Government-sanctioned slavery still exists in California. The state is one of 20 where incarcerated people can be forced to work against their will. But if it’s up to the assemblymember Lori Wilson and the state’s legislative Black caucus, that will come to an end in November.
Wilson and the caucus are behind Proposition 6, a proposal on the ballot on 5 November that would abolish forced labor as a criminal punishment in the state’s prisons and prevent inmates who refuse to work from being penalized.
While the 13th amendment to the US constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude more than a century ago, it did not do so for “people who have been convicted of crimes” because of its exception clause. Wilson’s proposal, officially called Assembly Constitutional Amendment-8, a legislative measure now on the ballot as Proposition 6, is part of a 14-bill reparations package that would amend the California constitution to read “Slavery and involuntary servitude is prohibited,” ensuring it applies to everyone.
In practice, Wilson said, ACA 8 would allow inmates to choose their jobs and give them access to programs that would help them thrive rather than be exploited. To that end, a related bill proposes creating voluntary work programs within the prison system.
“ACA 8, or Prop 6, was inspired by the ongoing need to correct a constitutional injustice,” Wilson, who represents Sacramento and Solano counties and is chair of the Black caucus, said. “The desire to dismantle the legacy of slavery and systemic racism was central to my decision – [the clause has been] a remnant of our nation’s dark history with slavery.”
An analysis by the ACLU last year found that more than 65% of people imprisoned in California reported being forced to work. Many said they performed essential tasks, from janitorial duties and license plate making to road construction and firefighting. Data from the organization further revealed that, in 2022, incarcerated workers constituted 43% of the state’s firefighters. The study also noted that California’s government and private companies profit from such labor, generating and saving at least $1bn annually.
Over the years, lawmakers in states where forced labor was prevalent in prisons began fighting the practice. In the last six years, seven states have removed slavery from their constitutions: Colorado in 2018, Utah and Nebraska in 2020, and Alabama, Oregon, Tennessee and Vermont in 2023.
The End Slavery in California Act was first introduced in 2020 by Sydney K Kamlager, a senator, under ACA 3, with the aim of putting it to voters in 2022. However, it failed to pass the state’s senate. Gavin Newsom, the state’s governor, was also against the bill because paying prisoners minimum wage, as the measure proposed, would cost the state billions.
Wilson introduced her version of the bill last year, which, unlike ACA 3, does not include a minimum wage requirement or language for specific working conditions. The proposal passed the state senate’s public safety committee and the senate elections committee in June. It is now up to voters come election day. But it hasn’t been without its criticism, even from criminal justice reform proponents.
“The bill as presently drafted is notably vague, and [that could] be intentional by design,” Charles Carbone, prisoner rights advocate and California lawyer, said. “Any[one] giving it serious consideration would have a similar concern – ‘I need to know a lot more.’”
Carbone added that while the policy goal is evident – eradicating involuntary servitude – the measure feels more symbolic than substantive in addressing the underlying issues of systemic inequality and exploitation. Because of that, he’s skeptical Californians would vote “Yes,” which would approve the proposition and make it law. The primary reason, he said, is that the proposal remains unclear “what rules and regulations and protocols would apply to benefit prisoners, [one that could] leave them more rehabilitated and marketable and uplifts and promotes the safety and security of the institution”.
That’s a sentiment echoed by Marc Howard, the founder and director of criminal justice organizations Frederick Douglass Project for Justice and the Georgetown University Prisons and Justice Initiative. With Proposition 6 and similar measures, “what needs to be focused on [are the] conditions for people”, Howard said. “What I think is more important is an actual focus on those very conditions so that, for example, people who are working in prison can be compensated with meaningful living wages, as opposed to the pennies on the hour that they get, and that the conditions and the mistreatment be improved throughout.”
Esteban Núñez, a California native and executive with Actum consultancy group who was formerly incarcerated, has championed the proposal. “At a fundamental level, [ACA 8] will allow folks to prioritize rehabilitation,” he said. “It could also include work – but finding work assignments that would allow them the autonomy to do anything.”
For Núñez, the push is personal. The son of a former state assembly speaker in California, he served six years of a 16-year sentence for voluntary manslaughter in connection with the fatal stabbing of a 22-year-old man. While at Sacramento’s Mule Creek state prison, Núñez felt his rehabilitative options were stifled when he was ordered to work in the kitchen. “It was on me to figure out how am I going to work through my own trauma,” he said, “to make sure that I’m coming home a different person and coming home the person I was always meant to be.”
While Núñez is keenly aware of the retorts to ACA 8, he said similar efforts in other states to implement such modifications have looked promising. Most notably, he said he’s encouraged that some prison systems have seen increased reformative programming opportunities and reduced punishment for refusal to work.
Ultimately, he said, advocates want to amend the federal constitution. “[It will] allow us to shift the focus away from the prison system being punitive,” he said, “to being more restorative and focus on the underlying problem of what brought people to prison in the first place.”
Wilson agreed, adding that while assessing states where similar efforts have passed, though their long-term impacts are still early, “the measures provide hope and validation that significant changes can occur”.
In some of those states, though, such constitutional changes have had minimal impact on prisons. In Colorado, since a similar measure was passed in 2018, reports have emerged that while forced labor was outlawed, prisoners are still exploited. This is where Howard sounds a note of caution, expressing concern that while ACA 8 and the likes of it across the nation are making strides, the fundamental rights of those imprisoned remain vulnerable.
“When somebody is incarcerated based on having been convicted or accepted a plea bargain – which is 97% of the time now, where people aren’t actually convicted through trial … they lose their freedom,” he said. “But they also lose a whole series of civil rights, social rights, constitutional rights that negate their full citizenship, [their] full humanity, in a way that is excessive and unusual.”
Polling of likely voters conducted last month by the Public Policy Institute of California shows that Californians remain divided on ACA 8: if election day were today, the measure would narrowly lose 46% “Yes” to 50% “No.”
