Is slavery Illegal in the United States?

Question

I have been bothered by the phrasing of the 13th Amendment since I first read it, in particular the bold:

Section 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.

Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

This is less clear wording than if the bold were omitted, but was it intended to allow for slavery to continue? Clint Richardson of RealityBloger claims that this allows private correctional companies to basically be slave labor sweatshops, and compares its legal status to that of marijuana:

Marijuana is illegal without a (state approved) doctors prescription, making it legal for state approved persons by state approved distributors.

Slavery is illegal without a judges (the STATE’S) prescription (permission), making it legal for state approved institutions to have slaves which are state approved (condemned) individuals.

Richardson claims a conspiracy between courts and prison companies, and make generally unfalsifiable accusations.

Jim Liske of USA Today wrote an article titled "Yep, Slavery Is Still Legal" which also asserts that slavery is technically still a legal punishment for convicts. He slightly contradicts his title at one point:

Importantly, Supreme Court decisions of the 20th century ensured that no one today is sentenced to actual slavery as a form of criminal punishment, but shades of Douglass' critique still ring true.

But he does not elaborate on which court decisions ban slavery or how.

In trying to determine when and how slavery was completely banned in the USA, I have come up short. Sources that assert that slavery is banned generally attribute it to the 13th amendment. Has there been any legislation or legal precedent that outlaws slavery in stricter terms than the 13th amendment? Are state governments responsible for banning it individually? Is slavery still legal in the United States?

Answer 1

Yes, of course slavery is illegal. "Involuntary servitude" imposed upon someone through due process of law is not slavery. This is analogous to a death sentence for a capital crime, which, because it is imposed by due process of law, is not murder. Similarly, the judicial imposition of a fine, or the forfeiture of other property, is not theft.

Now, rhetorically, one can speak of the conditions of modern imprisonment as "state-sanctioned slavery," just as death-penalty opponents speak of "state-sanctioned murder" and recipients of parking tickets can speak of "state-sanctioned theft." But there's a big difference between rhetoric and the law.

Answer 2

The criminalization of slavery is found at 18 USC 1581 et seq.

Answer 3

The United States signed the Convention to Suppress the Slave Trade and Slavery in 1956, which makes it law of the land.

It defines slavery as:

"the status or condition of a person over whom any or all of the powers attaching to the right of ownership are exercised"

Article 2 (b) binds the contracting parties to:

To bring about, progressively and as soon as possible, the complete abolition of slavery in all its forms.

In article 5 it says:

The High Contracting Parties recognise that recourse to compulsory or forced labour may have grave consequences and undertake, each in respect of the territories placed under its sovereignty, jurisdiction, protection, suzerainty or tutelage, to take all necessary measures to prevent compulsory or forced labour from developing into conditions analogous to slavery.

Answer 4

Slavery - treating a person as property - is illegal. What is not illegal is "...involuntary servitude...as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted". Without this clause the Thirteenth Amendment could be taken to prohibit imprisonment for crimes.