The California Constitution mirrors the Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, which allows for involuntary servitude as a punishment for crime. A growing number of states have passed similar moves, removing involuntary servitude as a penalty for crime from state constitutions. These states include Vermont, Oregon, Tennessee, Alabama, Nebraska, Utah and Colorado.
For years, criminal justice reform advocates have pushed for changes to language in the constitution that would allow the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation to require able-bodied inmates to work for as little as 35 cents an hour.
The first effort to remove the exception from the state constitution stalled in 2022 as lawmakers worried it would cost billions of dollars. After that effort was abandoned, Rep. Lori D. Wilson, chair of the Legislative Black Caucus, reinstated the measure last year as one of 14 bills to provide advance reparations to descendants of enslaved African Americans. one.
The measure would make prison work optional through the creation of voluntary work schemes.
