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I voted no on all propositions except 36, for which I enthusiastically voted yes. As always, the proposition titles are misleading and meant to misdirect voters. "Involuntary servitude" is of course meant to evoke images of slavery and chain gangs. If that one passes, I am reliably informed that most of the prison jobs will go away due to lack of funding, leaving prisoners without any options to make money.
I entirely agree that 36 is largely seen as an obvious measure by the majority of Californians and will pass easily. I live in a mostly blue area and people who I've spoken with from all walks tend to agree - with the caveat that they're mostly men.
The entire proposition system is fairly useless as the legislature and courts just ignore or distort the results anyway.
Why? If the prisoners wish to work, they'll keep working. If the prisoners largely don't wish to work, I don't think it makes sense to make them work so that a small minority can fulfill their preferences.
They aren't actually forced to work. They may be granted certain privileges if they do work (along with the meager stipend) but no one is forcing them to work. That's the deliberately misleading part.
Here's the full text of the prop.
Concretely, which section here do you find objectionable?
I suppose the text itself is not particularly objectionable, merely unnecessary.
Here's what the legislative analyst wrote about the prop.
Do you disagree that this is a concrete example of being disciplined for refusing a work assignment?
Zooming out a bit, how exactly are we going to think about punishment in the context of a prison?
My view is that there is obviously some minimum standard of treatment to which a prisoner is entitled: sufficient food and medical care, reasonable sanitation, guards that don't beat them up, etc....
If the consequences of declining a work detail would go below that, that seems entirely wrong. OTOH, granting extra privileges above the minimum standard in exchange for doing a work detail seems entirely good -- even proper insofar as it teaches a positive correlation between effort and reward.
They are still eligible to be paid and receive credits for early release, so it's not that they get nothing for their efforts.
I don't care much about the punishment, personally, and I'm happy to have criminals warehoused in prisons to keep them out of polite society.
I mean, sure. But sentences are set by the legislature.
So you could say 'no mandatory labor' but it would also be fine to double every prison sentence and then say "1 extra day credit per day worked"?
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It could be interpreted that way. Alternatively one could argue that the ability to make regular phone calls is a perquisite of working, and therefore if one does not work one would not receive the benefit. They're fairly functionally equivalent.
Sure, in the sense that you won't be disciplined for not paying your taxes, It's just that not being in jail is a perquisite of paying your taxes, and therefore you're not actually forced to pay taxes.
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