I was just scrolling through some of the referendums…what exactly is going on here?
slavery,. or forced labor, is still legal in most US prisons, but they don’t call it slavery.
in the instance, California tried to end slavery/forced labor used as a punishment in their prisons, which is the norm in the US, but failed.
We don’t call it slavery because it’s not. Slavery is private ownership of a person. Forced labor is a form of carceral punishment meted out by society.
nope.
that is part of one narrow definition of specifically chattel slavery.
here’s another definition of slavery:
“compelled labor for the profit of another.”
compelled labor(as practiced in US prisons) for the profit of another(like inmates providing service and revenue for private prisons).
here’s a third:
“a situation or practice in which people are coerced to work under conditions that are exploitative”
by two of the three definitions, inmates forced or exploited to work are slaves.
one is probably enough.
It’s the explicit definition barred under the 13th Amendment. So, it’s the appropriate one to use.
Your other definition similarly doesn’t work with your argument. It’s not “for the profit of another” it’s as punishment for a criminal act and even if the primary goal was profit, it’s not “for another” it’s being employed in the service of society.
The final definition also fall short. It’s not exploitative, it’s not coercion. It’s forced and delivered by the established system of justice.
Here’s the thing, you don’t have to like labor as a criminal punishment. But, your distaste for the practice doesn’t make it slavery.
The last part is probably what this is mainly about. Using it as a punishment = Using prisoners as free workers. This has already been happening everywhere in the US and there is a huge financial interest in allowing these private prisons to continue operating.
AB32 banned private prisons in California. The slavery referred to by this proposition is typically work along the lines of: cook food in the kitchen, do the laundry, clean the bathrooms. In prison you can be compelled to do these things without pay and punished if you don’t (slavery).
I do find it interesting that people tend to be wholeheartedly in support of the Japanese school system that makes the children do all those things above. Maybe it’s just unclear how the slavery is used in California prisons?
13th Amendment:
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, -except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted-, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
Basically says: “slavery is illegal unless it is used as a punishment for a crime”.
California was voting to override the 13th Amendment it seems
Slavery is legal in the form of prison labor
Refusing to outlaw prison labor. The measure is disingenuously named.
This seems to have been the problem, according to advocates. They’re saying that people weren’t really clear on what the measure would accomplish.
I think a solid piece of evidence is the vote count. The total vote count appears around 300k less than all of the other measures, meaning people just skipped over that one which is never a good sign.
Ps. I just did spitball math at 6am, I didn’t read that anywhere so totally my (could be wrong) observation
Last I saw, CA still had a bunch of votes to be counted though…
56% reporting.
No - 54.7% - 5,394,838
Yes - 45.3% - 4,474,816
Soooo… 9,869,654 votes counted and that’s 56%, so 100% is around 17,624,382 votes total, meaning 7,754,728 still uncounted.