The U.S. Justice System Slavery by New Name
- Gwen Elfenfig
- May 13, 2025
- 3 min read
When slavery officially ended in 1865, the 13th Amendment promised freedom—with one exception:
“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime, shall exist within the United States…”
That single clause opened the door for a brutal workaround. If Black Americans could no longer be enslaved, they could still be criminalized. And from the ashes of the plantation economy rose a new system—one that continues today in the form of mass incarceration, forced labor, and racialized policing.
This is the untold story of how the U.S. justice system became a tool of social control—first through slavery, then through law.
The 13th Amendment’s Loophole: Crime as Legal Slavery
After the Civil War, Southern states passed Black Codes—laws that made it a crime to be unemployed, homeless, or idle. These laws criminalized newly freed people just for existing without property or work.
Example: In Mississippi, “vagrancy” laws allowed Black men to be arrested and fined for not having a job. If they couldn’t pay, they were “leased” to private companies for labor.
Source: Douglas A. Blackmon, Slavery by Another Name
Source: Equal Justice Initiative, “Reconstruction in America”
Convict Leasing: Corporate Slavery in the New South
Convict leasing allowed states to rent out prisoners to plantations, coal mines, and railroads. Conditions were often more brutal than slavery because prisoners could be easily replaced.
Example: In Alabama, U.S. Steel used leased Black prisoners to mine coal in horrific conditions into the 20th century. In many years, more than 30% of leased prisoners died.
Source: Slavery by Another Name (PBS documentary and book)
Source: Southern Poverty Law Center, History of Convict Leasing
Jim Crow, Chain Gangs, and Racialized Policing
During the Jim Crow era, chain gangs reappeared as a method of punishment and racial control. Black men were arrested for minor offenses and forced to do hard labor on roads and farms.
Example: Georgia used chain gangs into the 1940s, and Black prisoners were frequently whipped or starved. They were often arrested for vague crimes like “disorderly conduct” or “speaking loudly to a white woman.”
Source: Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow
Source: NAACP Legal Defense Fund, History of Racial Justice
The War on Drugs: Modern-Day Mass Incarceration
Starting in the 1970s, drug laws were rewritten to disproportionately target Black and Latino communities. Sentencing laws were designed to be harsher for crack cocaine—more prevalent in Black communities—than for powder cocaine, favored by white users.
Example: The 100-to-1 sentencing disparity meant that possessing 5 grams of crack got the same sentence as 500 grams of powder cocaine.
Case: Tyrone Brown, a Black teenager in Texas, received a life sentence for smoking marijuana while on probation—his co-defendant, a white teen who committed armed robbery, got probation.
Source: ACLU, “The War on Marijuana in Black and White”
Source: PBS Frontline, “The Case of Tyrone Brown”
Prison Labor: Today’s Legal Slavery
The U.S. still allows prison labor under the 13th Amendment. Incarcerated people—disproportionately Black—work for pennies per hour while producing goods for public and private industries.
Example: In California, incarcerated individuals have been used as firefighters to battle wildfires. They are paid $1 per hour and often denied the right to become professional firefighters after release.
Example: Louisiana’s Angola Prison, built on a former slave plantation, still uses prison labor in cotton and corn fields. Over 70% of the population is Black, many serving life sentences.
Source: NPR, “California’s Inmate Firefighters”
Source: The Guardian, “Angola: The
The System Was Never Broken—It Was Designed This Way
Slavery ended, but its logic remained.
Through vagrancy laws, convict leasing, chain gangs, drug policy, and prison labor, the U.S. justice system has repeatedly reinvented racial control under the guise of law and order.
Until we confront this history—and rewrite the systems that grew from it—we are not ending slavery. We are maintaining it, just under new names.
Mass incarceration isn’t just a social failure. It’s a moral continuation of a violent legacy.
So ask yourself:
Is this the best system?
Or just the one we’ve gotten used to?
Works Cited
Blackmon, Douglas A. Slavery by Another Name: The Re-Enslavement of Black Americans from the Civil War to World War II. Anchor, 2009.
Equal Justice Initiative. Reconstruction in America. 2020.
DuVernay, Ava. 13th [Film]. Netflix, 2016.
Alexander, Michelle. The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness. The New Press, 2010.
ACLU. The War on Marijuana in Black and White. 2013.
PBS Frontline. The Case of Tyrone Brown.
NPR. “California’s Inmate Firefighters”. August 2020.
The Guardian. “Angola: The Farm”. 2018.
Prison Policy Initiative. Wages for Prison Labor.
Human Rights Watch. Race and Drug Law Enforcement in the United States.
Comments