Neighborhood Ministries

The provision in the 13th amendment to allow for forced labor among felons was established for a good reason. It was felt that prison should be a punishment and not a vacation. There are career felons who immediately commit crimes openly as soon as they are released so they can be returned to prison where they can get free food, shelter, and medical care.  There are others who can’t make it on the outside and see it as the only way to survive. In many prisons, work is voluntary. If no work is required, it is a lot easier sitting in prison than having to work for a living. While people complain that the pay is not up to the standard of jobs on the outside, the fact is, most jobs on the outside do not include free food, housing, and medical care. In addition, they are in prison because they have committed crimes and are supposed to be paying their debt to society. They can hardly pay their debt to society if they are living off society for free. They should be contributing back to society while they are in prison, not living off the fruit of the land. In addition, many of these people have come from broken families and never learned to hold down a job. Having to maintain a work schedule can help them develop a work regimen and learn a trade, if they are managed properly. Prisons should be geared toward helping inmates develop the skills they need to live on the outside, not pampering them and leaving them unable to live on the outside. The State and federal governments should be monitoring the programs to ensure they are doing what they should be doing.

They just passed legislation making June 19th “Juneteenth Day” a national holiday. It is said to be the day that slaves in Texas were notified they were free. They were the last to be notified. Why they didn’t select the Day of the Emancipation Proclamation, the day the South surrendered and slaves fell under the jurisdiction of Washington and were covered by the Emancipation Proclamation, or the date of the ratifying of the Thirteenth Amendment is beyond me, but they are free to choose any date they want. What doesn’t make sense is that they want to close the loophole in the 13th Amendment that allows involuntary forced labor for convicted felons. They say that it caused generations of families to be touched by incarceration and poverty. They say Blacks in the South were jailed for frivolous reasons to use them for slave labor and Black felons were given dirty work while White felons got easier work. If that is true, then they have no one to blame but themselves because the Democratic party controlled the South after the federal troops were withdrawn and it would have been the police they elected who would have arrested the Blacks and controlled the assigning of labor in the prisons. It was the KKK and the Democratic Party that sought to intimidate Blacks and prevent them from voting in the South after Blacks received the right to vote and keep them isolated by requiring segregated drinking fountains, restrooms, and eating facilities.