Slavery and Cruel Inhumane "Mandatory Minimums" USA

Thousands remain unjustly incarcerated and Enslaved in American Prisons because of cruel and inhumane "Mandatory Minimums" that blatantly violate human rights.

Now Is The Time To Act

In the name of being “tough on crime,” the United States government created one of the most devastating and discriminatory tools in modern legal history: Mandatory Minimum Sentences.

These laws require judges to impose fixed prison terms for certain offenses — often drug-related — regardless of individual circumstances, context, or intent. Mandatory minimums strip away judicial discretion and replace it with blanket punishments. The result? Unjust incarceration, broken families, and a justice system that values punishment over rehabilitation.

But it’s worse than that. Mandatory minimums are a key driver of the prison-industrial complex and modern-day Slavery.

A Legacy of Injustice

Mandatory minimum sentencing exploded during the so-called War on Drugs in the 1980s and 1990s, a campaign built on fear, racism, and profit. These laws disproportionately targeted Black and Brown communities, feeding millions of people into a prison system that exploits them for free or cheap labor — a practice made legal by the 13th Amendment’s Slavery loophole.

For example:

• A first-time, nonviolent drug offender caught with a small amount of crack cocaine could receive a decade or more in federal prison.

• Life in prison for stealing a bicycle, a slice of pizza, a few grams of marijuana, or life in prison for a disabled American veteran growing marijuana plants (which is legal in DC) to treat anxiety and pain, or life in prison for a bunch of trivial things that have resulted in outrageous cruel inhumane sentences.

• Judges who want to consider addiction, trauma, mental health, or youth as mitigating factors are legally barred from doing so when a mandatory minimum applies.

  
  

Who Benefits from Mandatory Minimums?

It’s not justice — it’s corporations.

Private prison companies, defense contractors, and Fortune 500 corporations all profit from unjust incarceration and the exploitation of Slavery through the 13th Amendment loophole. Over 4,100 companies benefit from the prison economy. From call centers to agriculture, prisoners work for pennies per hour, or nothing, with no rights, no protections, and no way to refuse. It’s legalized Slavery, and mandatory minimums fuel unjust incarceration in America.

Judges have called these sentences “unjust,” “inhumane,” and “un-American.” Yet they are often completely powerless to change them. That is why you and your voice are important.

The Human Cost

Mandatory minimums destroy lives:

• Parents are taken from children.

• Young people are locked away for decades.

• Entire communities are destabilized.

• People with addiction are criminalized instead of supported.

• Survivors of abuse are silenced and imprisoned when defending themselves.

This is not about justice. This is about control. About profit. About racial oppression. Mandatory minimums are the weapon — and unjust incarceration and Slavery is the war.

What We Represent

At USASO, we stand for:

1. The full repeal of all mandatory minimum sentencing laws — federal and state.

2. Retroactive review of all cases sentenced under mandatory minimums. Where cruel and inhumane punishments have been blatantly inflicted, there is a constitutional and moral obligation to uphold "due process" and "equal protection of the laws."

3. Abolition of the 13th Amendment’s Slavery loophole, which allows forced labor as punishment for crime and has harmed millions since 1865.

4. Restorative justice and community investment — not cages and not policies that hurt.

   
   

Join the Movement

Mandatory minimums are modern-day Slavery chains. They bind individuals, families, and entire communities to a cruel and inhumane system designed to Enslave and exploit them.

If you believe in freedom, in justice, in human dignity — then the fight to abolish mandatory minimums and the fight to abolish the Slavery exception is your fight too.

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Because no one should be sentenced by a number.

Because people are not disposable.

Because Slavery never ended — it just evolved.

Because unjust incarceration is wrong.

United States Anti-Slavery Organization

Justice. Dignity. Liberation. Freedom.

The Exploitation of Slavery through the 13th Amendment loophole must finally end.