CA Voters to Decide if Inmates Should Work

ACA 8, a constitutional amendment placed on the November 5 ballot would abolish a California requirement that criminals sent to state prison or county jail do some kind of work while serving their time. Katy Grimes of the California Globe writes that a majority of the state legislature and Governor Newsom consider the work requirement to be slavery. The measure is called the End of Slavery in California Act. It was among the package of bills introduced by the Legislative Black Caucus as reparations for the descendants of American slaves. Two problems with this are; that there were no slaves in California, a state that never recognized slavery. The other is that the requirement for prison inmates to work is part of their punishment for committing crimes. People are not born as prison inmates. They have to earn that status by robbing, stealing, raping or murdering innocent people.

Supporters dance around that reality by asserting that the state’s current inmate work requirement disproportionately affects people of color, who make up the majority of prison inmates. Ignoring the fact that blacks commit seven times as many violent crimes as whites, why should all prison inmates including whites and East Indians be allowed to avoid work because of a law adopted to compensate black inmates for slavery?

One of the proponents of ACA 8, Sam Lewis, the head of the Anti-Recidivism Coalition told reporters, “For too long, slavery has been embedded in California’s constitution, forcing incarcerated people to work against their will and face punishment if they refuse.”  He must have forgotten that learning employable skills and discipline while in prison might actually help inmates to avoid committing crimes after they are released from prison.

Participation in any of California’s inmate work programs earns inmates “good time” credits that reduce their sentences.  After the passage of Proposition 57, the state increased these good time credits to the extent that some criminals are getting their sentences reduced by half.  This is why most inmates volunteer to participate in a work program.

It is a sad fact that the democrat majority in the California legislature and their Governor have consistently demonstrated a desire to eliminate punishment and close down the state’s prisons. ACA 8 is just the latest attempt to reduce the consequences for crime and turn prisons into day-care centers, where criminals cannot be required to do anything.