Prison Labor Act, 1960

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Prison Labor Act, 1960
Long title End of Prison Labor and Prison Reforms Act of 1960
Acronyms PLA, PLA 1960
Enacted by 39th Kryfonsparliszaiye, on 22 September, 1960
Effective 1 January, 1962, with some provisions coming into effect on 1 January, 1961
Voting history
First vote Failed 42–39 (6/29/60)
Second vote Failed 41–40 (7/15/60)
Third vote Passed 43–38 (9/22/60)
Legislative history
Proposed on 8 June, 1960
  • First draft: 9 June, 1960
  • Second draft: 14 June, 1960
  • Final draft: 17 June, 1960
  • Proposed as law: 19 June, 1960
  • Vote, failed: 29 June, 1960

  • Reintroduced: 7 July, 1960
  • Vote, failed: 15 July, 1960

  • Reintroduced: 8 September, 1960
  • Vote, passed: 22 September, 1960
Major amendments
Labor Law Protection Acts of 1973
  • Included the PLA 1960 as a "protected" act, ensuring it would require a supermajority to repeal.

The End of Prison Labor and Prison Reforms Act of 1960, better known as the Prison Labor Act, 1960 (PLA or PLA 1960), is a current federal statute of the Kryfona Kingdom that was enacted by the 39th Assembly of the Kryfonsparliszaiye on 22 September, 1960 and enacted into law by King Tyeri Awaseq later that day. The PLA effectively ended the concept of slave-labor in Kryfona prisons, which had prior to the enacting of the PLA been protected and strengthened under a number of statutes, including the Rights of Prisoners Act of 1930 and the Prison Restoration Act of 1950. Additionally, the bill instated a number of reforms to Kryfona prisons, namely that Kryfona prisons ought to emphasize the use of rehabilitation over sheer force. The PLA made the "verujs" practices—which had previously been used in jails and prisons as punishments—unlawful, and reclassified them as torture. Certain new regulations were added to the building codes for prisons as a part of the reforms, and the PLA mandated the establishment of a new Kryfona Department of Justice office to oversee prisons and jails in the Kingdom—this office became the Kryfona Commission of Jails and Prisons.

The PLA began its existence as two separate ideas and, for a time, two separate "laws." The Labor branch of the PLA was the brainchild of KLP MP Tazsri Meodes, who was a veteran to the previous Prison Labor Act, which had intended to implement a number of restrictions on the kind of labor that could be done by prisoners, but had ultimately stumbled due to significant opposition. Meodes, believing the climate to be more favorable, began writing a draft based on the ideas of the 1936 act shortly after his reelection in 1957. Around the same time, fellow MP Sazre Istha began drafting what he called the "Reformation of Prisons" law alongside YKM MP Eids Tariz Jodalosku. Both "laws" were finished shortly before a meeting convened by the KRP in June of 1959, and unknowingly came to be scheduled for discussion on the same day. That was the catalyst for the laws to be combined into what became the first draft of the End of Prison Labor and Prison Reforms Act. The leadership of the KLP liked both ideas and, knowing that there was a better chance of them being passed as a package, sought to turn them into a single act. Meodes, Istha, and Jodalosku subsequently combined the ideas into exactly that.

It would be another year before the combined act was introduced, however; while the idea was popular with the KLP, only some of it was popular with the YKM, and nearly a year was spent fleshing the combined act out and creating a law which had enough support from the YKM to be viable. During that time, the KLP prepared a message for the act, and in retrospect it was likely their messaging that ultimately allowed the Act to pass at all. On 8 June, 1960, two years after its inception, KP-224-2-60 "Prison Labor Reform and Law" was introduced to the Kryfonsparliszaiye, and on 19 June, 1960, was introduced to the floor to be voted on. Predictably, the act garnered considerable support from the Kryfona Loyalist Party and the Yaraan Kryfon's Movement, but ultimately, the bill failed on what amounted to a party line vote when the Royalist Loyalist bloc voted against it along with every member of the Kryfona Royalist Party—the final tally was 42–39. Despite this failure, the Act was quickly reintroduced to the Kryfonsparliszaiye on 7 July, 1960, and was rushed through the drafting committees with a number of potential concessions to the Royalist Loyalists who had shot it down. A little over one week later, on 15 July, 1960, the Act came up for a vote once again; again, it failed. Despite the Loyalist lobbying towards their fellow party members, they were unable to find a swing vote, and the bill failed by a vote of 41–40.

It was after the second failure that the KLP began to establish its message on the bill. Calling it a matter of "simple decency" and not one of liberal or conservative, the party managed to greatly shift the public's otherwise nonchalant opinion of the bill. The bill, which had in June and July received only modest attention, suddenly became an overnight press story in August as the KLP's leadership tried to force the issue and corral its more conservative members into voting for the bill. The effort was rather unsuccessful early on; while the public certainly felt the bill ought to be passed, in the more conservative districts there was a general apathy to the entire bill. Gradually, however, even they began to feel the pressure, and in turn they pressured their loyalist MPs. The bill was reintroduced a third time on 8 September, 1960, subsequently. This time, it was slow going as it navigated the drafting committees in an effort to appease the Royalist Loyalists further. Eventually, on 22 September, the bill made it to the floor again, and was surprisingly approved by a vote of 43–38.

While in its early history it was somewhat controversial, today, the Prison Labor Act, 1960 is considered a cornerstone of labor rights in the Kingdom. In 1973, the PLA, 1960 was protected by the bipartisan LLP Acts, which established that a supermajority vote in the Kryfonsparliszaiye would be required to overturn it.

Background

The Prison Labor Act, 1960 was at heart an effort to do two things: firstly, to bolster the largely-ineffectual Prison Labor Act, 1936, and secondly, to abolish prison labor entirely in the Kryfona Kingdom. Neither, of course, was easily done. By the time the ideas that became the PLA, 1960 were being written, the PLA, 1936 had been the law of the land for two decades and were effectively status quo. And, although the PLA, 1936 had reinforced a number of the rights which had been established by the even earlier Rights of Prisoners Act of 1930 and further established the basic services that prisons were required to have, its prison labor modifications had been weakened significantly by the Prison Restoration Act of 1950. Thus, from day one, it was fighting the extension of an uphill battle that had raged since 1936.

Passing of the PLA, 1936

The PLA, 1936 was, from the beginning, heavily neutered from what it was intended to be. Originally intended to address both prison labor (which it would have essentially ended) and the verujs practices (which would have been rendered essentially unlawful), it, in truth, accomplished neither. Although some of its restrictions ended up in the final bill, none of the verujs restrictions did, and many of the larger regulations were nixed from the final bill. This was largely because of the objections by the conservative wing of the Kryfona Royalist Party–which at the time was undergoing a resurgence within the KLP–who were in strong support of prison labor and verujs. As a consequence, none of these MPs would vote for any bill against the sort, and this became clear when the PLA, 1936 failed by a vote of 41–39–1 during its first introduction on 3 October, 1936. Negotiation efforts, largely surrounding the verujs provisions, began in earnest when the bill was reintroduced on 11 October; it was clear very quickly however that there was essentially no way to salvage these provisions without the bill failing. A similar effort to protect the extensive regulations against prison labor collapsed a few days later, when the same MPs established that there would be no compromise on the matter. Thus, by 13 October negotiations had shifted to other aspects of the bill that would attract the votes needed to pass the bill. In the final draft, the verujs provisions were scrapped wholesale, as were most of the restrictions on prison labor, and the bill introduced to the floor on 4 November subsequently passed by a vote of 44–37.

While hailed as a success, the PLA, 1936 was deeply controversial among the more liberal members of the KLP. While a number of the MPs who had been for the bill were quite pleased with the outcome, a significant body of the party–including leadership–was not. One day after the bill passed, Pazsye Kary, the KLP's leader, decried the bill as "unhelpful" and called for the reinstatement of the verujs provisions. His assessment was concurred with by virtually all of the MPs of the KLP at the time. On 8 November, there was an organized effort within the KLP to double back on a number of the provisions that originally had been struck out of the bill, but owing to the majority government that was held by the Royalists at the time, this effort quickly was shot down. A second effort by members of the KLP to overturn parts of the PLA, 1936 and reinstate the verujs provisions when the KRP lost its majority in 1939 was also undertaken, but likewise failed.

The organized opposition to the PLA, 1936 largely fell by the wayside thereafter. Although the KLP won a minority government and entered into an agreement with the Yaraan Kryfon's Movement in 1945, and then retained the minority in 1951, there were no significant efforts by either party to reinstate the PLA, 1936's failed provisions. It is unlikely, however, that the party would have been able to instate the verujs provisions anyways. The Royalist Loyalist faction of the party–which in 1945 and 1951 was very large due to some of the seats that the party had won in its minority government–by and large approved of verujs, and almost certainly would have opposed the provisions in a vote. Nevertheless, it was around the tail end of the minority KLP-YKM government and the beginning of a new minority Royalist government that the first plans for the Prison Labor Act, 1960 began.