Arkansas bill would ban slavery or involuntary servitude in the state

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    LITTLE ROCK, Arkansas (KHBS/KHOG) — There’s language in the Arkansas Constitution that has exceptions for slavery or involuntary servitude, but a bill recently filed in the Arkansas House is looking to erase that.

House Bill 1002 would amend the Arkansas Constitution to repeal the exception to the prohibition of slavery and involuntary servitude.

The constitution allows the acts if it is a punishment for a crime. State Rep. Jay Richardson out of Fort Smith said this happens a lot in prisons.

He’s pushing for some inmates to either be paid for their work or get a shorter sentence.

Richardson is cautiously optimistic that it will pass.

“I would venture to say that the reason that it may not pass is because people feel like when a person goes to jail, that’s their form of giving back,” he said. “Whatever that looks like. Whether that’s working in field, farming, or anything else, that it should be part of their penance. I just don’t know if I agree with that.”

Laura Nicks was sentenced to life in prison without parole as a teenager in the 1980s for hiding the weapon her ex used to commit a murder.

“I was in an abusive relationship when I was a juvenile,” she said. “And my ex-boyfriend killed my aunt.”

She spent part of her time at the Larry B Norris Maximum Security Unit in Tucker when the male prison housed women in the 1990s.

“You’re placed in what’s called ‘hoe squad,’ and hoe squad is where you go out into the field every day and you work behind a hoe, whether it’s in a garden, or if you don’t have anything, you could literally just hoe all the way to a dirt patch,” she said. “It made me feel useless. It made me feel like a slave. You’re in a hot kitchen slaving away at cooking or in a hot field. It really diminishes you.”

She said she wasn’t paid for the hours in the hot sun she worked with few water breaks, and she said there were punishments for refusing to work.

“You were handcuffed and shackled, thrown on the back of the truck, locked into the prison,” she said. “And thrown into solitary confinement.”

Nicks was released from prison in 2017 after a Supreme Court ruling lifted life sentences for juveniles. She now volunteers with the nonprofit DeCarcerate, hoping to change the prison system, including the free labor.

“I have people that are still incarcerated that write to me all the time asking for help,” Nicks said. “Asking for me to lobby for change, to make conditions better for the ones I left behind.”

The group has been talking to politicians like Richardson for years about amending the Arkansas Constitution. Bills amending the Arkansas Constitution to prohibit slavery or involuntary have been filed over the years but have always failed to pass.

“I think we need to do right and remove slavery altogether,” Richardson said. “Whether they’re incarcerated or not.”

Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders says she needs to look more at the bill.

“I want to look at the specific text of any piece of legislation,” she said. “But what I am supportive of, and one of the things I’ve introduced and will be pushing this session, is focusing on a lot more rehabilitation and evidence-based, workforce-based trained programs within our prison system. It’s something I don’t think we have done nearly as good of a job as possible.”

Richardson said lawmakers won’t take up the bill until mid-February. If passed, the issue could go on the ballot for voters to decide. Nicks hopes it passes.

“Yes, we committed a crime,” she said. “But we got to prison to be rehabilitated. Not used and abused.”

A spokesperson with the Arkansas Department of Corrections said they will allow the legislative process to play out before commenting.

That same spokesperson did explain some of the prison process for us. In a statement, he said, “Each unit is different as to what is required of inmates, but they are given some sort of responsibility. Those responsibilities are the efforts that keep the institutions running, including food prep, laundry, farm labor, construction and maintenance, and manufacturing. Ideally these are designed to help inmates develop new trades and skill sets to provide more opportunities once released.”

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