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Posted inLocal News

Opinion: Prop. 6 was good for public safety, but California voters turned it down anyway

by Steve Brooks, Bay City News December 16, 2024December 13, 2024

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Incarcerated men hold "Healing Through Hula" filmmaker Louis Sales on the Red Carpet at the San Quentin Film Festival on Oct. 10, 2024. While the festival showcased the best of what the criminal justice system can achieve — rewarding talented inmates with marketable skills and recognizing their humanity — the defeat of Proposition 6 on the November ballot threatens to undo by continuing the practice of involuntary servitude at slave-like wages. (San Quentin Film Festival via Bay City News)

THIS FALL I attended the first-ever film festival at the San Quentin Rehabilitation Center. Big name celebrities attended, like Kerry Washington, star of the TV drama “Scandal,” comedians Jerry Seinfeld and W. Kamau Bell, and Cord Jefferson, winner of the Academy Award for best adapted screenplay this year for the film “American Fiction.”

I watched as guests mingled outside the prison’s Garden Chapel with incarcerated filmmakers, near a beautiful landscape and a water fountain. I saw photos being taken of those who stood on a strip of red carpet.

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Tagged: California model, commentary, criminal justice reform, documentaries, fair wages, film, incarceration, inmates, Inside/Out, involuntary servitude, op-ed, opinion, prisons, Proposition 6, public safety, recidivism, San Quentin, San Quentin Film Festival, San Quentin Rehabilitation Center, San Quentin State Prison, slavery, Steve Brooks

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