Passage Of Proposition 6 Could Change The Landscape Of California Prisons

Here are the morning’s top stories on Monday, October 14, 2024…

• Proposition 6 on the November ballot aims to get rid of “involuntary servitude” for people in prison. You might know that some of these folks fight wildfires, but people who are in prison also do jobs as varied as cooking and making furniture, and usually they’re paid pennies an hour.
• The nonprofit California Fire Foundation has expanded its memorial wall, which honors fallen firefighters, at the State Capitol.
• Cows in the Central Valley are dying so quickly from bird flu that they’re overwhelming standard protocols for getting rid of carcasses. KVPR obtained photos of dead cattle piled up out in the open near a dairy farm in Tulare County.

Proposition 6 Would End Forced Labor In Prisons

The End Slavery in California Act, on November’s ballot as Proposition 6, would amend the state constitution that allows forced labor as a punishment for a crime.

Prop 6 was originally introduced in 2020, but the bill died in the California State Senate a few years later partially due to a discussion around the proposition shifted to paying incarcerated people a minimum wage. It’s possible that if Prop 6 eliminates forced labor, renewed discussions will emerge around incarcerated people making more money. Most people incarcerated in California make less than 74 cents per hour working jobs from clerks to painters. Many provide free labor used to produce goods for more than 4,100 companies. One of the highest paying prison jobs, firefighter, makes between $6 and $10 a day.

Prop 6 is backed by more than 30 organizations including the ACLU of California and the California Teachers Association. California is one of the 16 states that allow involuntary servitude in prisons. The one group opposing the measure is the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, which advocates for lower taxes.

Firefighter Memorial Expands In Sacramento

The California Fire Foundation, the non-profit that assists families of fallen firefighters, firefighters, and the communities they protect, has expanded its memorial wall in Sacramento.

The memorial wall bore the names of 855 fallen firefighters when it was first unveiled in 2002. That number has nearly doubled since then.

The California Fire Foundation says the expansion will provide the capacity to honor an additional 4600 firefighters over the next 150 years.

Photos Of Dead Cattle Show Bird Flu Is Overwhelming Tulare County

Cows in the Central Valley are dying so quickly from bird flu that they are overwhelming standard protocols meant to dispose of carcasses, according to a dairy industry representative.

On Thursday, KVPR obtained photos taken of dead cattle and calves that were discarded in the open air near a road at the edge of a dairy farm near the Tulare County community of Tipton. Crystal Heath, a veterinarian and animal welfare advocate, provided the images. She acknowledged she didn’t know for certain that the cattle had died of bird flu, but questioned why animals would be piled in this way with “no signage warning of the biosecurity hazard.”

On Friday, Anja Raudabaugh, CEO of Western United Dairies, an industry group, acknowledged to KVPR that these photos were authentic. She also acknowledged that laying carcasses out in the open and at the periphery of a farm is not standard practice, but that the situation demonstrates the severity of the outbreak. As of Monday morning, there have been six confirmed human cases of bird flu, and its affected 100 dairy farms in the state.