Kalifornien und Nevada stimmten über die Aufhebung der Ausnahme ab, die Sklaverei als Strafe für ein Verbrechen erlaubte. In Kalifornien scheiterte es mit 47 % Unterstützung und in Nevada bestand es mit 61 % Zustimmung.

So the more rural the more pro-slavery?

Probably Nevada didn’t witness the effects of “progressive” criminal justice policies as much as California did, and as a result the voters weren’t as pissed off on the election day?

Worth comparing the language used for each:

Nevada:
>Shall the Ordinance of the Nevada Constitution and the Nevada Constitution be amended to remove language authorizing the use of slavery and involuntary servitude as a criminal punishment?

California:
>Eliminates constitutional provision allowing involuntary servitude for incarcerated persons. Legislative constitutional amendment.

It’s dumb but I’d guess the use of the word “slavery” on the Nevada measure caused more people to oppose it, while “involuntary servitude” (despite being basically the same thing) doesn’t have the same negative connotations as slavery.

Equating any labor performed by prisoners as akin to chattel slavery is pretty disingenuous IMO. I don’t think prisoners should be working chain gangs in the summer heat or anything like that, but claiming that having them cleanup and cook food for each other is comparable to picking cotton under the threat of a whip doesn’t sit right with me either.

It’s moot because there isn’t enough jobs for all the CA inmates who would want a job anyway. So really, there’s no jobs to involuntarily force prisoners into doing. 

People imagine criminals as unethical monsters who don’t deserve respect or basic human decency.

Some facts:
– The US is first in the world on incarceration.
– California just made homelessness illegal.
– Many things used to be illegal that we would now consider basic human rights (such as gay marriage).

It should be obvious that:
– We don’t want to entice the powerful with cheap labor to lock up more people.
– We don’t want to undercut hard-working American pay with absurdly low wages to the incarcerated.
– We don’t want the moral weight of forced labor on society’s shoulders

My brother has been in prison in Nevada for 8 years, and he’s always been paid for whatever job he’s done. From cooking, cleaning, assisting medical staff, and carpentry for a private company. He doesn’t make very much, but he’s always gotten paid.

California is definitely changing

That’s odd: it looks as if the coastal liberal California counties voted in favor of continuing convict slavery.

Maybe higher percentages of the electorate in rural and Central Valley California have done time.

its fuckin prison, what do you think you have to do to not go there and get treated like one. Maybe put that into your thieving heads

Every convict should break rocks 12 hours a day.