Ending Forced Prison Labor

FEATURING DORTELL WILLIAMS - There are two initiatives on the ballot in California this November dealing with the prison industrial complex. Proposition 36 would worsen penalties for petty crimes, increasing the prison population and reversing more than a decade of decarceration efforts. Meanwhile, Proposition 6 would end forced slavery inside California prisons. Prison abolitionists are calling for a No vote on 36 and a Yes vote on 6. With little public education on the propositions, polls show the reverse is likely. 

Our prison correspondent Dortell Williams in a past episode explained how California’s Proposition 36 would increase harms, particularly to low-income communities of color and how similar initiatives in other cities and states are reversing progress. Today he makes the case for why Proposition 6, if passed, would end the forced labor loophole in California, and puts it into a national context.