California prison inmates earn far less than the minimum wage when they work. An anti-slavery ballot measure in the 2024 election could lead to change.
California prison inmates earn less than 74 cents an hour for work they perform while incarcerated. An anti-slavery ballot measure could open the door to higher pay. Here, an inmate works on an American flag while working in the Prison Industry Authority fabrics program at the Central California Women's Facility in Chowchilla on April 5, 2012.
“The long-settled legal doctrine here depends on constitutional permission for forced labor as punishment for crime,” said David Carrillo, executive director of Berkeley Law’s California Constitution Center, in an email to CalMatters. “Removing that support raises difficult questions that courts will need to rethink — without an established foundation to build on.”would cost taxpayers $1.5 billion a year. California’s entire corrections budget is expected to cost $18 billion this fiscal year.
Most of them earn less than 74 cents an hour, although inmate firefighters have a higher pay scale of up to around $10 a day.that Maryland workers at a recycling plant outside of prison walls could be eligible to receive minimum wage under federal law. Legislation in Colorado gaveCalifornia courts have consistently upheld pay below the minimum wage for prison inmates.
”Inmates will sue the state claiming their wages are too low, their hours are too high, or that it is unconstitutional to tie good time credits and early release to their willingness to work,” Glazer said in a “We’re not saying that it’s right what the wages are, whatsoever, but that’s a whole different issue,” said, a chief strategy consultant and lobbyist for the Anti-Recidivism Coalition, who has pushed for higher wages for inmates in the past. “This was never about wages, it was about just literally giving somebody the agency to tailor their own rehabilitative programming journey.”
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