END SLAVERY FOR ALL
Presentation to Philadelphia Quarterly Meeting
October 23, 2016
Introduction

Up to two years ago I had no interest in criminal justice issues.

Began visiting a man serving life. Went to meet a murder, met a kind,
thoughtful, young man trying to live the best life he could. Changed my views.

That is a different story and in the interest of time I’m not telling it today.
1. IN RECENT YEARS THERE HAS BEEN A GROWING DISCUSSION OF THE NEED
TO END WHAT IS REFERRED TO AS “MASS INCARCERATION.”

There are currently 2.4 million people in US prisons. To return this number
to that of the 1970s will require that 1.7 million prisoners be released and no
new ones added. This will take years or even decades. Therefore, hundreds of
thousands of people will continue to live in the conditions that currently exist
in our prisons, both public and private.

The focus of ending mass incarceration is on changing laws that put people in
prison for minor drug offences, eliminating mandatory sentencing, helping
people who are released to stay out. It is not focused on prison conditions as
much as these other issues, which are important ones.
2. MASS INCARCERATION HAS BEEN LINKED TO A PUBLIC POLICY OR RACIAL
DISCRIMINATION. THEREFORE, THE WAY TO ADDRESS ENDING MASS
INCARCERTION IS TO END RACIAL DISCRIMINATION IN GENERAL.

This approach has led to the Black Lives Matter movement that promotes an
agenda with over 60 recommendations, of which criminal justice reform is
one.
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
Achieving this agenda and influencing criminal justice will take time and is an
indirect, though important, way to address criminal justice reform.

This approach fails to recognize that only 40% of people in prison are black.
Thus, the issue of how people are treated in prison is not entirely a racial
issue.

An alternative approach is to approach criminal justice reform
simultaneously with broader racial reform. This is the approach many
organizations are taking.

Both interests share the common objective of restoring the humanity of
people who have been oppressed, whether for race or for criminal conduct.
3. OUR CRIMINAL JUSTICE SYSTEM IS BASED ON THE CONCEPT OF
PUNISHMENT.

The general public seems to believe that anyone in prison is an inherently
bad person and incapable of changing. There is a tendency to think that
everyone in prison is there because they have committed a violent crime in
part because of the way the media focuses on violent crimes. But this is not
the case; people who have committed violent crimes are in the minority.

Taking away a person’s freedom is not punishment enough; their lives need
to be made miserable for as long as possible and as many rights as possible
taken away. That seems to be the current philosophy on which prison
operation is based.

Other countries have demonstrated that an emphasis on reform rather than
punishment is more effective in both managing prisons and reducing
recidivism.
4. THE 13TH AMENDMENT GIVES IMPLICIT SUPPORT FOR THE APPLICATION
OF VERY HARSH PUNISHMENT FOR PERSONS CONVICTED OF A CRIME.

It states that slavery and involuntary servitude are illegal, except for people
convicted of a crime. ANY crime. And not limited to while they are in prison.
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
The law though passed in 1864 was modeled on the Northwest Ordinance
adopted in 1787 so it did not represent a new way of thinking after the civil
war.

Why was the exception included? There is no clear legislative history that
explains that. Earlier versions did not include that language. However, once
passed, former slave-holding states passed Black Codes designed to allow
blacks to be put in prison for minor offenses and then loaned out as labor to
former slave owners.
5. ARE PEOPLE IN PRISON TODAY REALLY BEING TREATED IN WAYS THAT
ARE REASONABLY ANALOGOUS TO SLAVERY AND INVOLUNTARY SERVITUDE?

Do not mean to diminish the fact that slavery was terrible.

In slavery, people were enslaved against their wills. Some argue that people
are in prison because they “voluntarily” committed an act they knew was
illegal. However, this overlooks the fact that in recent decades laws have
been designed that allow people to be imprisoned for reasons just about as
trivial as those in the Black Codes. This is why Michele Alexander refers to
these recent laws, particularly drug laws, as the New Jim Crow.

In cases in the late 19th century, Supreme Court defined meaning of slavery:
-
Compulsory service for the benefit of one’s master
-
Inability to obtain the fruits of ones labor
-
Restraint of movements except by master’s will
-
Constraints on right to vote, to marry, to be able to have standing in a court
of law.

Do similar conditions exist today? Yes, gave examples in my Viewpoint
article. Some states require work with no payment; some make work
optional, but if you do it you do what they say and get paid little. Can be
transferred without consent or consideration of impact on family, even
though PA law says to the contrary. Limitations on marriage, voting etc. Use
of solitary confinement according to UN is “cruel and unusual punishment”
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but is routinely used in all US prisons. Prisoner Litigation Reform Act of 1996
designed to deny prisoners access to federal courts.

Exercise of control even after release. Once your “debt to society” is paid, you
are not returned to status as free and full citizen. Petty parole violations,
required payment of fees and fines, difficulties in getting job, housing.

Maybe not quite the same or quite as harsh, but pretty close.
6. WOULD CHANGING 13TH AMENDMENT HAVE ANY REAL IMPACT ON PRISON
CONDITIONS?

Maybe not. But it could allow inmates to more effectively seek relief from
adverse conditions.

But it could have an indirect affect. Because criminal justice is mainly a state
function, there are limited ways to affect policies in all states. Congress
cannot do it, only Supreme Court Decisions or Constitutional amendments.
The effort to change the 13th amendment could provide the opportunity
for a national discussion of what we want our prison system to be and
do: to reflect a desire and commitment to change from a system based
on harsh punishment to one that emphasizes reform and return to
society as a better person. The demonstration of a new attitude about
prisons and a new attitude about prisoners, that they are not all
inherently bad and incorrigible people, but capable of change.
7. WHY SHOULD QUAKERS TAKE THIS ON?

Historical concern for slavery and current concern for racial justice.

Consistent with our spiritual beliefs that there is that of God in everyone and
everyone is capable of redemption.

Two recent efforts have failed. But times have changed a little. Build on the
impact of the movie 13th.

Make it a spiritual issue and reach out to other spiritual communities, but
don’t limit it to a spiritual issue or a Quaker issue. If we want to reduce crime
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in general and reduce the prison population, we must provide resources to
people in prison to help them change and resources to help them when they
get out so that they don’t just return to prison again. (Two thirds of all people
who get out are back again within three years, not always for committing a
new crime.)
8. WHAT TO DO

Return to your Meetings; find out if there are people who would like to join
me to work on this and have them contact me.

Ask your Meeting to adopt a minute of support. (See below) and ask
members to sign a petition. Numbers count.

Ask Quarter to adopt a minute of support

Ask PYM to consider a minute of support and enlist other Yearly Meetings to
join.

Support ideas that come out of a working group, ie letter writing to Congress
etc.
DRAFT MINUTE
(This is a first attempt. I could use help in refining this.)
[Name of organization] supports modifying the 13th Amendment or substitute
a new amendment if appropriate, to state that slavery and involuntary
servitude shall not exist in the United States or apply to any citizen of the
United States, without exception, or to any individual living in its states or
territories. All such individuals shall be treated with equal dignity and
respect, including those convicted of committing a crime, and afforded the
rights of citizenship in all places and at all times including the right to vote,
the right to seek redress for grievances in a court of law, and the right to be
reasonably paid for or profit from ones own labor.
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Conclusion
I went to prison to visit someone who I thought was a murderer with all the
stereotypical feelings attached to that word. What I found was a thoughtful, kind,
gentle, young man trying to make the best of his life. What I saw was a fellow human
being with the same hopes and aspirations as my own, who didn’t deserve to be
spending the rest of his life in jail. I believe that that is what the Black Lives
Movement and the Ending Mass Incarceration movement is all about: seeing one
another as human beings, seeing paat the superficial to the Inner Light within and
responding to that; and I that is at the heart of Quaker beliefs.
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Minute adopted by SEYM
The SEYM Committee for Ministry on Racism asks Monthly and Yearly Meetings to
affirm, and publicize, the need for
1. The removal of the exception clause of the 13th Amendment to the US
Constitution which otherwise abolishes slavery; and
2. Persons formerly in prison to have full restoration of constitutional rights and
typical citizens’ rights and responsibilities (such as freedom from housing and job
discrimination).
The 13th Amendment reads:
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 Unites States,
or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Section 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.
We see this in light of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) Testimony on Equality
and our history of efforts to abolish slavery in the United States and among Quakers.
Currently, persons in prisons involuntarily work in what amounts to slavery conditions
and leave prison with severely restrictive conditions of freedom that shackle their efforts
for normalcy, often for the rest of their lives.
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