A powerful insight into mass incarceration and modern slavery through our prison systems
Ava DuVernay’s powerful documentary 13TH, now available on Netflix, chronicles the rise of the US prison-industrial complex. The documentary is named after the 13th Amendment to the US Constitution, the act credited with ending slavery. However, a clause in the Amendment makes it legal for the government to treat criminals as slaves as a form of punishment.
The documentary explores how America holds 25 per cent of the world’s prison population despite making up only 5 per cent of the world’s population. Using testimonies from former prisoners, activists, politicians and intercutting footage from US media, 13TH argues that the demonisation of black people continued long after the official end of slavery. Starting with the notoriously racist 1915 film Birth of a Nation and referencing Ronald Reagan’s war on drugs in the 1980s, the documentary argues that black people had to first be dehumanised in order for people to consent to their mass imprisonment.
This was accompanied by changes to the law which now mean that an estimated 1 in 3 black men will enter the prison system. While this figure is startling, the documentary highlights the legal changes that have led to this number – the discrepancy between jail times for crack vs. cocaine users, the increased use of minimum sentencing, ‘three strikes and you’re out’, and the Crime Bill of the 1990s. Each has been designed to target working-class black and brown people.
More importantly, the documentary looks at the collusion between corporations who benefit financially from the prison system and politicians who push through these policies. While incarcerated, inmates will be forced to work either for free or for a pittance to help create products for large US corporations as well as the US government. Their cheap labour helps companies make more money.
Prisoners are also given sub-standard food, charged extortionate prices for phone calls, face daily abuse from prison guards and can be held in inhumane detention, such as solitary confinement, for 23 hours a day for several years at a time. Once a prisoner is released, they may find that their punishment does not end. In many US states, convicted felons can no longer vote, obtain jobs or have access to benefit programs. All of this happens despite their spent sentences; they are, in fact, stripped of their rights for the rest of their lives.
One of the more powerful scenes of the film shows crowds of white people in the 1950s attacking a black man as he walks alone in the street, while recordings of Donald Trump’s campaign speeches play in the background. This is intercut with images of black men and women being attacked at Trump rallies. Although the documentary was made prior to his election, this scene clarifies what Trump’s “Make America Great Again” campaign slogan was: a call to return to the “good ol’ days” when white people could terrorise people of colour with impunity.
The issues this film raises has close parallels with the targeting of Muslim communities in the United States. “Terrorist” is another racially-charged category of “criminal”. As Republican congressman Sean Duffy put it earlier this week, white terrorists are totally different. Media representations which paint all Muslims as ‘bad’ has led to increased fear among the American public, while fake news has been used in the rise of the ‘alt-right’, a convenient name for white supremacism and fascism. It is this process of ‘othering’ to stoke fear and hatred which has led to a host of human rights abuses against people who are Muslim or ‘look Muslim’, indeed anyone who is brown, has a beard or covers their hair. Could this explain why 1 in 3 Americans support Donald Trump’s Muslim ban despite it being wholly unconstitutional and counter to the values that America was allegedly founded upon?
Beyond DuVernay’s documentary, it is clear that this is not just an American problem. Prisons in the UK have become increasingly privatised as G4S and Serco take over their management more and more. There is a big push to build super prisons around the UK, because this warehouse-style housing of inmates is thought to be the most cost-effective. What’s more, the emphasis on running prisons for profit has led to deteriorating conditions across the prison sector. Last year alone saw two large prison riots, one in Birmingham and the other in Bedford. The Birmingham riot was blamed on poor staff training and a reduced workforce, which prompted the justice secretary to demand that G4S pay the bill for using public funds to quell the unrest.
Taking race into consideration, it is important to note that black Britons make up 10 per cent of prison inmates in the UK despite totalling only 2.8 per cent of the overall population. A landmark prison review headed up by David Lammy found that black people are also more likely to be handed a custodial sentence for drug offences than their white counterparts, and more likely to be found guilty of an offence in a Crown Court. The review is ongoing but does hint at a similar racial discrepancy to that which we see in the film.
There has also been a startling push to get more inmates working while in prison here in Britain. Private companies like One3one Solutions are tasked with attracting businesses to use prison labour. Initiatives such as this are advertised to the public as a way to equip prisoners with skills, but many simply view this as way to create a prison industrial system similar that of the United States. The film 13TH shows us the horrors of such a system. It is up to us to decide if we allow for it here.
Image: official poster
