Question

throughout the documentary there were references to a specific clause in the 13th amendment

Answer 1

- The 13th amendment to the U.S. constitution makes it unconstitutional for anyone to be held as a slave. There are exceptions, including criminals.

- The visionary filmmaker Ava DuVernay, director of 2014’s Selma, makes it clear in her long-awaited documentary, 13th, that the U.S. prison system is the nation’s greatest shame since slavery.

- She also posts that it is actually a continuation of slavery.

Slavery would have been abolished in 1865 by the 13th Amendment (hence the film’s title), but for one small clause that all but grandfathered slavery back in for the sake of crime and punishment. It further reads that slavery shall no longer exist in the U.S. “except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.“ America has been unshy about exploiting that clause to great profit ever since, and 13th duly chides the nation for it.