http://www.cnn.com/2016/10/30/us/us-prisoner-strike/index.html
Sunday, October 30, 2016
Inmates Launch a Nationwide Strike
On the 45th anniversary of the Attica Prison uprising inmates began a protest against this modern day slavery. The 13th amendment bans slavery unless the person committed a crime. Therefore in jails the inmates are sentenced to work for little to no pay. Yet this is all still legalized because it is a "punishment". The inmates and advocates want to fight against the exclusion clause that basically makes prisoners into slaves. This raises the question of is slavery truly gone? The protest against this policy has been spread wide across the country in many states like California, Michigan, and North Carolina. This shows that this is a large scale effort to fight against this modern day slavery. All these inmates coming together sacrificing whatever they have in prison now to speak up for what they believe in. CNN interviewed 3 prisoners from the 3 states stated above and each believes prisons need drastic reforms. From forced labor to excessive force there are many issues these inmates have with the current system. What do you think needs to change about our current prison system? Does the 13th amendment truly ban slavery or does it give it another name?
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I wonder if prison can be reformed. It may need a total overhaul. The issue of slavery is interesting. Slavery has been present in most societies. Should the convicted be slaves to the society in which they wronged?
ReplyDeleteYes slavery does still exist. However it as not as bad ass it was back in early america and I don't think every inmate should be a slave; it should only be the inmates that serve a life sentence.
ReplyDeleteSo you want slavery?
DeleteI noticed how you said it is used as a " punishment." This is where the entire idea of jail becomes unclear to me. Some people say that jail is to change people while they serve their sentence before they can be released back into society. The idea of it being used as slavery can easily be seen. To Bello's point, I don't feel that anyone should be treated as slaves while incarcerated. Yes they did bring it upon themselves, but being in the prison community alone should serve as enough " punishment. " There is no guarantee that using incarceration as a punishment will lead to personal change, but neither is using modern day slavery.
DeleteI agree with Justin, while reading his comment i started to think back to the penitentiary we went to, our tour guy mentioned the idea of rehabilitation which in many cases did not work. So now i believe they are trying to find new ways to break the inmates out of their criminal ways. This is kinda like when a parent wants a child to change they would change their method.
DeleteIt gives it another name because like you said when they go to jail it counts as a punishment. and it just to happens that majority of people in jail are blacks so basically for some of the white people its like a walk in the park unless they decide to spaz out
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