California voters have rejected a ballot measure to prohibit forced prison labor, in a major disappointment to advocates of criminal justice reform and many of the 90,000 people incarcerated in state prisons.
Proposition 6 would have amended the state’s constitution to ban involuntary servitude for people in prison. The proposition would instead have allowed people in prison to chose their jobs, with a related proposal that would have created voluntary work programs within the prison system.
California already prohibits slavery, but the state constitution has an exception allowing prisons to force people to work as a punishment for crime.
The state employs nearly 40,000 people in prison who do a variety of essential work, including fighting wildfires, janitorial work, construction and cleaning. Most earn wages of less than $0.75 (£0.58) an hour, and many say they depend on the funds to buy vital commissary supplies, including food. More than 65% of people imprisoned in California reported being forced to work, according to the ACLU, and the state profits from the extremely cheap labor.
As of Monday, while votes were still being counted, 53.8% of voters had rejected the measure, while 46.2% backed it. It had no formal opposition.
Prop 6 was part of a package of 14 reparations proposals introduced by lawmakers.
Passage of the package has been mixed. Gavin Newsom signed a law in September to issue a formal apology for the state’s legacy of racism against Black Americans. But state lawmakers blocked a bill that would have created an agency to administer reparations programs, and the California governor vetoed a measure that would have helped Black families reclaim property taken unjustly by the government through eminent domain.
The California assembly member Lori Wilson, who spearheaded Proposition 6, told the Guardian last month that the measure “was inspired by the ongoing need to correct a constitutional injustice”. She added: “[The clause has been] a remnant of our nation’s dark history with slavery.”
Multiple states – including Colorado, Tennessee, Alabama and Vermont – have voted to rid their constitutions of forced labor exemptions in recent years, and this week they were joined by Nevada, which passed its own measure. Still, in some states the impact of the change appears to be limited. In Colorado, the first state to get rid of an exception for slavery from its constitution in 2018, incarcerated people alleged in a 2022 lawsuit filed against the corrections department that they were still being forced to work.
Proposition 6’s ballot language did not explicitly include the word “slavery” like measures elsewhere because the California constitution was amended in the 1970s to remove an exemption for slavery. But the exception for involuntary servitude as a punishment for crime remained on the books.
The 13th amendment of the US constitution also bans slavery and involuntary servitude except as a punishment for crime.
Despite its defeat, supporters said the proposition had been important. The Abolish Slavery National Network co-founder Jamilia Land, who advocated for Prop 6, said the measure and similar ones in other states are about “dismantling the remnants of slavery” from the books.
“While the voters of California did not pass Proposition 6 this time, we have made significant progress,” she said in a statement. “We are proud of the movement we have built, and we will not rest until we see this issue resolved once and for all.”
Dorsey Nunn, a longtime advocate for incarcerated Californians, who was supporting Prop 6, noted in a statement on Monday that activists had made significant progress this year on the issue after struggling in 2022 to get a similar measure on the ballot.
“We know Californians, including victims, want a system that centers rehabilitation, accountability, and a path to safer communities. It is clear we have more work to do to educate Californians about involuntary servitude. The race for justice is not to the swift, but those who endure.”
Proposition 6 saw the second-least campaign spending among the 10 statewide initiatives on the ballot this year, about $1.9m, according to the California secretary of state’s office.
Dante Jones, a 41-year-old incarcerated in San Quentin prison, told the Guardian last month that he wished people in prison could vote and that Prop 6 would have allowed incarcerated people to earn better wages to help them survive behind bars.
“We’ve got legalized plantations,” he said. “They say they want us to be citizens, they want to rehabilitate us, but then they don’t do anything that allows that to happen. Technically, by the constitution, we’re slaves and they can whip our backs.”
