In 5 states, voters to decide whether to end prison slavery

Five US states voted Tuesday on whether to eliminate language in their state constitutions that allows slavery as punishment in prisons, due to an exception clause written into the 13th Amendment to the Constitution, which abolished slavery in 1865.

The amendment bans slavery or involuntary servitude, except when it is used as punishment for a crime. But due to the exception clause, slavery and involuntary servitude still exist in today's prison system.

Proposed amendments to state constitutions could end such forced labor in five states — Alabama, Louisiana, Oregon, Tennessee and Vermont.

Advocates for the referendums say abolishing slavery and involuntary servitude could strengthen prison-reform efforts in the US where roughly 800,000 prisoners work, often forced to do so for little to no pay.

If passed, the proposals would wholly abolish slavery in those states, though they wouldn't automatically change protocols on prison labor or inmate pay.

Not all states have constitutions that explicitly permit slavery and involuntary servitude as criminal punishments; only three have passed similar legislation to remove the exception — Colorado was the first to do so in 2018, followed by Nebraska and Utah.

A report released in June this year by Global Human Rights Clinic of University of Chicago and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has shown that 76 percent of surveyed prisoners said they face punishment if they decline to work.

That translates to a current population of more than a half-million. Overall, the report said the prisoners produce about $9 billion of service a year, and about $2 billion worth of goods were produced in 2021.

According to CNN, in Alabama, if the voters approve, the state constitution will change from: "That no form of slavery shall exist in this state; and there shall not be any involuntary servitude, otherwise than for the punishment of crime, of which the party shall have been duly convicted" to "That no form of slavery shall exist in this state; and there shall not be any involuntary servitude."

In Louisiana, if voters approve, the new constitution will say: "Slavery and involuntary servitude are prohibited."

In Oregon, the voters will decide whether to remove "all language creating an exception and makes the prohibition against slavery and involuntary servitude unequivocal''.

In Tennessee, the measure asks that slavery and indentured servitude shall be "forever prohibited" but "nothing in this section shall prohibit an inmate from working when the inmate has been duly convicted of a crime".

In Vermont, the language reads: "That all persons are born equally free and independent, and have certain natural, inherent, and unalienable rights, amongst which are the enjoying and defending life and liberty, acquiring, possessing and protecting property, and pursuing and obtaining happiness and safety; therefore, slavery and indentured servitude in any form are prohibited."

However, Vermont state Senator Dick McCormack, a Democrat, told CNN that such wording "doesn't end prison labor. It doesn't fix the 13th Amendment."

But advocates hope that state-level movements will one day lead to the removal of the exception clause from the 13th Amendment all at once.

"If their populaces vote for this at the state level, then we have to believe that their congressional representatives will also have to support it as a federal measure," Bianca Tylek, the executive director of Worth Rises, a nonprofit organization dedicated to removing the exception clause, told CNN. "The more states that do this, the more federal support we can garner."