A couple of weeks prior to November 5, we held a mock election at San Quentin Rehabilitation Center (formerly known as San Quentin State Prison). I wasn’t surprised to see Vice President Kamala Harris as the overwhelming favorite for president. I was, however, surprised by the almost 20% of incarcerated voters who were against Proposition 6; and the 4% who ignored it or had no opinion at all.
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Proposition 6 is a measure that would have amended California’s Constitution to “bar slavery in any form and repeal a current provision allowing involuntary servitude,” the latter being the ability to force incarcerated people to work at typically less than one dollar an hour. As of November 11, Californians voted no to the ballot initiative.
As advocates and legislators have pushed to “End the Exception” nationwide, other states have taken it upon themselves to strike the brutal, ancient practice from their own constitutions. In 2018, Colorado became the first state to eliminate slavery and involuntary servitude in its prisons. Since then, more than 15 states have followed suit, from Nebraska, Utah, and Oregon to Tennessee, Alabama, and Vermont. This election year, two states were poised to take the same course. And while Nevada officially joined the movement, California did not.
As an incarcerated person, I consider one of the biggest moral questions of our time to be whether or not to eliminate slavery and involuntary servitude from the United States Constitution—and our states’ constitutions—as an exception for punishing crime. That said, I can’t say I’m shocked by the outcome in California. There was a serious breakdown in communication when it came to Prop 6.
For outside voters, the failure to pass Prop 6, at its core, had to do with messaging. While there existed no overt opposition, there was little education on what the goal of Prop 6 really was. Many voters believed its focus was about incarcerated people choosing not to work altogether—rather than having the right to choose where and how we worked.
“I was on the phone with my cousin who was about to go vote,” said Jessie Milo, an incarcerated peer here at San Quentin. “He told me he didn’t know what Prop 6 was asking. He was about to vote no because he thought we were just trying to get out of going to work. I had to explain it to him.”
This lack of understanding was reinforced by the ballot’s language, which only focused on involuntary servitude without mention of how such forced labor has nothing to do with our personal transformation; that we’re forced to work a maintenance job over pursuing, say, a vocational trade like coding. One pays a few cents an hour. The other can and has led to new futures (certain formerly incarcerated men, like Charles Anderson, have become software engineers). Studies show that financial stability is a key determinant in reducing recidivism. This is made possible with fairer wages, less arbitrary consequences imposed by corrections, and agency for those of us who are inside—not forced labor.
Secondly, Prop 6 came out at the same time as Proposition 36, which, now passed, will result in increased penalties for those who commit petty crimes like theft or drug possession.
By co-signing our coerced labor without understanding our desire to have more agency over our own employment, residents confirmed many of our suspicions: that they see us as a bunch of “criminals” who are just trying to get out of work.
Read More: The Critical Need to Teach the History of Mass Incarceration
This disconnect also applied to many incarcerated voters, leading to misunderstandings around Prop 6 behind bars. For my incarcerated peers who voted no, reasons ranged from disbelief in its ability to change their conditions to similar misconceptions as people on the outside on the application of forced labor. Bostyon Johnson, an editor with San Quentin News, shared the same sentiment as outside naysayers. An ardent supporter of Donald Trump, he voted no because, in his words, “people in prison need to learn what it’s like to work.They need to learn how to fill out a job application, do job interviews, and write resumes.”
Others, like Vincent O’Bannon, thought this type of legislation was merely lip service. “What difference would Prop 6 make?” he said. “I wouldn’t have voted for it because they will still find ways to force us to work jobs we don’t want to work.” Similarly, Charles Crowe, a 70-year-old clerk with San Quentin’s independent school, Mount Tamalpais College, was not invested in the proposition given a lack of faith in our criminal legal system. “I’m not really interested in that political bulls**t,” he told me. “They don’t care about us.”
For me, voting for Prop 6 goes back to what forced labor looked like during the pandemic. I was here at San Quentin when COVID-19 swept through the prison. And yet, we were forced to go to work. We had no masks, no other gear, and no clue how to protect ourselves from this deadly virus. I remember preparing and serving food to people who had tested positive, which eventually meant my coworkers and I all caught COVID. Some of them went to outside hospitals. Others died. At least 28 of us died. What happened to those of us inside across the country during the pandemic was tantamount to throwing slaves overboard to save the slave ship.
My experience is one of many that informs a larger movement against involuntary servitude in prisons and jails. If these stories could be reflected in the proposition or in widespread advocacy around it, more people would not be against this type of legislation.
Those of us who voted for Prop 6 in our mock election saw it as a demonstration that all human lives have value. Fifty two-year-old William Harris sees that type of validation as a tenet for safety. “I’m devastated. I don’t believe I gave up the right to be human just because I committed a crime 28 years ago,” shared Harris. “People think harming us is good for public safety, but treating someone like a human, reminding them of their humanity, is how you keep your neighborhood safe.”
We also believed in Prop 6 because it would have allowed us to choose our own employable skills rather than being confined to jobs that simply help maintain the prisons. (Nationally, incarcerated workers produce over $9 billion a year in services for the maintenance of the prisons where they’re incarcerated). For Arthur Jackson, who has been incarcerated for 30 years, “involuntary servitude forces me to work positions in prison that aren’t even recognized as real jobs,” meaning jobs that have limited financial mobility in our transitions home. “It means I’m denied access to training to help me succeed in today’s world.”
Personally, voting yes on Prop 6 would have allowed me to better protect my health and safety. It would have allowed me to prioritize taking audio and video training classes, trying my hand at podcasting with Ear Hustle, or pursuing my bachelor’s degree—programs that align with the person I want to be when I return to society.
I want to work. All the people in prison that I know want to work. We just want to do it on our own terms. We want to show the system what works for our own rehabilitation and transformation.
Working in the kitchen or on a yard maintenance job for decades isn’t preparing me for success in society. Prop 6 would have allowed me to invest in myself, to reenter the society of today, and to pay the victims of my crimes their restitution.
California failing to pass Prop 6 signals to me that my ability to successfully come home is of no concern to people. That I am not considered to be human. That I am just some “thing” to be used and exploited for another person’s financial gain. And while I am deeply saddened by what message voters—those in the free world and my incarcerated friends who voted no in our mock election—sent to us, I will not accept that. Involuntary servitude must go.
When I woke up on the morning after Election Day, I was too frustrated to turn on my television. I got up, got dressed, brushed my teeth, washed my face, and quietly walked out of my cell in the direction of the dining hall. I looked around and saw more quiet, depressed faces buried in their breakfast trays.
I thought to myself, we’re losing this battle, but we haven’t lost the war. We are human. And Californians got it wrong.
This piece was written in collaboration with Abigail Glasgow.
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