{"id":68713,"date":"2024-11-21T15:31:19","date_gmt":"2024-11-21T23:31:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=68713"},"modified":"2024-11-21T15:31:19","modified_gmt":"2024-11-21T23:31:19","slug":"california-will-continue-to-implement-slavery-in-its-prisons","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/?p=68713","title":{"rendered":"California Will Continue to Implement Slavery in its Prisons"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By<\/span>Sunaina Tadakamalla<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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California voters rejected a ballot measure which would have disallowed involuntary servitude in its prisons system.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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\"Prisoner
(Hasan Almasi photo via Unsplash)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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California voters rejected Proposition 6, a measure aiming to prohibit slavery and involuntary servitude for prisoners, according to its proponents.<\/p>\n

The margin between votes was not particularly close. As of November 18, with 94% of votes counted, 53% voted no \u2014 7.5 million \u2014 with 46% voting yes, around 6.5 million.<\/p>\n

The rejection of this measure means California will continue to impose forced labor on its most marginalized populations. The no vote comes amidst a sea of rejections of left-leaning policies in blue-state California.<\/p>\n

Hyper Incarceration<\/h2>\n

\u201cIt feels like we\u2019re stepping into a new era,\u201d said Raj Jayadev, criminal justice advocate and co-founder of\u00a0Silicon Valley De-bug<\/a>. In an interview with Ethnic Media Services, he cited not only the failure of Prop 6, but the passing of Prop 36 \u2014 which imposed longer prison sentences on people convicted on drugs and theft charges \u2014 as inflection points in the state\u2019s largely-progressive history.<\/p>\n

Jayadev noted the 1990s era \u201cThree Strikes Law,\u201d and the \u201cWar on Drugs\u201d efforts in California. \u201cWe are, I think, on the cusp of one of those: an era representative of hyper incarceration, of disproportionate penalties on Black and brown communities.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it was less about a logical political debate and more about a revelation of the utter dehumanization of those that are incarcerated,\u201d said the noted social activist, who in 2018 received the MacArthur \u201cgenius\u201d grant for his work with Silicon Valley De-bug.<\/p>\n

Several other states, including Colorado, Alabama, Tennessee and Vermont, recently have banned forced labor in prisons. Some activists characterize the campaigns as efforts to wipe out a legacy of slavery. California\u2019s measure moved forward after the state\u2019s Reparations Task Force drew attention to the harmful effects of discriminatory policies against African Americans, reported CalMatters.<\/p>\n

In an analysis of Prop 6\u2019s rejection, The Mercury News quoted Larry Gerston, political science professor emeritus at San Jose State University, who said: \u201cThe \u2019yes\u2019 campaign failed to explain to voters what the measure would actually do. When voters are confused, they vote no. Why would they vote for something they don\u2019t understand?\u201d<\/p>\n

Overly Punitive System<\/h2>\n

But Jayadev believes such claims are not instructive. \u201cThat avoids confronting where California is, in terms of racial injustice and perceptions of those who are incarcerated. Whether it\u2019s true or not, it moves us away from a larger examination of our state. We can\u2019t really move forward if we say \u2018hey, there\u2019s some wordsmithing issues.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

He suggested amplifying the voices of those who are incarcerated to bring awareness about how an overly punitive system affects them, their families, and their communities.<\/p>\n

An amicus curiae\u00a0brief<\/a>\u00a0developed by an alliance composed of the national ACLU, several ACLU state affiliates, and Maryland-based racial justice groups, stated: \u201cModern day prison labor descends from the enslavement of Black people. After the Thirteenth Amendment abolished race-based slavery, the criminal legal system was used to replicate its oppressive structural framework, through convict leasing, chain gangs, and forced \u2018public works\u2019 projects.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blacks and Latinos Disproportionately Incarcerated<\/h2>\n

The racist underpinnings in the foundation of the prison system translate to documented injustice today, and manifest as racial imbalance among the incarcerated, stated the brief.<\/p>\n

There is clear discrepancy in the incarceration rates by race in proportion to the racial makeup of the US population. According to preliminary data provided by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, in 2022, 32% of persons sentenced to state or federal prison were Black, while 31% were white. 23% were Hispanic, 10% multiracial or some other race, 2% American Indian or Alaska Native, and 1% Asian, Native Hawaiian, or other Pacific Islander.<\/p>\n

Constrastingly, as reported by the US Census Bureau, in 2023, Black people represented 13.7% of our nation\u2019s population, while non-Hispanic whites represented 58.4%, Hispanic or Latino 19.5%, 3.1% multiracial, 1.3% American Indian or Alaska Native alone, and 6.7% Asian, Native Hawaiian, or Other Pacific Islander.<\/p>\n

These data show there is a significantly disproportionate number of Black and Latino people imprisoned in relation to their size in the population. This is not because these populations commit crimes at higher rates than their white or Asian counterparts. Rather, they are unjustly treated within the criminal justice system.<\/p>\n

Racial Bias in Policing<\/h2>\n

The UCLA Anderson Review published\u00a0findings<\/a>\u00a0that Black neighborhoods are overpoliced. And the United States Sentencing Commission reported that Black and Hispanic people receive\u00a0harsher prison sentences<\/a>\u00a0than whites arrested for the same charges. The Sentencing Project noted that law enforcement officers, prosecutors, and judges have and act on their\u00a0biases<\/a>\u00a0against people of color.<\/p>\n

It is reasonable to assume that many voters may not be aware of this background, of the extent of this injustice today. However, the language on the ballot is loud, glaring: people saw a motion to prohibit slavery and involuntary servitude and voted against doing so. It is notable that no argument against proposition 6 was submitted within the official voter information guide.<\/p>\n

Fiscal Concerns<\/h2>\n

The Orange County Register\u2019s editorial board published an\u00a0endorsement against Prop 6<\/a>, encouraging Californians to vote \u201cno.\u201d The op-ed argued that there is no slavery in California prisons, and that claiming such is \u201cinjurious\u201d to true injustices such as overcrowding and solitary confinement.<\/p>\n

The editorial board also voiced concerns regarding the economic impact of this proposition\u2019s passing, citing a CalMatters statement. \u201cFederal employment laws, including those on wages and benefits, might begin to cover inmates who are required to work.\u201d They questioned where the money used to fairly compensate prison labor will come from.<\/p>\n

Opponents also reason that labor will prepare prisoners for life after release, ensuring they don\u2019t end up back behind bars.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe justifications for this system echo the rationales used to justify earlier forms of racial oppression, dehumanizing people by insisting that exploitation illegal in any other context is for their own good,\u201d noted the ACLU in its amicus brief.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BySunaina Tadakamalla Nov 21, 2024 California...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-68713","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ca-local","category-opinion"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68713","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=68713"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68713\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":68714,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68713\/revisions\/68714"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=68713"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=68713"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lapost.us\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=68713"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}