Louisiana's House voted to advance a bill that criminalizes homelessness, creating a coercive cycle: people charged under the law must choose between jail or mandated treatment, pay for that treatment themselves, and perform unpaid labor if they can't pay—a structure that fits the 13th Amendment's exception allowing involuntary servitude as criminal punishment. This is well-documented in current news reporting, though framing it as 'slavery' is analytically sharp but legally contested—the bill is constitutional under existing law, which is precisely why scholars and advocates are pushing to remove the 'punishment' clause from the 13th Amendment itself.