FL S0730

Florida Senate Memorial 730, introduced by Senator Powell, urges the U.S. Congress to propose a constitutional amendment removing the "Punishment Clause" from the Thirteenth Amendment, which currently permits slavery and involuntary servitude as punishment for convicted crimes.

The memorial argues that the Punishment Clause created a loophole exploited during and after Reconstruction through "Black Codes" that criminalized minor offenses like loitering and vagrancy, enabling sheriffs to lease imprisoned Black Americans as laborers to landowners.

The memorial asserts that the clause has driven the over-incarceration of Black Americans, particularly Black men, a pattern it describes as continuing unbroken to the present day with disproportionate incarceration of communities of color.

Private prison corporations and companies selling goods produced by undercompensated prison labor are cited as profiting from forced labor, while the U.S. simultaneously bans imports of goods made with forced labor in other nations.

The Florida Secretary of State is directed to send copies of the memorial to the President of the United States, the President of the U.S. Senate, the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, and all members of Florida's congressional delegation.