California's Prop 6 to combat forced labor of inmates in state prisons

This November, California residents will weigh in on the use of forced labor in state prisons when they vote on Proposition 6.

Every day, Lawrence Cox proudly wears a pin that reads “All of Us or None.”

“It’s inclusivity. It means that everyone, no matter what race we are, is capable of being influenced,” Cox told CBS News Bay Area.

For Cox, that impact comes through the justice system. After spending 17 years in prison, he now wears his pin as a symbol of his fight to end forced labor as a criminal punishment while helping craft a ballot measure – Proposition 6 – that could ban the practice for prisoners.

“Gain experience in professional life and then earn what, $22 a month because you work all day? Only sometimes. I have these experiences in my head,” he explained. “I understood what it means to not have your own autonomy. I understood what it meant to be forced to work.”

California outlawed slavery in its first state constitution in 1850, but retained a clause still in effect 174 years later that allows prisons to require inmates to take different jobs or be punished.

Cox said his own experiences in the prison kitchen and as a prison guard were not helpful in his rehabilitation journey.

“I remember being in High Desert [State Prison in Susanville] and get up at five in the morning, be outside and work in the main kitchen that supplies all the farms. And it's 15 degrees, 20 degrees. It's so cold that all the water coming down from the dock has already turned into icicles leading up to the roof, you know, that we're working on and I remember almost getting frostbite because we Having to constantly go in and out to unload and load trucks coming back from different shipyards,” he recalls.

According to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, inmates earn between $0.16 per hour for menial labor and $10.24 per day for inmates working as firefighters.

But Cox says those wages, even at the highest amounts, are not enough to provide an inmate with enough money when they are released or to meet their needs in prison.

“We often thought, ‘This is just slavery. We are paid slave wages,'” he said. “It's hard on people's families when they're incarcerated. It costs. It costs. It really costs. It costs. So it would have been great to take some of that burden off my family, but you make pennies an hour.' That's not possible. That doesn't work.

Critics of the ballot measure say working in a prison is part of an inmate's need to repay his debt to society and prepare for life outside prison walls. However, no money has been spent against the ballot measure so far.

Still, a new study from the nonpartisan Public Policy Institute of California shows that an estimated half of likely voters will vote “no” on the measure.

The study's author, Mark Baldassare, says a lack of knowledge of the proposal often leads to voters defaulting to “no.”

“It is important to always keep in mind that there is no indicator or yes or no next to it and that if voters are unsure for any reason, they will vote no by default,” he explained. “It gives more of a sense of why the state legislature put what is already involuntary servitude on the ballot.”

Lawrence argues that giving prisoners the right to education or vocational training or a decent wage would do more to improve public safety and reduce the risk of recidivism.

“I wanted to take a rehabilitation course. I wanted to take a college course that was in-person. And because I had the job, I couldn't take it, and when I tried to get out, I was told.” “No, you have to come forward, and after writing several times, they will drop you,” Cox recalled. “Well, when you write something down, you waste time on it. And when you go to the board, the board looks at these letters as if to say, 'Okay, you can't follow the rules.' ' So no, we're not letting you go home early.

Cox said he believes the proposal is “an excellent opportunity for us as a state, as a society, as a people, as voters, to stand up and put our morals above profit and profit, our morals above the desire to exploit individuals.”