AB 628: Prisons: employment of inmates.

The California Constitution prohibits involuntary servitude, but exempts from this provision any servitude that is a punishment for a crime. Existing law requires the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) to require each able-bodied inmate, including a condemned inmate, to work as prescribed by CDCR regulations. Existing CDCR regulations require each inmate to participate in 8 hours a day of programming, including labor, education, counseling, physical fitness, and other programs, 5 days per week. Under existing CDCR regulations, an inmate who fails to participate as required is subject to a loss of privileges, including the earning of good conduct credit.

Existing law also authorizes a board of supervisors or city council, through an order, to require all persons confined in a county or city jail, industrial farm, or road camp, as specified, to perform labor on the public works or ways in the county or city, respectively, and to engage in the prevention and suppression of forest, brush, and grass fires upon lands within the county or city, respectively.

This bill, contingent upon the passage and approval by the voters of a constitutional amendment that prohibits all involuntary servitude, would require CDCR to develop a voluntary work program and to prescribe rules and regulations regarding work and programming assignments for CDCR inmates, including the wages for work assignments, and would require wages for work assignments in county and city jail programs to be set by local ordinance.