The Prison Litigation Reform Act is a U.S. federal law that was enacted in 1996. Congress executed this act in response to a significant increase in prisoner litigation in the federal courts. It is just one fix for the inadequacy of our justice system that many states and the federal government have delved into. Reports have shown that for every 100,000 people living in the U.S, about 655 individuals are behind bars. Since 1978, the increase has been around 390%. If we take a look in another recent report, it demonstrated the current strategies used by our justice system to achieve rehabilitation and increased public safety have been very much ineffective, with more than 80% of those leaving our state prisons being rearrested again in the future. Here’s where the prison reform act comes to action. For many decades there have been unnumerous numbers of mass imprisonments in this country that have sent African-Americans and Latinos to prison in significantly disproportionate rates. Furthermor
e, there are also millions of formerly imprisoned people who are treated like slaves after their release from prison and face a hard time to maintain a normal life, like they are some second-class citizens. Even in modern times events like this still tend to occur because of a loophole in the 13th amendment of the US constitution, more precisely because of the exception clause of this particular amendment. This clause apparently justifies treating the prison inmates as slaves if they have been duly convicted of a crime. There is a 2016 documentary by Ava DuVernay named ’13th’ which shines a bright light on this very issue that has been going on in our country. The documentary’s focus is on slavery and to what degree it plays a role in modern times. It shows how slavery never went away and how mass imprisonments are the main reason behind today’s slavery. Prison reform act is supposed to solve this big issue and it supports the movement to eliminate the 13th Amendment exception clause.