COLUMBUS, Ohio (WCMH) – Ohio lawmakers are mulling whether to abolish slavery as a means of punishment from the state’s constitution.
Earlier this month, Reps. Dontavius Jarrells (D-Columbus) and Phil Plummer (R-Dayton) introduced a resolution to eliminate a loophole in the Ohio Constitution – also etched into the U.S. Constitution – that permits slavery or indentured servitude only when used as a punishment for crime.
“When I have children, I don’t want them growing up in a state where any language of slavery still exists,” Jarrells said Thursday.
House Joint Resolution 2, if enacted, would eradicate a six-word phrase in the state’s constitution: “unless for the punishment of crime.” Jarrells said the proposal, though largely symbolic, ensures that enslavement can’t be used under any circumstances.
| Current language | Proposed change |
| There shall be no slavery in this state; no involuntary servitude, unless for the punishment of crime. | There shall never be slavery in this state; nor involuntary servitude. |
The crime exception, outlined in the Thirteenth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, served as a tool to disproportionately criminalize and re-enslave Black people at the end of the Civil War, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
Today, it’s far past time, Jarrells said, to strip Ohio’s constitution of its last vestige of slavery.
“My hope is this resolution allows individuals comfort in knowing that there’s no condition by which Ohio would have if they’re convicted of a crime would be in a position of involuntary servitude,” Jarrells said. “That, in my head, is something that quite frankly should never have existed, but here we are.”
Others asked how the resolution might impact prison labor.
At a House committee hearing in April where lawmakers considered a separate resolution – one that will appear as Issue 1 on the August ballot – Rep. Brian Stewart (R-Ashville) criticized Oregon voters for eliminating the slavery loophole from their state constitution in November.
The crime exception isn’t an endorsement of slavery as it existed before the Civil War, Stewart said. It’s merely a legal acknowledgement that those convicted of a crime may be liable for working in a correctional facility.
“How do you even lock somebody up if you’re a child murderer in Oregon?” he asked. “Do the child murderers in Oregon now get to say, ‘Well, sorry warden, I don’t want to make license plates today because that’s slavery?’”
If passed, Ohio would join eight other states in eliminating the slavery loophole from its state constitution, according to the Abolish Slavery National Network. That includes five states – Alabama, Louisiana, Oregon, Tennessee and Vermont – whose voters recently removed the provision at the ballot box in November.
Momentum at the state level, Jarrells said, will amplify the likelihood that the U.S. Constitution – whose Thirteenth Amendment outlaws slavery and indentured servitude unless for the punishment of crime – is similarly amended.
“If every single state in our nation does it, then it makes it very hard for us to maintain it in the U.S. Constitution,” he said. “It’s just another notch in the belt, if you will, of moving closer to ensuring that America as a whole, our nation as a whole, really moves past this language, and quite frankly, a very dark part of our history.”
Plummer and other Republican lawmakers who signed onto the resolution could not be reached for comment.
