Title: ‘Slaves of the State’: 13th Amendment, mass incarceration and the prison industrial complex | Educating for Democracy
Headings: ‘Slaves of the State’: 13th Amendment, mass incarceration and the prison industrial complex
‘Slaves of the State’: 13th Amendment, mass incarceration and the prison industrial complex
Abstract
Background: Tracing Modern Day Slavery to the 13th Amendment
Prison Industrial Complex
Laws in Virginia + Prison population
JMU and Prison Labor
Discussion Questions

Content: Disparities that occur during imprisonment are the result of social factors including things related to poverty, employment, housing and family issues that may impact what happens to them during their very first encounter with law enforcement. Scholars have found that African Americans make up the majority of people living in poverty where a large amount of socio-economic vulnerabilities can cause higher crime rates, thus exposing them to disparities in the criminal justice system that may negatively impact them. People of color in America are disadvantaged from the very beginning. America makes up 5 percent of the world’s population; however, we house 25 percent of the world’s inmate population as a whole causing us to have the largest incarceration rate in the world. Out of the total 6.8 million incarcerated population, 2.3 million are black. According to a report by Dr. Ashley Nellis, African Americans are incarcerated in state prisons across the country at more than five times the rate of whites, and at least ten times the rate in five states. Because of this, mass incarceration has become a method of disenfranchising Black voters, shrinking the electorate, and engineering voter suppression. Additionally, Black Americans are incarcerated for drug-related offenses at a rate 10 times higher than that of white Americans although drug usage among the races is roughly the same. The high rate of incarceration among black people has major impacts on their mental and physical health and overall quality of life.