The 13th Amendment’s Unfinished Abolition
How Constitutional Design Enables a Pipeline from Poverty to Enslavement
“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude... shall exist within the United States.”
That’s what most people think the 13th Amendment says. It’s what we learn in school, what we celebrate as the constitutional end of slavery in the United States. The amendment that finally, formally abolished one of the nation’s greatest moral failures.
But there’s more.
“...except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.”
That exception didn’t completely end slavery. It opened a loophole for it.
The full text of the 13th Amendment, ratified in 1865, reads: “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.”1
Passed in the wake of the Civil War, the amendment was intended to end slavery. And in one sense, it did—chattel slavery, the buying and selling of human beings as property, became unconstitutional. But that exception clause—”except as a punishment for crime”—preserved a legal pathway to enslavement.2
This wasn’t an oversight. It was deliberate design.
Southern states immediately understood what that exception meant. Within years, they’d constructed a system of convict leasing: arrest Black men for minor offenses (or invent offenses), convict them in sham trials, and lease their labor to plantations, mines, and railroads.3 4 The 13th Amendment didn’t end forced labor in the South. It just required a conviction first.
The system was brutal. Mortality under convict leasing was extraordinarily high—documented5 at 20–45% annually in early-period Alabama and 9–16% in Mississippi, far exceeding non-lease prison death rates; many historians describe leasing as “worse than slavery” in practice because lessees lacked incentives to preserve life.6
That was then. But the constitutional foundation remains.7 And today, that same exception clause is being used to construct a pipeline from poverty to legal enslavement.
First, criminalize survival. Cities across the U.S. have increasingly relied on anti-camping and related ordinances; federal guidance urges alternatives to criminalization, while the Supreme Court’s 2024 decision in Grants Pass confirms such ordinances are enforceable.8 Can’t pay a fine? That becomes an arrest warrant. Steal food because you’re starving? That’s a crime. Poverty itself isn’t illegal—but nearly everything poor people have to do to survive is.
Second, eliminate alternatives. Cut SNAP benefits. Reduce housing assistance. Mass layoffs without safety nets. Make survival programs harder to access, harder to maintain, harder to use. Force people into impossible choices: go hungry, go homeless, or break the law.
Third, expand carceral infrastructure. Cities and counties fund police, courts, and county jails; states fund state prisons and probation/parole systems, sometimes with private operators. Budgets, bed counts, and capital projects are planned and appropriated—creating durable throughput for people charged with low-level offenses and failures-to-pay.9
Fourth, extract labor legally. Once people are incarcerated, they can be forced to work. Typical federal “performance pay” is roughly $0.12–$0.40/hour for facility jobs; UNICOR ranges often ~$0.23–$1.15/hour, with deductions permitted by law.10 Corporations contract with prisons for captive workforces—this is explicitly authorized under DOJ’s Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program (PIECP), which permits private-sector employment of incarcerated workers under specified conditions.11 The incarcerated make products, provide services, and generate profit. All perfectly legal under the 13th Amendment’s exception clause.
While facility expansion by itself does not prove intent to exploit labor, U.S. law permits compelled work of incarcerated people, and governments operate correctional-industries programs—some with private-sector partnerships under DOJ’s PIECP. In this legal context, adding carceral capacity increases the number of people who can be made to work for pennies or for no pay in many jurisdictions.12
The result? Slavery with extra steps. And it’s legally permitted.
Laws don’t just reflect values—they create incentives. The 13th Amendment’s exception clause enables a profit motive for incarceration.
When compelled labor is lawful “as punishment for crime,” there’s an incentive to define more things as crimes, to arrest more people, to convict more easily, and to build more prisons.
If prison labor is profitable, prisons will find ways to increase their labor supply. If forced labor is constitutional, corporations will use it. If criminalization of poverty is legal, it will be deployed.
The system is working exactly as designed. And the design is dark.
This isn’t about individual bad actors. This is about constitutional design that permits—and incentivizes—enslavement. When people say “the prison-industrial complex,” this is what they mean.13 Not metaphor. Actual legal slavery, operating under constitutional protection.
Because you can’t have a constitutional exception for dignity. Either slavery is abolished or it isn’t. “Except” means it isn’t.
The fix is simple:
“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”
Period. No exceptions. No loopholes. No “except as punishment for crime.”
Complete abolition.
But fixing the 13th Amendment is just the beginning. We also need to dismantle the pipeline that feeds people into detention, end for-profit incarceration, and shift from punishment to rehabilitation. We need to decriminalize poverty, strengthen safety nets, and create systems that actually support people instead of extracting from them.
Seven states have removed exception clauses from their constitutions. Colorado, Utah, Nebraska, Alabama, Tennessee (which still allows inmate work), Vermont, and Oregon have already said: no more exceptions, no more loopholes, no more slavery.14151617181920
If they can do it, so can we.
It’s time to finish what the 13th Amendment left incomplete. Not through compromise. Through complete abolition.
Note about Citations & Accuracy
This essay is grounded in peer-reviewed scholarship, primary government documents, and official sources. But I’m human—if you spot an error, a misrepresentation, or a citation that doesn’t support what I’ve written, please let me know. I’ll correct mistakes, clarify ambiguities, and if something’s fundamentally wrong, I’ll note it clearly.
About This Series
This essay is part of Dignitas, an exploration of constitutional wisdom, governance design, and how we build systems worthy of human dignity. For more on jurisdiction, rights, and constitutional principles, read the Letters.
National Archives, Thirteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution (ratified December 6, 1865).
James Gray Pope, Mass Incarceration, Convict Leasing, and the Thirteenth Amendment: A Revisionist View, NYU Law Review 94 (2019). Available at NYU Law Review and SSRN.
Equal Justice Initiative, History of Racial Injustice: Convict Leasing.
Library of Congress, The Convict Leasing System.
Mortality Under Convict Leasing (Quantitative Benchmarks). Evidence of extreme mortality with pin-cites:
Mississippi (1880s): 9–16% annual death rate for leased convicts — David M. Oshinsky, Worse Than Slavery: Parchman Farm and the Ordeal of Jim Crow Justice (New York: Free Press, 1996), at pp. 46, 50; see also Oshinsky excerpt (Yale Gilder Lehrman Center PDF) explicitly stating “In the 1880s, the annual mortality rate for Mississippi’s leased convicts ranged from 9 to 16 percent.” PDF Excerpt.
Alabama (first four years of leasing): 20–45% annual death rate — Douglas A. Blackmon, Slavery by Another Name: The Re‑Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II (New York: Doubleday, 2008), at p. 57 (as quoted in James Gray Pope, “Mass Incarceration, Convict Leasing, and the Thirteenth Amendment: A Revisionist Account,” NYU Law Review 94 (2019), at p. 1480 & n.226).
NYU Law Review PDF (for the consolidated footnote).
Harvard Law & Political Economy Project, Colorblindness and Liberal Racial Paternalism in Bailey v. Alabama; Digital History, Convict Leasing.
National Archives, Thirteenth Amendment.
U.S. Interagency Council on Homelessness, Strategies to Address Encampments; Supreme Court, City of Grants Pass v. Johnson (2024).
Facility Expansion (Selected States, 2024–2025). Arkansas Executive Office & DOC project pages; Georgia Executive Office recommendations for new prison planning and +446 contracted beds; Indiana DOC project page and AP report on a 4,200‑bed facility under construction. Population trend context from BJS (Prisoners 2023; Jail Inmates 2022). AR Gov. | AR DOC | GA Gov. | AP | BJS | BJS 2
Bureau of Prisons, Program Statement 5251.06: Inmate Work and Performance Pay; UNICOR, About and Wage Information.
Bureau of Justice Assistance, Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program (PIECP); DOJ/BJA, PIECP Program Brief.
Carceral Capacity & Compelled Labor — Sources.
Capacity: BJS, Prisoners 2023 and Jail Inmates 2022 — Statistical Tables (state/federal populations; rated capacity/ADP).
https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/prisoners-2023
https://bjs.ojp.gov/library/publications/jail-inmates-2022-statistical-tables
Private-sector partnerships: DOJ/BJA, Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program (PIECP) (overview + program brief).
https://bja.ojp.gov/program/piecp/overview
https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/bja/203483.pdf
Compelled work & pay bands: BOP Program Statement 5251.06; UNICOR About + Help (wage ranges).
https://www.bop.gov/policy/progstat/5251_006.pdf
https://www.bop.gov/inmates/custody_and_care/unicor_about.jsp
https://www.unicor.gov/Help.aspx?idce=169&idcs=129
The “prison-industrial complex” describes the confluence of constitutional permission (Footnote 1) and the combined realities of carceral capacity, compelled work, and private-sector partnerships (Footnote 12) that create profit incentives for incarceration.
Colorado General Assembly, HCR18-1002 (2018).
Nebraska Legislative History — Article I, §2 (2019–2020). LR1CA, 106th Legislature (2019), referring Amendment 1 (2020) to voters. Official bill page and slip law; Nebraska Secretary of State ballot materials; current constitutional text (post‑amendment).
Bill | Slip Law | Constitution (current)
Alabama — Article I, §32 (2022). Constitution of Alabama of 2022 ratified Nov. 8, 2022 (Governor’s Proclamation). The ratified text of Art. I, §32 reads: “That no form of slavery shall exist in this state; and there shall not be any involuntary servitude.” See Proposed Statewide Alabama Constitution of 2022 PDF, Official Redline and Explanation of Changes.
Tennessee Legislative History — Article I, §33 (2022). SJR 0080, 112th General Assembly, referring constitutional amendment to ballot as Amendment 3.
Vermont Legislative History — Ch. I, Art. 1 (2021–2022). PR.2 (2021–2022) referred to voters and ratified at the 2022 General Election. Current constitutional text at the Vermont Legislature website; official Secretary of State election archive and certified totals confirm adoption.
Constitution | PR.2 | 2022 Totals (XLS)
Oregon Legislative History — Art. I, §34 / Measure 112 (2021–2022). SJR 10 (2021 Reg. Sess.) referred Measure 112 (2022) to voters. Certified results available at the Oregon SOS results portal; current constitutional text at the Oregon Legislature site notes the Measure 112 change.
Constitution | SJR 10