At any given time, nearly 2 million individuals are incarcerated in the United States. Despite being a nation that prides itself on ideals of freedom and liberty, the U.S. holds the highest prison population in the world. Rooted in the legacy of slavery, intensified by the War on Drugs, and sustained by deeply embedded racial inequities, the U.S. legal structure has given rise to a sprawling system of mass incarceration— one that drives economic gain at the expense of society’s most vulnerable.
America’s Carceral Past
To fully understand the problematic depth of the American justice system, we have to examine its historical roots. Though the foundation of the nation’s incarceration system is widely debated, many scholars argue that the system’s roots can be traced back to the legacy of slavery in the United States.
While slavery provided the basis for many systemic racial inequities in the early decades of America’s founding, many believed those inequalities would begin to dissolve following the end of the Civil War in 1865. As the 13th Amendment was introduced, proudly announcing that “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States,” many believed America had begun its path towards social and racial equity. However, the exception clause of the amendment, which allows involuntary servitude as a “punishment for crime,” would only serve to perpetuate racial divides in the South.
Following the passage of the 13th Amendment, many Southern states implemented “Black Codes,” which made actions such as loitering or vagrancy illegal. Those codes, while technically enforceable laws, were often used with the sole intention of curtailing the civil rights of Black Americans. As the Reconstruction Era progressed, Jim Crow laws, convict-leasing systems, and debt peonage continued to suppress Black communities. Former slaves found themselves working on the very fields they were supposed to be freed from, free Black men faced lengthy prison sentences for breaking arbitrary laws, and America’s racial divide was as wide as ever. American laws once again left Black Americans powerless and defenseless, precisely because that powerlessness allowed thousands of White Americans to continue to profit from their forced, unpaid labor. As long as they could be convicted of a crime, the 13th Amendment legally justified their enslavement.
Racial Disparities in Incarceration
Though Black Codes and Jim Crow Laws came to an end in 1965 with the passage of legislation such as the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the racial imbalance of American prisons had already been established. The nation had discovered that imprisonment, while disguised as a form of law enforcement, could yield immense economic gains for public and private entities alike. So naturally, as decades passed, the American prison system continued to grow — especially as the incarceration rates for Black Americans skyrocketed from 600 per 100,000 people in 1970 to over 1,800 per 100,000 people in 2000.
Much of that increase has been attributed to the War on Drugs, a Nixon-era initiative beginning in 1971 that attempted to crack down on crime rates and drug abuse. However, that initiative, which flaunted a narrative of being “tough on crime,” ultimately caused far more harm than good. The 1984 Comprehensive Crime Control and Safe Streets Act, for example, was passed with the goal of eliminating parole in the federal system — but it incidentally caused a massive upsurge in the number of elderly citizens being held in federal prisons.
In 1986, the Anti-Drug Abuse Act established mandatory minimum sentencing schemes in an attempt to crack down on drug abuse, but the act only caused the federal system to become flooded with people convicted of low-level, non-violent drug offenses. Most notably, however, the Violent Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1994 greatly expanded the federal death penalty, eliminated Pell Grants for prisoners, reduced the rights of habeas corpus, and caused an unprecedented boom in prison construction.
Clearly, as time had passed, the War on Drugs had lost its original intent. Policies began to target low-income communities of color — not as a crackdown on crime, but as an excuse to control those populations. The term “mass incarceration” entered the public’s vocabulary, and the exponential growth of prisons reflected the phrase’s daunting connotations. In every sense, the legal and political climate that once kept Black Americans locked in lives of slavery, servitude, and powerlessness hasn’t just persisted — it’s expanded.
As of 2015, nearly 80% of people being held in federal prison for drug offenses were Black or Latino. In that same year, almost 2.7 million U.S. children grew up in households in which one or more parents were incarcerated. As the years have passed, heavy policing and mass incarceration have continued to grow at the expense of America’s most vulnerable communities. Even decades into the 21st century, Black Americans continue to find themselves oppressed by the laws, policies, and systems by which the nation claims to keep its citizens safe.
The Hidden Cost of Prison Labor
Detainment, however, isn’t the end of the story for these marginalized groups — it’s only the beginning. Once imprisoned, many inmates join the nearly 800,000 prison laborers who are forced to work exhausting and often dangerous jobs against their will. Ranging from standard cooking and cleaning, all the way to fighting fires and operating heavy machinery, inmates often have no choice in what tasks they’re assigned to. And those who refuse to work, or even attempt to stand up to prison personnel, frequently face harsh punishments. From loss of family visitation to solitary confinement, all the way to denial of sentence-reducing opportunities, these punishments can feel worse than the work itself. In fact, Paul Wright, a former inmate and the founder of Prison Legal News, argues that many of those correctional punishments are “targeted,” with the “purpose of silencing [prisoners]” and “keeping them enslaved and working.” Wright also emphasizes that those punishments, while coercive and intimidating, are often “uniform across all slave regimes,” highlighting just how abusive prison labor truly is.
In fact, the involuntary labor and dangerous nature of prison work have often led scholars and inmates alike to classify it as a form of “modern-day slavery.” The comparison to such a tragedy can be jarring for some to hear in the 21st century, yet the conditions within many prisons often meet the criteria to be considered a form of slavery. In an interview with the HPR, Tomoya Obokata, the UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, pointed out that prison labor, which involves “employment against [one’s] own will” and often includes “threats or penalties,” is “under the definition of forced labor” through the International Labor Organization. Even on a global scale, the United States’ system of prison labor stands out as not only unethical but explicitly illegal by international law. When incarcerated individuals make between 13 and 52 cents per hour nationally, it becomes clear that these individuals are not just being coerced — they are being actively exploited.
In fact, those low wages have made cheap prison labor so desirable that private businesses have begun hiring prisoners as opposed to free workers in many industries. Nationally, it’s estimated that prison laborers produce nearly $2 billion in goods and $9 billion in maintenance-like services every single year. With an economic output so large, it is no wonder many lawmakers work to keep prison labor systems in place — because those systems benefit the very companies and institutions that keep our economy moving. And while some economists may contend that $11 billion of goods and services annually is a net benefit to society, we must be vigilant in ensuring that prison policy is not driven simply by a desire for cheap labor. To allow such malicious motives to infiltrate American prison policy would not only run the risk of corrupting our justice system but would contradict the very values of freedom on which our nation was founded.
Locked Out After Lockup
As optimistic as it would be to believe that the social and financial hardship of prisoners ends once they are released, the truth is far more sobering. With nearly two-thirds of prisoners performing some sort of labor during their sentence, many formerly incarcerated individuals find themselves leaving prison with measly savings and nearly no social or legal support. As opposed to education, rehabilitation, or even meaningful employment, many prisoners spent their time working jobs with non-transferable skills that are often futile in finding real-world employment. Additionally, with incredible stigma surrounding the character of former inmates, employers are often wary of hiring those individuals, and formerly incarcerated people have an unemployment rate nearly 23% higher than the national average. As a result of those non-transferable skills and soaring unemployment rates, nearly 33% of formerly incarcerated people find themselves unemployed four years post-release.
In the housing sphere, the barriers of reentry are often even more difficult for the formerly incarcerated to overcome. Without significant savings, high costs of housing can make access nearly impossible for many to find a stable place to live. And even for those who have the financial means to afford housing, discriminatory landlord practices can still prevent those individuals from finding a place to live, causing former inmates to be 10 times more likely to experience homelessness than the general public. In the absence of a permanent address, stable housing, employment, or financial stability, the prospects of voting, securing banking services, or obtaining an education become as difficult as ever.
Additionally, often as a result of immense barriers to reentry, nearly 76.6% of formerly incarcerated people are rearrested within five years of their release. Beyond the immense financial burden that such frequent recidivism places on states and taxpayers alike, those statistics clearly demonstrate that the current system is not working. Not only do current prison conditions fail to adequately prepare inmates for a life after release, but the low wages and exploitative circumstances behind bars often actively contribute to those high rates of recidivism.
From Punishment to Possibility
Though the problems of the American criminal justice system seem deep, systematic, and impossible to solve, there are plenty of possibilities for achievable reform. Rebecca Ginsburg, the director of the Education Justice Project, describes the importance of prison education programs in both connecting prisoners with each other and with the complex world around them. Many times, the EJP’s college-in-prison programs can teach prisoners about “their own family dynamic or the history of their community, or things that they’ve experienced for themselves that may have… nothing to do with their legal case.”
To sustain the successes of educational programs like the EJP, Ginsburg emphasizes that “there have to be other sources of funding” for in-prison education, especially from state and local governments. With that funding, and with the continued work of educational programs like the EJP, there is incredible potential to create lasting changes, both educational and otherwise, for prisoners and communities across the country.
While reforms in the educational sphere can have incredible impacts on incarcerated individuals and their communities, their impacts are often muffled by the hardships of forced labor in those same facilities. Thankfully, though, vocational reform is possible — and often incredibly effective. The Illinois Adult Transition Centers, for example, are one of the primary success stories of vocational prison reform. Those ATCs reintroduce incarcerated individuals to the educational, vocational, and wellness training that prove to be invaluable in helping them succeed post-release. Those programs also provide voluntary employment opportunities with higher wages, allowing individuals to accumulate savings that end up providing a much-needed financial cushion post-release. In fact, the programs and employment opportunities have been so successful that ATC participants were 36.9% less likely to recidivate over time when compared to those who did not participate.
While those community-based initiatives are of the utmost importance in connecting with impacted individuals and producing meaningful impacts, the issue of prison labor needs solutions that are just as widespread, if not more widespread, than its problems. For many, those solutions begin with protecting incarcerated workers. For the UN Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery, Tomoya Obokata, those changes begin with “recognizing [prison laborers] as workers and protecting them… under federal or state labor laws.” To protect incarcerated workers with the same laws that protect free ones would mean that they not only would receive the same workplace protections as everyone else, but they would also be able to choose when, where, and how they work.
Another potential solution lies in creating a national minimum wage for prisoners. What that precise wage would be is difficult to predict or recommend, but it is suggested that a minimum wage increase of just $0.50 would reduce the probability of recidivism within three years by 2.15%. Every cent would count — every cent would give these individuals another chance to succeed as productive members of society.
Ultimately, prison labor reform is completely possible, but that does not mean it will be easy. To change the whole system requires legal work, social advocacy, activism, lobbying, and much more. The injustices within the American justice system weren’t built overnight, and they certainly won’t be eliminated overnight. But as we chip away the chains and unlock the shackles of America’s incarcerated labor force, we move one step closer to ensuring basic financial, social, and physical justice for all prisoners. Because in the words of Nelson Mandela, “no one truly knows a nation until one has been inside its jails. A nation should not be judged by how it treats its highest citizens, but its lowest ones.”
Associate U.S. Editor
