what the OP is forgetting to mention here is prison labor...it is one of the most popular forms of slavery in the USA...
quote:
American slavery was technically abolished in 1865, but a loophole in the 13th Amendment has allowed it to continue ?as a punishment for crimes? well into the 21st century. Not surprisingly, corporations have lobbied for a broader and broader definition of ?crime? in the last 150 years.
As a result, there are more (mostly dark-skinned) people performing mandatory, essentially unpaid, hard labor in America today than there were in 1830.
The vast majority ? 86 percent ? of prisoners have been locked up for non-violent, victimless crimes, many of them drug-related.
With 5 percent of the world?s population and 25 percent of the world?s prison population, the United States has the largest incarcerated population in the world. No other society in history has imprisoned more of its own citizens. There are half a million more prisoners in the U.S. than in China, which has five times our population.
land of the free
