Incarcerated people grow crops, fight wildfires, and manufacture everything from motor oil to prescription glasses — often for pennies per hour. Zachary Crockett reports from North Carolina.

SOURCES:

Laura Appleman, professor of law at Willamette University.
Christopher Barnes, inmate at the Franklin Correctional Center.
Lee Blackman, general manager at Correction Enterprises.
Brian Scott, ex-inmate, former worker at the Correction Enterprises printing plant.
Louis Southall, warden of Franklin Correctional Center.

RESOURCES:

"Prisoners in the U.S. Are Part of a Hidden Workforce Linked to Hundreds of Popular Food Brands," by Robin McDowell and Margie Mason (AP News, 2024).
"Ex-Prisoners Face Headwinds as Job Seekers, Even as Openings Abound," by Talmon Joseph Smith (The New York Times, 2023).
"Captive Labor: Exploitation of Incarcerated Workers," by the American Civil Liberties Union and the University of Chicago Law School Global Human Rights Clinic (2022).
"Bloody Lucre: Carceral Labor and Prison Profit," by Laura Appleman (Wisconsin Law Review, 2022).
"Prison Labor Is on the Frontlines of the COVID-19 Pandemic," by Eliyahu Kamisher (The Appeal, 2020).
Correction Enterprises.

EXTRAS:

"Can Data Keep People Out of Prison?" by People I (Mostly) Admire (2023).

70. Prison Labor

The Economics of Everyday Things