Ohio’s Voting on Slavery This Month. Yes, really.
Why It’s Not Enough
Next month, Ohio votes on whether to strip this line from its state constitution:
“Slavery and involuntary servitude … shall never exist except as a punishment for crime.”
Let’s be brutally clear, that “exception” isn’t a footnote. It’s the cornerstone of America’s prison system.
The 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution didn’t end slavery. It was merely rebranded. By allowing slavery “as punishment,” it gave prisons a license to exploit. Ohio’s vote is about deleting its own copy of that license. That’s necessary. But it’s nowhere near sufficient.
This vote exposes a rotting system. Prison labor is slavery. When people work for pennies (or nothing) under threat of solitary confinement or lost “privileges,” that’s involuntary servitude. Ohio’s constitution currently endorses it.
Prisons run on profit. Cheap labor. Tax dollars per filled bed. Private contracts. The “slavery exception” built an industry that needs human cages to thrive.
Punishment isn’t justice. Caging people doesn’t heal victims, fix poverty, treat addiction, or stop violence. It perpetuates trauma. It dehumanizes. And it targets Black, Brown, and poor communities just like slavery did.
The “exception” was always the point. That loophole wasn’t passive. It actively spread. Convict leasing replaced plantation slavery. Jim Crow laws criminalized Black existence to fill labor camps. The “War on Drugs” exploded prison populations (and profits). Private prisons today trade human bodies on the stock market.
Deleting Ohio’s slavery clause? Good.
Pretending it fixes anything? Dangerous.
Abolition actually demands voting. Voting “YES” rejects explicit state slavery. Period. But real freedom means dismantling the machine that Clause built.
End Prison Slavery Now
Pay living wages. Grant full labor rights. Ban corporate exploitation.
Defund Prisons, Fund Humanity Pour billions into housing, healthcare, mental health, and schools, not cages.
Stop criminalizing survival. Poverty isn’t a crime. Addiction isn’t a crime. Mental illness isn’t a crime.
Build real justice through restorative practices. Community accountability. Repairing harm, not inflicting more.
The Bottom Line
Ohio’s vote is a chance to say, “Slavery is always wrong. No excuses.” Say it loud. But don’t stop there. End a system built on human disposal.
Abolish prisons. Build communities that heal.
Anything less is a compromise with cruelty.
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