How Proposition 6 failed in California in 2024 election

While eyes have been on the presidential election, particularly results in key swing states, this election season also brought a blow to criminal justice reform advocates in California. Voters’ final decision on pivotal ballot measures Proposition 36 and Proposition 6 will shape both policing and the experiences of and opportunities afforded to currently incarcerated people across the state. Not only did voters approve increased penalties for theft and some drug offenses, but they also rejected a move to ban forced prison labor.

Rollbacks on past reforms 

Titled “The Homelessness, Drug Addiction, and Theft Reduction Act,” Proposition 36 will increase penalties for repeated theft offenses and certain drug crimes, including some involving fentanyl. Additionally, it will create a drug court treatment program for people with multiple drug possession convictions.

According to J Vasquez, the policy and legal services manager at Communities United for Restorative Youth Justice (CURYJ), Proposition 36 will directly impact those community members who CURYJ seeks to support: young, primarily Black and Indigenous people, trans people, youth who have had contact with the carceral system, and those who have been in the foster care system. 

“Those are the people that we serve [and] the voices that are not normally heard, and we also know that historically in California, we’ve seen this play out time and time again, [that] whenever there are sentence enhancements [or] penalties when it comes drugs or petty theft, young Black, brown, Indigenous and trans folks are the most targeted,” Vasquez said.

Proposition 36 rolls back parts of Proposition 47, a watershed 2014 criminal justice reform initiative that recategorized certain nonviolent drug and property offenses as misdemeanors instead of felonies. While Proposition 47 garnered almost 60% of the vote in 2014, a decade later, more than 70% of California voters have cast their ballots to undo it. 

Proposition 36 proponents have relied, advocates say, on the anxieties and fears that have swelled post-pandemic amid news stories about rising homelessness and retail theft as well as the danger of increased fentanyl use.  

“When the pandemic first hit, it caused a lot of anxiety and fear,” Vasquez said. “A lot of people were out of work, and people that didn’t get fired didn’t want to go to work because they were afraid of getting COVID and dying. But at the same time, people have needs: You still have to eat, you’ve still got to pay the bills, and so we did see an increase in property crime and things like that as a result of the pandemic, not as a result of Prop 47.”

Vasquez suggested that this failure to appropriately attribute these anxieties to the pandemic was a result of people’s “short memories” and the relentless news media coverage of “mass thefts,” which no longer accurately reflect actual crime trends. In recent years, property crime throughout California has actually been declining.

Criminal justice advocates fear Proposition 36 will work against the interests of those concerned about public safety. 

In a statement released following the election, the Young Women’s Freedom Center (YWFC) noted that “people who become entangled in the justice system, especially incarceration, suffer collateral consequences like loss of income, inability to find housing, and being barred from accessing supportive services, that keep them trapped in cycles of recidivism with nowhere to turn but the street economy.”

YWFC cited research from the National Institute of Justice (NIJ) outlining the inefficacy of harsher penalties and increased sentencing in deterring crime. According to NIJ, “more severe punishments do not ‘chasten’ individuals convicted of crimes, and prisons may exacerbate recidivism.” 

Groups such as YWFC and CURYJ argue that affordable housing, educational opportunities, and rehabilitation can prevent harm, while job training, work opportunities, mentorship, and support are meaningful diversion programs to employ in the wake of harm. Vasquez and his colleagues at CURYJ also promote substance abuse treatment and the distribution of free fentanyl test strips as effective interventions.

The “slavery exception” remains 

Last week, California voters also dealt a blow to advocates who paired their “No on Prop 36” campaigns with an initiative to support Proposition 6. The ballot measure would eliminate the state’s constitutional provision that allows involuntary servitude for incarcerated workers. While under the measure, incarcerated workers would continue to have the option to take prison jobs that could still pay little or nothing, they would no longer be required to do so. Opportunity to at least improve pay for incarcerated workers was foreclosed in 2022 when Gov. Gavin Newsom (who has also critiqued Proposition 6) vetoed a bill to gradually increase prison wages.

While Nevada voters passed their own provision to eliminate “the slavery exception loophole” last week, California voters rejected Proposition 6 in a 53-46% split, making it one of 15 states that continue to permit involuntary servitude.

Vasquez of CURYJ linked Proposition 36 and Proposition 6 as being two measures that would profoundly impact the trajectory of those who move through the criminal legal system. 

“We know that they’re going to be targeted under Prop 36, and we know that on the back end, once they’re put into the carceral system that they’re not going to be able to get the rehabilitation, education, mental health treatment, [and] drug treatment that they need because forced labor will be prioritized,” Vasquez said. 

Some have posited that the amendment’s legibility may have factored into voters’ decisions. Ballotpedia, the nonpartisan nonprofit political encyclopedia, rates the measure as among the more difficult this election season in terms of its ease of readability. However, other advocates argue that voters’ rejection of Proposition 6 in tandem with their support for Proposition 36 is a sign of a turn toward a more tough-on-crime mentality. This rhetoric and policies harken back to the ’80s and ’90s.

“It’s a scary time,” Vasquez said. “We’ve watched this movie before, we know how it ends, and we’ve done a lot of work during the past 10 years or so to undo a lot of the harm that was done. The concern is, has the pendulum swung back the other way?”

Vasquez said he and his colleagues don’t yet know how dramatic these shifts will be, though it is evident that this election season has revealed a jarring shift to the right. 

“I think time will tell, and at the same time, it doesn’t really matter…because we’re going to do what we can to protect our people, and we’re still going to protect the most vulnerable populations,” Vasquez said. “We’re still going to advocate for what we need in our communities.”

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