I recently wrote a paper on prison slavery in the US & I wanna recommend the ACLU's report from 2022 on this system for anyone looking to learn more:
Captive Labor: Exploitation of Incarcerated Workers, an ACLU research report produced in collaboration with the Global Human Rights Clinic o
[I]ncarcerated workers typically earn little to no pay at all, with many making just pennies an hour. It is rare that a job pays more than a dollar an hour—even the incarcerated firefighters braving the flames that rage across California’s forests and hillsides year after year are compensated at $1 an hour. Even so, many consider themselves lucky to receive these low wages. That is because, in seven states, incarcerated individuals are forced to work but are paid nothing at all for most jobs. At the same time, incarcerated workers produce real value for state prisons and state governments, the system’s primary beneficiaries. Nationally, incarcerated workers produce more than $2 billion a year in goods and commodities and over $9 billion a year in services for the maintenance of the prisons where they are warehoused. Even though prison labor is not what is driving mass incarceration in the United States, incarcerated workers’ labor does partially offset the staggering costs of our country’s bloated prison system.
Also, fun fact! In 2018 Colorado actually removed the exemption for prison slavery from their state constitution, making it illegal.
In 2023, NPR published this article which revealed that was still occurring in Colorado prisons, and in fact there was apparently no change even five years after banning prison slavery:
After a few months working in his prison's hot and crowded kitchen, Richard Lilgerose noticed he was having trouble sleeping. "I was always anxious about having to go to the kitchen and work under these conditions for hours upon hours and not knowing when I was going to be able to go back to my unit to get some rest," he told NPR in a call from prison. Lilgerose, who has been in prison for 20 years, suffers from PTSD, and says the chaos of the kitchen made it hard to work there. He kept asking for breaks, and eventually the guards stopped making him work. But Lilgerose says they also punished him, moving him to a unit with less access to the outdoors and to phones. He says he also lost "good time," which can determine parole eligibility. [...]
"Unfortunately, here we are five years later, and we have not seen the change happen inside of our prisons. It's been business as usual," says Kym Ray, a community organizer with Together Colorado, a multi-faith community organization. "It was never intended to be a symbolic sort of thing, like we removed it from our constitution with no expectation of change. We actually did, in fact, expect there to be some level of change."
Imprisoned people are often subjected to solitary confinement (which is itself a form of torture that needs to be banned) for refusing to work.
In February of this year (2026), a judge ruled that the Colorado Department of Corrections was violating the state constitution by doing forced labor (by which they mean slavery but we can never just call a spade a fucking spade. if the law itself is about slavery then i'm pretty sure breaking that law should be considered slavery!) Let's look at what they said in their defense!
"We respect the judicial process and continue to evaluate the full legal and operational implications of the court's decision to determine next steps. The Department of Corrections agrees that slavery and forced labor are wrong and illegal and do not believe we have engaged in either," she wrote. "CDOC programs are designed to provide essential skills, vocational training, and rehabilitative opportunities that support successful reentry into the community. The Department remains committed to upholding the Colorado Constitution, and believes we have been despite the ruling. We are also committed to ensuring the safety and security of our facilities, staff, and the incarcerated population." Wallace said in her ruling that CDOC argued that it "merely provides incentives to work, and withholds privileges from individuals who refuse," and argued "there were no disputed material facts to support the claim CDOC subjects incarcerated persons to involuntary servitude." [...]
"Governor Polis strongly agrees that slavery and forced servitude are wrong and illegal. The Department of Corrections does not engage in either and is always interested in how prison reforms can better ensure that this never occurs in Colorado. The Governor's Office is reviewing the judge's order to determine next steps."
So, they tooootaalllllyyyy didn't do slavery guys, they LOVE not doing slavery so so much, and they just always want to be making prisons even better so that all the slavery they aren't doing doesn't happen, and they are reviewing the orders given by the judge who ruled that they had broken the law about not doing slavery to ensure they will continue never having done slavery better in the future!
From that first NPR article, this professor put it pretty cleanly:
"It's not clear to me that in any state where that amendment was adopted, that the Departments of Corrections actually said, 'Oh, OK, it's our understanding that we will not force anybody to work again,'" she says.
This isn't just a "repeal the amendment" situation, we truly need some deep systemic and cultural change to actually abolish slavery once and for all (and all of the institutional civilizational forces that allow it to exist and be justified).
