Ava DuVernay’s “13th”, a documentary about the Thirteenth Amendment, refers to this amendment. The documentary focuses on the imprisonment of Americans. Her documentary focused in particular on the U.S. being the country with the highest incarceration rate. America represents five percent of world’s population but twenty-five percent of world’s prisoners. It focused on racial injustice, criminalization, mistreatment and the unjust majority of people incarcerated who were African Americans.
The film discusses the oppression of African Americans, long after the law was passed that made slavery illegal. The 13th Amendment reassured that slavery and involuntary service were prohibited. However, a section of the amendment created an exception, a loophole. The section of the 13th Amendment that contained this part stated: “except for punishments for crimes whereof the party has been duly sentenced.” The simplest way to understand this was that slavery is illegal unless it’s a punishment. Profit was the driving force behind slavery. After slavery was abolished in the South, there were only four million remaining slaves. Southerners had to devise new methods of balancing growth with economic stability as a result. They began to jail African Americans for trivial reasons, such as loitering. African Americans also were known as “super-predators”. This term implied that African American women, and specifically men of African descent, were seen as dangerous animals. After being arrested, the men were used as free workers by private parties. In the documentary it was stated that 1 in 3 African Americans men would end up in jail in their lifetime. However, only 1 in 17 White Americans will. This fact is a clear demonstration of racism and discrimination in our criminal system.
Duvernay’s film gives us a compelling perspective on the similarities between today’s prisons and work force systems, as well as how slavery’s practices are still present in our modern society. Prisons allow private corporations to profit from the free labor of prisoners. These corporations rely on mass-incarceration to lock up as much as possible. This film focuses on the American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC), a group that brought together corporations and politicians to pass controversial immigration legislation and create laws that increased detention. ALEC has been accused of playing a role in privatizing prisons and allowing an increase in prison populations for profit. SB1070 would be an example bill ALEC has created. This bill enabled law enforcement officials to place anyone who looked like they might be an illegal immigrant inside a prison. We are now forced to examine the pros of running prisons like businesses. In this particular case we are focusing on the disadvantages of privatizing prisons. Every business has clients. In this situation, these clients are prisoners.
This documentary sheds new light on prison reforms. It explains the importance of a system change, including the changes that are needed in terms of policies, laws, and economic aspects. The documentary opened my eyes to the history of slavery, politics of mass incarceration and black stigma. The loophole as well as the way that Ms. DuVernay presents her findings on the basis of the past and current statistics has provided a whole new perspective about how slavery is still tolerated in our society despite the 13th Amendment exception. One question, which was introduced in the documentary’s beginning, is one that stands out today more than ever. The question is one of freedom and complete freedom. Will there ever be a day when racism, segregation and other forms of discrimination are all gone and peace is restored? To answer this question, I think we must look at the individual and realize that it is not only politicians and government who can bring about change. It’s us.
