Slavery and involuntary servitude are banned in the United States by the Thirteenth Amendment, with one exception written directly into the text: they remain permitted “as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.”1Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Thirteenth Amendment That is the legal basis of what people mean when they talk about legal slavery in the US and the 13th Amendment exception. Since ratification in 1865, those seven words have allowed federal and state governments to compel people in prison to work, often for pennies an hour and sometimes for nothing. Several states have now removed similar language from their own constitutions, but the federal exception is still in force.
What the Exception Actually Says
Section 1 of the amendment reads in full: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”1Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Thirteenth Amendment The first half is a sweeping ban. The second half carves out a hole large enough to hold an entire labor system. Once a person has been convicted and sentenced, the government can require them to work under conditions that would be unconstitutional for anyone else.
The amendment covers two things. “Slavery” historically meant the total ownership of one person by another. “Involuntary servitude” is broader, reaching any situation where someone is compelled to work through physical coercion or legal threats. In United States v. Kozminski (1988), the Supreme Court described involuntary servitude, for criminal prosecution purposes, as a condition where the victim is forced to work through the use or threat of physical restraint, physical injury, or coercion through law or legal process.2Library of Congress. United States v. Kozminski Because the punishment exception applies to both terms, the amendment itself places almost no ceiling on what governments can require of convicted people.
The words “duly convicted” are the only procedural limit in the text. They require a formal judicial process: a trial or guilty plea, followed by a sentence. The amendment says nothing about the type of labor, the hours, the pay, or the working conditions. Those questions are left to legislatures and prison administrators.
How Compulsory Prison Labor Works
About 61 percent of people in state and federal prisons hold work assignments, and federal courts have consistently held that those assignments can be made mandatory. In Draper v. Rhay, 315 F.2d 193 (9th Cir. 1963), the Ninth Circuit ruled that no Thirteenth Amendment problem arises when a person who has been duly tried, convicted, sentenced, and imprisoned is required to work. Later decisions have followed that logic. The prevailing view is that incarcerated people have no constitutional right to refuse a work assignment.
Refusing carries real penalties. Federal Bureau of Prisons policy allows disciplinary sanctions including placement in disciplinary segregation for up to 18 months and monetary fines.3Federal Bureau of Prisons. Program Statement 5270.09 – Inmate Discipline Program State facilities impose their own punishments, which commonly include loss of good-time credits that would otherwise shorten a sentence, restricted visitation, reduced commissary access, and transfer to higher-security housing. Because good-time credits directly affect release dates, the threat of losing them creates strong pressure to accept an assignment even when it is unpleasant or unsafe.
Most mandatory prison work involves keeping the facility running: cooking, laundry, cleaning, groundskeeping, and basic maintenance. Voluntary programs are a separate track and generally offer vocational training or placement with outside employers, sometimes at higher pay. The line between the two categories can blur when refusing a “voluntary” assignment triggers the same disciplinary response as refusing a mandatory one.
Pay and the Labor Laws That Don’t Apply
Pay for prison labor ranges from nothing to a small fraction of any minimum wage. Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Mississippi, and Texas pay nothing at all for regular non-industry work assignments. Where wages exist, they typically run from a few cents up to about $1.40 an hour for the best-paying state-run industry jobs. Even those numbers overstate take-home pay, because facilities routinely deduct portions for court costs, restitution, victim compensation funds, and room and board.
Incarcerated workers are not covered by the Fair Labor Standards Act. Courts have reasoned that the relationship between a prison and an inmate is different from an employer-employee relationship, and that the FLSA was designed to protect workers who pay for their own food, shelter, and clothing. Congress has addressed prison labor separately through 18 U.S.C. § 1761, which restricts the sale of prison-made goods in interstate commerce,4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 1761 – Transportation or Importation and courts have read the existence of that specific statute as evidence that the FLSA was never meant to apply to inmate labor.
Prison wages generally are subject to federal income tax withholding. An IRS memorandum clarified that payments to prison workers are subject to income tax collection at source. FICA treatment depends on the employer: wages paid by state or local government employers are exempt from Social Security and Medicare taxes, while wages paid by private employers participating in prison work programs are not.5Internal Revenue Service. Prison Workers – Memorandum 200526018 Prison wages are exempt from federal unemployment taxes in either case.
Workplace safety enforcement is another gap. OSHA has said it lacks jurisdiction over state correctional institutions, because the Occupational Safety and Health Act’s definition of “employer” excludes state governments and their political subdivisions. That means OSHA cannot regulate work environments or enforce safety standards for state inmates, whether paid or unpaid.6Occupational Safety and Health Administration. OSHA Does Not Have Jurisdiction Over State Employees or Inmates Federal prisons fall under OSHA’s authority on paper, but enforcement inside them is rare.
Workers’ compensation is largely closed off as well. Most states exclude incarcerated workers from their workers’ compensation systems by statute or judicial precedent. Federal prisoners injured on the job have a separate remedy under the Inmate Accident Compensation Act (18 U.S.C. § 4126), but benefits are limited and typically cannot be collected until after release, and any remaining benefits are forfeited if the person is reincarcerated. An inmate who wants to hold officials accountable for a workplace injury usually has to file a civil rights claim under 42 U.S.C. § 1983 alleging an Eighth Amendment violation, and the Prison Litigation Reform Act imposes procedural barriers, including mandatory exhaustion of internal grievance processes, that filter out many cases before they reach a courtroom.
Federal Prison Industries and Private Employers
Federal Prison Industries, Inc., which operates under the trade name UNICOR, is a government-owned corporation that employs people in federal prisons to make goods and provide services for federal agencies. In fiscal year 2025 it employed about 10,500 federal inmates.7U.S. Department of Justice Office of Inspector General. Audit of the Federal Prison Industries, Inc. Annual Financial Statements
Private companies can also employ incarcerated workers, but only through the Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program. PIECP requires that participating programs pay local prevailing wages, use inmate labor only on a voluntary basis, consult with organized labor before starting, and show that the program will not displace community workers.8SAM.gov. Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program (PIECP) Services In exchange, the goods produced can be sold across state lines, something otherwise prohibited under the Ashurst-Sumners Act. The prevailing-wage requirement is less generous than it sounds: federal law allows up to 80 percent of gross wages to be withheld for taxes, room and board, family support, and victim compensation,4Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 1761 – Transportation or Importation so a worker earning $15 an hour on paper may take home only a few dollars.
Who Is Not Covered by the Exception
The exception applies only to people who have been “duly convicted.” That leaves an unresolved constitutional question for the hundreds of thousands of people held in local jails awaiting trial or plea negotiations. Federal courts have split. The Second Circuit has held that the Thirteenth Amendment prohibits all forms of involuntary labor for people who have not been convicted, meaning pretrial detainees are fully protected. The Fifth Circuit has ruled that basic housekeeping tasks such as cleaning common areas fall under a civic-duty exception, similar to the reasoning that allows the government to compel jury duty or military service. The Supreme Court has not resolved the split, so the answer depends on where a detainee is held.
Immigration detainees are in comparable territory. They are held in civil custody and have not been “duly convicted” of the offenses that led to their detention. Courts reviewing forced labor claims in immigration facilities have generally borrowed standards developed for pretrial criminal detainees, and the protections remain inconsistent.
Forced Labor Outside Prison Is a Federal Crime
The narrowness of the punishment exception becomes clearer when you look at how the law treats forced labor everywhere else. Under 18 U.S.C. § 1589, it is a federal crime to obtain a person’s labor through force, threats of force, physical restraint, threats of serious harm, abuse of legal process, or any scheme designed to make a person believe that refusing to work would result in serious harm. The maximum penalty is 20 years in prison, or life if the offense results in death or involves kidnapping, aggravated sexual abuse, or an attempt to kill.9Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 18 USC 1589 – Forced Labor
Federal law separately defines “severe forms of trafficking in persons” to include recruiting, transporting, or obtaining a person for labor through force, fraud, or coercion for the purpose of subjecting them to involuntary servitude, debt bondage, or slavery. Debt bondage is defined as a condition where a debtor’s personal services are pledged as security for a debt and the value of those services is never fairly applied toward paying it off.10Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 22 USC 7102 – Definitions These cases show up most often in agriculture, domestic household work, restaurants, and construction, sometimes involving employers who use a worker’s temporary visa status, confiscated documents, or recruitment debt as leverage.
Efforts to Close the Exception
A growing number of states have removed the punishment exception from their own constitutions, on the view that even if the federal Constitution permits compulsory labor as criminal punishment, state law should not. Colorado led in 2018. Nebraska and Utah followed in 2020. In 2022, voters in Alabama, Oregon, Tennessee, and Vermont approved similar amendments. Nevada joined in 2024 with roughly 61 percent voter approval. California voters rejected an identical proposal the same year, with about 53 percent voting no.
The practical effect of these amendments has been uneven. Colorado’s, now several years old, has not produced a dramatic overhaul of state prison work. Courts and legislators are still working through what the new language requires: whether inmates must be paid minimum wage, whether work assignments must be truly voluntary, and what remedies apply when they are not. Passage is the beginning of the fight, not the end of it.
At the federal level, members of Congress have repeatedly introduced the Abolition Amendment, which would strike the punishment exception from the Thirteenth Amendment entirely. The most recent version was introduced by Representative Nikema Williams of Georgia, with companion legislation in the Senate from Senators Jeff Merkley and Cory Booker. An earlier version drew 193 House cosponsors but never came to a vote. Amending the federal Constitution requires two-thirds approval in both chambers of Congress and ratification by three-fourths of state legislatures, a threshold no proposal on this issue has approached.