“13th” by Ava DuVernay Movie Review

Ava DuVernay’s original documentary 13th is a film focusing on the US current prison system, in particular, on how of racial inequality, economic processes and justice as such are intersecting in it in order to result in the highest rate of incarceration in the world. Starting with the analysis of post Civil War prison boom aimed at black population, the director explores how the system has grown into the full-fledges commercial machine which not in fact interested in decreasing the number of incarcerations.

Indeed, according with the latest data, every 157th resident of the United States is currently behind the bars. As the author of the documentary emphasizes, the main reason for this situation is that the penitentiary institutions of America stop being punishment for serious crimes. Instead, the majority of incarcerated individuals committed crimes for which in the overwhelming majority of other states they would have obtained only the suspended sentence. The vast majority of these crimes are related to either consumption or sale of drugs, or jail sentence on the 3rd time after previous minor warnings.

Meanwhile, the US government continues to spend billions of dollars on the construction of new prisons. In these conditions, mass incarceration has turned into a business, because the increasing number of entities (American Legislative Exchange Council, Corrections Cooperation of America and GEO Group) and corporations (Boeing, IBM, Microsoft, Motorola, Nike, etc.) now receive benefits from larger number of prisoners and longer sentences through governmental grants or cheap employees. Building new prisons to create jobs and using practically slave labor are now the strategic goal of vast influence groups.

Moreover, the ratio of black vs white individuals’ incarceration speaks for mistreatment towards blacks. On the one hand, the historical over-incarceration of black adults has severely damaged several generations of minority families. On the other hand, the society does not provide assistance to people who have been forced out of their jobs by new technologies and widespread computerization due to their initially lower education. As a result, they slide down to the very bottom of the social ladder, and have low chances to get back especially on the background on the consistent demonization of minority poor and racial groups.

Overall, the documentary provides a long list of proofs that the main function of contemporary US prisons is the imprisonment and maintenance of prisoners, but not the deduction of crime in the first place. Moreover, Ava DuVernay puts forward that the existence of cheap prisoner is one of the main factors for the gradual refusal of many US corporations from transferring their manufacturing forces to the countries of the third world.

These ideas have personally impressed me most. This not only means that the government may be interested in spreading the culture of consuming drugs, but also shocks with the cynical approach to changing laws for the sake of corporations rather than reasons of justice. In this regards, the main concern is that the number of convictions and length of sentences in the United States will only continue to grow annually. After all, prison corporations now only continue to grow, which means they might be getting more opportunities to lobby their interests. We can surely argue here a lot about whether a considerable number of convicts may eventually improve due to the practice of labor as such or not, but in my opinion, the fact remains that when it comes to business earnings and profitability, the concept of justice often gets ignored. Thus, the United States presenting itself as the strongest protector of human rights, individual freedoms, democracy, and liberation of any forms of inequality and suppression, in fact, continue using slave labor.

References:

DuVernay, A. (2016). 13th. Netflix original documentary.

The terms offer and acceptance. (2016, May 17). Retrieved from

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016.

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

freeessays.club (2016) The terms offer and acceptance [Online].
Available at:

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]

"The terms offer and acceptance." freeessays.club, 17 May 2016

[Accessed: March 28, 2024]
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