It is an unfortunate fact that even in our age of modern technological proficiency and crime-solving techniques, criminal activity is still rampant in America today. Much of this activity is rooted in gangs, including many murders, beatings and other violence. Furthermore, some gangs have significant financial resources available due to the entrepreneurial skills of various drug lords. This allows them to extend their violent acts at will, and surely makes it difficult for the police to contain them and impossible to stop the flow of new criminals trained by these informal organizations.

There is one essential requirement for any gang, however: new recruits. A gang depends on them, as getting into fights and taking drugs tends to reduce the member’s life expectancies. Therefore, to truly destroy gang infrastructure and end the violence it entails we must simply ensure that no new members be allowed to join.

Therefore, I propose that we re-enact slavery in America, with the product coming from the poor and statistically gang-oriented communities. The federal congress will use tax and census data to determine which communities are the poorest, and all citizens who are 20% or more below the poverty line for a time period of three years or more will be drafted into the Federal Servitude Bureau, where they will then be handed off to contract companies that will sell the individuals as slaves and give a percentage of the profits back to the federal government.

States will also enact similar laws to take control of communities with high levels of gang activity, using crime statistics to determine which neighborhoods to label as “gang-active”. National Guard, state and local police forces will then launch netting operations into those neighborhoods and arrest all youths between the ages of seven and twenty-five, sending them to companies contracted by the state for distribution to the market as slaves, giving a percentage of the profits back to the state.

Lastly, criminals (including, of course, gang members) convicted of violent acts will be used in action movies as stuntmen. Currently, all truly dangerous stunts (such as beatings in a movie, or suicide and murder scenes) must be faked. However, with the introduction of the criminal stuntmen, Hollywood will be able to take the realism of movies to a whole new level. Then, when James Bond uses his fancy car gadgetry to launch a rocket at the Bad Guy’s car, we’ll see true terror in the villain’s face as he is blown into oblivion along with the car – and it will no longer be special effects.

This plan yields several advantages beyond simply eliminating gang violence. First, it will provide a source of income for the federal and state governments that sell these slaves. This is essential in this era of indebtedness by the government. This money can then be put into building state and national infrastructure such as roads, and also towards education – all without the use of expensive bonds that cost billions of dollars in interest.

The infrastructure will also help lead to a second advantage: an improved economy. With reduced crime, more infrastructure, and a pool of slaves to use for jobs that are too dangerous or unhealthy for free citizens, business will boom in America. In fact, the states that previously had the worst gang problems and greatest unemployment will see the greatest improvement, as they will have more slaves to sell and therefore more income.

Third, it would considerably reduce the size of our nation’s prison populations. Not only would we no longer be required to hold violent criminals on our dollar, but we would have fewer criminals of all types, as those most likely to commit crimes would never have the chance – instead they would be busy being productive members of our society.

Of course, some might argue that this would be difficult to implement, as slaves would try to escape; however, after the initial purge of the older poor, most slaves would be taken at a very young age. Therefore, they would have no past experience that would make them wish to run away. Those that are taken when they are older would most likely be bought by more powerful companies that would have the resources to enforce order. In any case, we have a precedent for slavery: it has been common both in America in the past and in foreign countries such as Rome, and runaway slaves were not an insurmountable issue, clearly. Procedures would evolve of tagging the slaves so as to identify them by such marks such as tattoos and electronic IS tags with GPS included.

This solution is rock-solid, with multiple benefits and no problems that could not easily be surmounted by today’s technology and the increased revenue from this system. The benefits are clearly essential to America’s future domestically, and would make our citizens not only safer, but richer as the economy booms.