A California lawmaker has introduced a bill to put an end to involuntary servitude in state prisons.
Assembly member Lori D. Wilson (D-Suisun) introduced Assembly Constitutional Amendment 8 (ACA 8). Wilson hopes this bill will fare better than a failed attempt last year to pass similar legislation in the state.
“Slavery must not be a pillar of California’s justice system and this amendment will remove the exception from our state’s Constitution,” said Wilson.
Last year, Sen. Sydney Kamlager sponsored Assembly Constitutional Amendment 3 (ACA 3), legislation to amend California’s constitution to get rid of involuntary servitude. The Senate rejected that attempt.
State Sen. Steve Glazer (D-Orinda) said slavery “was an evil that will forever be a stain on the history of our great nation.” But he said the proposed amendment was not about slavery, but whether California “should require felons in state prison to work,” according to a report by the Associated Press in June 2022.
“Banning the work requirement in our prisons would undermine our rehabilitation programs,” Glazer said. “Inmates will sue claiming their wages are too low, their hours are too high or that it is unconstitutional to link goodtime credit and early release to their willingness to work.”
Glazer said the state should change the amendment to make clear that involuntary servitude does not include any rehabilitative activity required of people in prison. But it appeared Kamlager would not support that, according to the AP.
About a dozen states are pursuing efforts to get rid of involuntary servitude this year, according to the Abolish Slavery National Network.
Lawmakers in Nevada are advancing legislation to remove involuntary servitude from their state constitution, following the lead of Alabama, Oregon, Tennessee and Vermont, states that banned forced labor last fall.
“This ACA is a massive step in California’s quest to end systemic racism,” said Sam Lewis, executive director of the Anti-Recidivism Coalition. “The Constitution of the State of California should … not perpetuate the lineage of American slavery,” he told the Los Angeles Times.
Involuntary servitude language still exists in more than a dozen state constitutions and is a lasting legacy of chattel slavery in the United States.
In 2018, Colorado became the first state in recent years to revise its constitution to ban the practice, followed by Utah and Nebraska in 2020.
In California, more than 40 supporters of ACA 8 gathered outside the state capitol, where lawmakers and formerly incarcerated people talked about the impacts of forced labor.
“Slavery is wrong in all its forms, and California, of all states, should be clear in denouncing that in its constitution,” said Wilson, who also chairs the California Legislature’s Black Caucus.
It wasn’t until 1974 that an amendment changed the state constitution to read, “Slavery is prohibited, involuntary servitude is prohibited except to punish crime.”
A task force California set up to recommend reparations for the harm caused by slavery and racism has endorsed removing the exception clause and repealing the work requirement for incarcerated people, according to AB 3121 Interim Report Preliminary Recommendations from 2022. Final recommendations are due on June 30.
The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation requires most incarcerated people to work while in prison. Jobs assigned to individuals range from construction work and dog training to computer coding and hospice care.
The California Prison Industry, a state business organization, employs around 7,000 incarcerated people. The employees make a variety of goods including clothing, food, license plates and office furniture, which are sold mostly to state agencies and departments.
Some incarcerated people do menial service jobs. G. Green is a 61-year-old yard-crew worker incarcerated at San Quentin for 12 years. “I worked in the kitchen for a few years making 13 cents an hour,” said Green. “I then got this yard-crew job where I make 24 cents an hour. I only see about $12 a month after restitution payments.”
Green said the prison doesn’t give him toothpaste, foot powder, dental floss, deodorant, and other important items. “The cosmetics I need to keep clean cost well over $12,” he said. “Canteen prices are sky high and I cannot afford it even working eight hours a day.”
The Newsom administration warned that the constitutional amendment could require the state to pay inmates minimum wage, which in California is $15 per hour. That would cost taxpayers about $1.5 billion per year, according to Aaron Edwards, an analyst with the California Department of Finance.
Daniel Kramer has also worked in the kitchen at San Quentin. He has spent 23 years incarcerated and has been at San Quentin since 2021. “If you give people minimum wage they’d be more willing to work and do a good job,” he said.
“I overhear a lot of prisoners saying they want to work, but not for pennies. [Free] prison kitchen employees get paid well to force us to get wet and greasy and do the grunt work,” said Kramer. “Involuntary servitude devalues a person.”
Orlando Smith, incarcerated for 26 years, is 56 years old. “I am too old to be carrying mop buckets up and down five flights of stairs for 8 cents an hour,” said Smith. “Involuntary servitude isn’t about crime and punishment, it’s about exploiting poor people.”
Prison officials say that jobs help reduce recidivism and allow incarcerated people to pay their restitution and other court-ordered fees. Participants returned to prison 26% to 38% less often, according to the California Prison Industry, and their work “provide[s] significant economic benefits to the state,” according to the Los Angeles Times.
Smith said he worked in the kitchen for about a day and noticed that when people are forced to work they don’t respect their job. “Decarceration can offset the cost of paying reasonable wages for prison labor,” said Smith.”
“California has the fifth biggest economy in the world; it’s not about money, this is about hanging on to the past,” said Kramer.
The American Bar Association’s Plea Bargain Task Force released its 2023 report in February, revealing that “98% of criminal proceedings end in a plea bargain instead of a jury trial,” wrote JP Leskovich of the University of Pittsburgh School of Law in JURIST, Wickimedia (Tony Webster).
The Plea Bargain Task Force came into being in 2019, a creation of the ABA’s Criminal Justice Section. Its purpose is to examine and address the plea bargain process in the U.S.
“[T]he emphasis on resolving criminal proceedings through plea bargains negatively impacts the integrity of the process by creating ‘perverse incentives’ for lawyers and judges to conclude cases quickly instead of justly,” wrote Leskovich.
For example, in a plea-bargain intensive system, allegations of misconduct by law enforcement and other government actors are not subject to examination or remedy by the public when exposed at pre-trial hearings because defense counsel does not litigate these issues, said the report.
The report also decries the lack of civic engagement when cases are often resolved via plea deals rather than jury trials, and notes that this reduces community oversight of prosecutors.
Black defendants are less likely to have counts dismissed or receive acceptable plea deals, demonstrating the systemic racial biases in the plea bargain process, the report says.
Marquese Whitaker is a San Quentin resident with a lengthy sentence. “I took a plea deal because I had no confidence that I could win in trial even though my case was weak,” said Whitaker.
“Going to trial without money, a good lawyer and resources means that if you’re found guilty in an unfair proceeding, the judge is going to stretch you out with the maximum amount of time they can give you.
“It would have really helped me if everyone approached this situation with any level
San Francisco District Attorney Brooke Jenkins intends to drop manslaughter charges against a fired San Francisco police officer, according to the Associated Press.
According to a letter obtained by the San Francisco Chronicle, Jenkins implied that her review of the case factors revealed internal conflicts and that the charges brought by former San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin were politically motivated.
“The irregularities and facts that have come to light surrounding the case against officer Samayoa suggest that the charges were not filed in good faith,” Jenkins said in a statement. “[They] appear to have been politically motivated, and have made it impossible for us to proceed forward with this prosecution.”
The incident involved former San Francisco Police officer Christopher Samayoa, who shot and killed carjacking suspect Keita O’Neil during a chase in 2017. It was Samayoa’s fourth day on the job.
Boudin told the San Francisco Chronicle t hat h e fi led the charges against Samayoa based on the facts. This led to Samayoa’s firing by the police department and a $2.5 million settlement paid to O’Neil’s family, reported the AP.
“It’s clear Jenkins has been coordinating with the officer’s defense team to avoid a public hearing on the disturbing facts of the case,” Boudin said. “She is scapegoating me to try to divert attention from what this decision ultimately reveals about her: Jenkins will not hold everyone equally accountable under the law, she is deeply politically motivated, and she does not care about victims of police violence.”
In accordance with the O’Neil family’s wishes, Jenkins asked the attorney general’s office to review the case; the office confirmed the reception of this request in February.
O’Neil was suspected of stealing a van owned by the California Lottery and assaulting an employee of the agency. According to a police report,
