Tags Systematic application of surplus punishment
Tag: systematic application of surplus punishment
β13thβ and the culture of surplus punishment
Ava DuVernay undertook the documentary β13thβ in order to explore and bring attention to the Prison Industrial Complex. The filmβs title refers to the 1865 amendment to the U.S. Constitution, in which slavery was abolished βexcept as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.β The story told by β13thβ thus goes back to the early chain-gangs of Black prisoners β men arrested for petty offenses under the post-Civil War Black Codes who were then contracted out to perform labor that they had previously performed as privately-owned slaves.