter crime (Davis). It was stated that many corporations with global markets actually rely on prisons as a source of profit, not only in the United States but also in Europe, South America and Australia. The prison industrial complex is fueled by privatization because of how much privatization has changed areas such as healthcare and education which in turn has increased the presence of private corporations in the prison economy which has lead to the existence of private prisons.The private prison trends are “reminiscent of the historical efforts to create a profitable punishment industry based on the new supply of “free” black laborers in the aftermath of the Civil War” (Davis,
First, after emancipation, federal laws revived slavery into new form. After slaves were freed during post- civil war, the whites especially those in the south faced problems in running their plantations; since there was no free labor force from slaves, and also some whites who had never owned slaves saw the African Americans as undesirable competition. I think the laws enforcements eventually became the method through which slavery of blacks take its new form. Under these new laws, a lot of African Americans were arrested with no reason and were given harsh fines and later they were charged with the costs of own arrests. This is because majority of the Africans were poor and good number of them who were arrested could not afford to pay fines. With no means to pay fines most of the prisoners accumulated debts as a result they were sold a forced labor to industries and farm
When in actuality it has very prevalent connections to a systematic plan to incarcerate a race of people by creating harsh drug laws to imprison mostly African American, non-violent drug offenders. Since these drug laws were enforced strictly, African Americans have filled our prison systems in outstanding numbers. Consequently, causing an overcrowded prison. Private companies, which have private contracts with the prison, use the inmates as a source of free or cheap labor. One may ask themselves, "Is this ethical?
Assaults such as theses often result in inmates being seriously injured or in some cases dead. Modern day slavery within prisons is another form of cruelty and exploitation inmates face every day. Writer Vicky Pelaez, describes the forced labor situation in private prisons that inmates are exposed to in her article describing, “All of their workers are full-time, and never arrive late or are absent because of family problems; moreover, if they don’t like the pay of 25 cents an hour and refuse to work, they are locked up in isolation cells” (Pelaez, 2014). This scenario is representative of an indentured servant, who is not only working to reduce their sentence but also getting payed very little in order to take care of their in jail expenses such as; soap, tooth paste, shampoo, etc. Cruelty such as this, is supported in 37 states and funded by “IBM, Boeing, Motorola, Microsoft, AT&T, Wireless, Texas Instrument, Dell, [and] Compaq” (Pelaez,
America is often described as the land of the free, yet to the thousands of inmates that sit in prison this is a luxury they may never experience again. While common sense says that prisons are a necessary part of the world, America’s prison system has been neglected for far too long. Many prisons are on the brink collapsing and the living conditions of the inmate’s borderline on inhumane. In addition America has one of the largest prison systems in the world, and it shows as many prisons are bursting at the seams. As the government struggles to pay the deficient, often the prison system is the last thing on anyone’s mind as money is so tight. Still there must be something that can be done to improve the safety of not only the inmates, but
Shelden, R. G. (1999). The Prison Industrial Complex. Retrieved November 16, 2013, from www.populist.com: http://www.populist.com/99.11.prison.html
Roger Donaldson’s film, Thirteen Days dramatizes the Kennedy administration reaction to the Cuban Missile Crisis. The film discusses a time when the United States had come close to a nuclear war with other nations. The film mainly focuses on showing the audience the United States perspective of the crisis. The Cuban Missile crisis was a thirteen-day long confrontation between the United States, Cuba, and the Soviet Union. This crisis started out when both the United States and the Soviet Union wanted to be seen as the most superior nation in the world. Therefore, both nations decided to use the technology they had in order to produce nuclear missiles and other weapons to show the globe how powerful they were as nations. The United States and
Slavery has been a part of human practices for centuries and dates back to the world’s ancient civilizations. In order for us to recognize modern day slavery we must take a look and understand slavery in the American south before the 1860’s, also known as antebellum slavery. Bouvier’s Law Dictionary defines a slave as, “a man who is by law deprived of his liberty for life, and becomes the property of another” (B.J.R, pg. 479). In the period of antebellum slavery, African Americans were enslaved on small farms, large plantations, in cities and towns, homes, out on fields, industries and transportation. By law, slaves were the perso...