Elected Leaders Push To End Indentured Servitude In State’s Prisons
By ROBERT J. HANSEN February 22, 2024
Elected leaders, activists and experts gathered online Feb. 9 for a discussion on the movement to abolish indentured servitude from the California Constitution.
The 13th Amendment of the Constitution abolished slavery and involuntary servitude in 1865 – except as punishment for a crime.
“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,” the amendment reads.
Since then it has led to the United States having the world’s largest population of incarcerated citizens.
The U.S. prison population was 1,230,100 on Dec. 31, 2022, a 2% increase from 2021 (1,205,100), and 32% of persons sentenced to prison were Black while 31% were white, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.
White people make up more than 75% of the U.S. population while Black people make up almost 14% of the population.
As of January 2023, California is responsible for incarcerating about 95,600 people, according to the Legislative Analyst’s Office.
The number of people in prison or jail in the United States. Prison Policy Initiative.
The End Slavery in California Act (Assembly Constitutional Amendment 8), authored by Assemblymember Lori Wilson, aims to remove from the California Constitution the exception clause that allows indentured servitude.
Seven states in the last five years have abolished slavery in their state constitutions: Colorado in 2018, Utah and Nebraska in 2020, and Alabama, Oregon, Tennessee, and Vermont in 2023. California failed in 2022 to pass a measure that would have given Californians the opportunity to remove indentured servitude in California prisons.
“Usually California is a leader in things like this but we are behind the ball,” Wilson said.
Wilson said concerns over the cost of ending forced prison labor killed the measure.
“We keep having conversations about the cost of ending slavery and indentured servitude, but we have to think about human dignity,” Wilson said.
Rep. Sydney Kamlager-Dove, then a state senator from Los Angeles, authored Assembly Constitutional Amendment 3, the California Abolition Act, in 2021. It failed to pass the state Senate in 2022.
“I thought what a layup, to take involuntary servitude out of California’s constitution,” Kamlager-Dove said. “Even in 2024, the language is still the same as it was in the 1800s.”
Kamlager-Dove was shocked that the Department of Finance wrote a letter to the Legislature that getting rid of indentured servitude would cost the state too much money.
According to the California ACLU, more than 65% of incarcerated Californians reported being forced to work in prison, working as firefighters and paving roads while governments and private companies generate and save, collectively, at least $1 billion each year from their labor.
“Never did I ever imagine that in the progressive state of California, Democrats would refuse to pass this bill,” Kamlager-Dove said. “Why do we have to justify taking slavery out of the Constitution?”
Removing indentured servitude is part of a package of bills that are part of reparations.
Kamilah Moore, chair of the state’s Task Force to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African Americans, said its nine members held hearings across the state from 2021 to 2023 to develop comprehensive reparation proposals for descendants of slaves in the United States.
“One of our recommendations was to end slavery in California prisons,” Moore said.
Moore, whose family has been impacted by mass incarceration, said that abolishing indentured servitude is just one step towards abolishing mass incarceration.
“We know that the entire system needs to be abolished,” Moore said.
Wilson said that ACA 8 has passed the Assembly and is going to the Senate committee process.
“I’m excited about being able to do this work and, finally, in 2024, it gets done,” Wilson said.