In 1865, the Thirteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution ended the enslavement of African-descended people in the United States. Yet there is a hole in the amendment that has been exploited for nearly a hundred and sixty years. This hole allows for a person to be forced to work without pay or compensation, provided they plead to, or are found guilty of a crime. This incentivized some states to raise vagrancy and other minor offenses to felonies. They then used men and women convicted of such crimes (regardless of actual guilt) as free labor. This is a particularly cruel feature of the Jim Crow era known as peonage. To this day there are echoes of peonage still in American prisons which serve to enrich others at the expense of the incarcerated and their families.
While chain gangs have largely been relegated to history books and celluloid, their specter is easy to find. Private companies, some founded and owned by the families of correctional employees, use highly skilled inmate labor including, but not limited to: machining, metal working, logistics, graphic design, and computer programming, for as little as thirty-five cents per hour. At the same time company managers make competitive industry wages with benefits. This disparity in pay has effects far beyond prison walls.
While corporations and their employees reap the benefits of un- and underpaid felon workers, many families of those same felons struggle to make ends meet. Even those inmates lucky enough to earn as much as two-hundred dollars a month, cannot meaningfully contribute to their family's wellbeing. These families face the same dilemmas as others, yet they are uniquely restricted from building generational wealth because of the added social pressures and stigma of their loved one's status as a felon. And children from such families are more likely to find themselves in prison as adults.
The value placed on the work of inmates needs to rise. Those in prison should be able to support their families financially. Even federal minimum wage would be enough to change the whole outlook of a family and help to stop generational incarceration. It would also provide an incentive to states to reduce their incarcerated populations and find more effective ways to strengthen traditionally disenfranchised communities as a means of reducing criminal activities.
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