The 13th amendment of the United States of America Constitution, of 1865, was the milestone to the end of slavery in the country. “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude (...) shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.” are the pretty words written in this amendment and that, theoretically, would guarantee liberty to all citizens, if not for the second part of the legislation “(...) except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted (...)”. With this, newly freed slaves could be sentenced to criminal servitude, then, the oppression against black people lasted explicitly, but it now had a forged legal excuse. From this point, there’s an inclination in the US to “impute crime to color”, and, in this case, to the black color.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the convict lease was legally forbidden, but its structures of black, Latin, Native American and Asicatic American people’s exploitation remained and took other forms. Started then the prison-industrial complex, in which private corporations take advantage of the labor of inmates. Therefore the situation of domination and precariousness of life of the prison population were worsened, once the vision and practices that put these people as merchandise increased in the United States of America.
It is in this context that the food, healthcare, education and occupation conditions are extremely neglected. In 1971 occurred the famous Attica Rebellion in which 1300 prisoners took control of the Attica state prison, in the state of New York. For four days, following negotiations with the police and state government representants, while the governor Nelson Rockefeller refuses to even show up in the place. On the fifth day, Rockefeller, with the support of the president of the United State, Nixon, orders the recapture of the prison by use of force, even knowing that it would result in the death of both rioters and officers.
The New York State Special Commission on Attica is an organization formed after the calamitous events of the Attica Prison Riot. This Commission had as the main goal to inquire about the facts that led up to the rebellion, the ones that occurred between the 9th and the 13th of September of 1971 and the consequences of the mutiny and the police action. One year after the riot, and once all the investigations are concluded, the New York State Special Commission on Attica gathers to discuss what will be on the final report of the group.