To break it down even further, African-American men have a significantly higher percentage of lifetime likelihood of imprisonment – one in 17 white males will do prison time, compared to only one in three African-American males.

Clearly, incarceration is not just a trend – it’s become a part of American culture. In 1970, the prison population was 357,292. The documentary starts off with some striking statistics – the United States makes up 5% of the world’s population, but has 25% of the world’s prisoners.

In the land of the free, it’s ironic that we have the highest incarceration rates in the world.

The south was left with the question: how do we rebuild? The answer was in the 13 th African-Americans were arrested and imprisoned for minor crimes, then forced to provide the labor needed to rebuild the economy.

When slavery was abolished, the millions of people responsible for the economic productivity in the south were freed.

Here are ten things I learned from DuVernay’s film: The amendment abolished slavery, but the clause turned incarceration into the modern-day slavery. Ava DuVernay’s documentary, 13 th, connects this ambiguous clause to mass incarceration in America. “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” – Thirteenth Amendment of the United States ConstitutionĪccording to University of Connecticut professor Jelani Cobb, the drafters of the Constitution left “a loophole that was immediately exploited” in the 13 th Amendment. At Carolina Justice Policy Center, our intern Molly Riesenberger recently watched 13th to share what she learned with our readers: Today, as the Black Lives Matter movement continues to unfold and national politics have veered towards a criminal justice system that yet again relies heavily on mass incarceration, 13th continues to provide useful context for conversations about race and criminal justice.

It has been about one year since film director Ava DuVernay released the documentary “13th.” This documentary is widely available on Netflix.

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