Prison labor in the US is mostly optional. Although inmates are paid for their labor in most states, they usually receive less than $1 per hour. As of 2017, Arkansas, Georgia, and Texas did not pay inmates for any work whether inside the prison (such as custodial work and food services) or in state-owned businesses. Additionally, Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, Oklahoma, and South Carolina allowed unpaid labor for at least some jobs. Incarcerated individuals who are required to work typically receive minimal to no job training resulting in situations where their health and safety could potentially be compromised. Prison workers in the US are generally exempt from workers' rights and occupational safety protections, including when seriously injured or killed. Many incarcerated workers also struggle to purchase basic necessities as prices of goods continue to soar, meanwhile prison wages continue to stay the same. For example, "a 10-ounce pouch of beans used to cost $1.21 in September 2021, now costs 1.51," this almost 25% increase can have detrimental effects on what prisoners could afford to buy, leaving many hungry & unable to contact their families from the outside without financially crippling themselves. Inmates that refuse to labor face a range of consequences, including solitary confinement and extensions of their sentences. Investigative investigation by the
Associated Press in 2024 revealed that the state has, for decades, established into deals with private companies—including large
fast-food chains and automotive suppliers—to employ jailed persons at wages typically well below the federal minimum. Inmates have reported being paid as little as $2 per hour, with large deductions decreasing their actual income to minuscule amounts. In 2025, the documentary
The Alabama Solution, containing illicitly filmed footage from inside jails, brought renewed public attention to conditions defined by
overcrowding, brutality, substance abuse, and
forced labor. Legal advocates believe that the scheme works as a continuation of the post-slavery convict leasing system, disproportionately harming Black offenders. Ongoing federal lawsuits allege violations of constitutional protections and anti-trafficking statutes, naming both the state and participating firms as defendants. Critics have urged for rapid reforms, including independent oversight, the abolition of compelled labor, and equitable reward structures that correspond with human rights and labor standards.
Alaska Prisoners in Alaska primarily work either on farms, or in the manufacture of various goods. Alaska notably does not have its own state-owned prisoner industries program, as the state legislature repealed the provision for it in 2005. At institutions such as the Point Mackenzie Correctional Farm and Wildwood Correctional Complex, inmates—who are not designated as employees—participate in agricultural, maintenance, custodial, and culinary tasks. They allegedly receive compensation ranging from $0.25 to $1.25 per hour, frequently facing disciplinary repercussions for non-participation.
Arizona Arizona uses inmates for the manufacture of products under its own state-run industries. Workplace injuries and health issues are common and are generally unrecorded and poorly treated - resulting in many never being able to work again. Prison laborers are not entitled to compensations for injuries sustained.
Hickmans Family Farms is the preeminent private contractor affiliated with
Arizona Correctional Industries, a division of the
Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry. Since the 1990s, Hickmans has utilized jailed individuals—predominantly women—for
egg production. Incarcerated individuals generally receive compensation ranging from $4.25 to $5.25 per hour prior to deductions; however, the net earnings may be less than $1.50 per hour after accounting for expenses related to housing, sustenance, and additional fees. At least nine lawsuits have been initiated by formerly jailed workers claiming significant industrial injuries, including severed fingers and impalement, while employed at Hickmans institutions. The employment of jail labor in Arizona has elicited condemnation from legal lawyers and civil rights organizations. In 2022, Arizona Department of Corrections Director David Shinn asserted that rural economies in the state would "collapse" without access to inexpensive jailed labor, which can remunerate as little as $0.50 to $1.50 per hour. ACI allegedly imposes the state minimum wage (about $12.90/hour) on private enterprises, maintaining the surplus while remunerating convicts at substantially lower rates. These methods have generated ethical and legal apprehensions over the exploitation of jailed labor for private and governmental gain.
Arkansas Arkansas possesses a concerning history of coercive and uncompensated prison work. Inmates, primarily Black, have been compelled to labor on extensive state prison farms, including the
Cummins and
Tucker Units, located on former slave estates. An investigation by Associated Press in January 2024 disclosed that current Arkansas prison farms provide significant food brands—such as
Walmart,
Tyson,
Cargill, and beef producers—with crops and cattle cultivated by jailed individuals, who are frequently compensated less or not at all. A former inmate recounted receiving merely "two rolls of toilet paper weekly, toothpaste, and a limited number of menstrual pads" in exchange for their labor. In fiscal year 2019, Arkansas' unpaid jail labor generated over $4.4 million in externally marketed agricultural products, alongside an extra $7.5 million designated for prison food services. Eyewitness testimonies indicate that imprisoned laborers experienced severe mistreatment—disordered working environments, maltreatment, and insufficient safeguards—evoking parallels to historical slavery.
California The 2017 Northern California wildfires consumed over 201,000 acres of land and took 42 lives. The state fire agency, California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (
CAL FIRE), mobilized over 11,000 firefighters in response, of which 1,500 were prisoners of minimum security conservation camps overseen by the
California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. 43 conservation camps for adult offenders exist in California and 30 to 40% of CAL FIRE firefighters are inmates from these camps. The inmate firefighter camps have their origins in the prisoner work camps that built many of the roads across rural and remote areas of California during the early 1900s. Compensation for prison employment, encompassing agricultural, cooking responsibilities, maintenance, and firefighting, generally varies from $0.13 to $2.00 per hour. Labor is organized as compulsory, with incentives like improved housing or visitation rights dependent on adherence. While the DOC justifies these restrictions as rehabilitative measures and claims they are voluntary, detractors, including jailed inmates and civil rights organizations, see them as coercive practices akin to contemporary slavery.
Connecticut Connecticut's prison labor system integrates minimal compensation, mandatory labor, and traditional traditions that attract contemporary scrutiny. Since the mid-20th century, convicts at institutions like
Wethersfield State Prison have been mandated to engage in labor under the
Auburn system, participating in consistent employment within prison industries (e.g., carpentry, agriculture, cigar production). The inequity has compelled Connecticut to advocate for legislation intended to increase inmate remuneration. In reality, incarcerated prisoners typically earn between $0.30 and $1.50 per hour for institutional labor, such as food, maintenance, and gardening tasks. Inmates who decline assignments in non-pilot programs may encounter disciplinary measures and risk forfeiting privileges or eligibility for release, so compelling participation.
Delaware Delaware law (11 Del. C. § 6532) permits the Department of Correction to mandate physically capable offenders to participate in compulsory job, training, and work experience programs. These assignments may encompass work in state-operated industries, public infrastructure projects, or activities such as highway and beach maintenance. Inmates are eligible to compensation—either through salary or good-time credits—with overtime remuneration at 1.5 times the basic rate for work exceeding 40 hours per week. Deductions for lodging, meals, restitution, and additional expenses can substantially diminish net income. In Delaware, jailed workers generally receive compensation ranging from $0.25 to $2.00 per hour, a wage structure that has remained unchanged for decades. Delaware allows institutionalized low-wage inmate labor, however there have been no significant litigation contesting the practice as unconstitutional forced labor.
Florida Inmates in Florida are forced to perform labor, often under threat of solitary confinement and beatings. These inmates are not paid for the labor they're made to perform, and unsatisfactory performance can also lead to solitary confinement. In one instance, a prisoner working as a barber was sent to solitary for dropping and breaking a hair clipper. In 2019, a prisoner at the women's
Lowell Correctional Institution in
Marion County was left paralyzed after being beaten for refusing to clean a set of toilets during a mental breakdown. The state settled in court for $4.65 million. In Florida, compulsory prison labor is widespread in 128 state prisons and 20 work camps, affecting around 80,000 jailed persons.
Georgia Pat Biegler, director of the Georgia Public Works department stated that the prison labor system implemented in Georgia facilities saves the department around US$140,000 per week. The largest county prison work camp in Columbus, Georgia, Muscogee County Prison, saves the city around $17 to US$20 million annually according to officials, with local entities also benefiting from the monetary funds the program receives from the state of Georgia. Incarcerated individuals generally commence with 90 days of compulsory labor in the field, frequently utilizing hoes and shovels under the supervision of armed guards and "line pushers". Compensation is alarmingly inadequate: $0.02 to $0.40 per hour, with agricultural labor in Angola yielding as little as 2 cents per hour. Refusal to labor may lead to solitary confinement, deprivation of privileges, or involuntary transfers, while numerous lawsuits have been initiated claiming cruel and unusual punishment and breaches of the Americans with Disabilities Act due to the refusal of amenities and exposure to high temperatures. The prison labor system goes beyond Angola into state enterprises, where jailed individuals manufacture office furniture, mattresses, uniforms, and agricultural products. A substantial portion of these goods enters commercial supply chains, yielding over $2 billion annually nationwide, with Louisiana making a considerable contribution. The ACLU and
University of Chicago data indicate that vocational and maintenance roles compensate between $0.04 and $0.80 per hour, with certain offenders receiving no remuneration during their initial years of service.
Mississippi Forced labor exists in many prisons. In Mississippi,
Parchman Farm has operated as a for-profit plantation, which yields revenues for the state from its earliest years. Many prisoners were used to clear the dense growth in the Mississippi bottomland, and then to cultivate the land for agriculture. By the mid-20th century, it had under cultivation. In the late 20th century, prison conditions were investigated under civil rights laws, when
abuses of prisoners and harsh working conditions were exposed. These revelations during the 1970s led the state to declare that it would abandon the for-profit aspect of its forced labor from convicts and planned to hire a professional penologist to head the prison. A state commission recommended reducing the size of acreage, to grow only what is needed for the prison. However, an investigation in 2024 by the
Associated Press found that Parchman Farm remained one of the largest for-profit plantations in the country.
New York (state) The New York Department of Corrections' prison labor division
Corcraft holds a partial monopoly on all goods purchased by state agencies - in which if the requisite item or a sufficiently similar item is available from Corcraft, it must be purchased from Corcraft. The jobs inmates are mandated to work range from mundane ones such as tailoring and taxi driving, to more hazardous ones as lead paint and asbestos removal. The average Corcraft inmate wage is 65 cents an hour, or about $1,092 per inmate per year. The lowest Corcraft wage is 16 cents per hour, though some can earn bonuses equal to $1.14 per hour.
South Carolina The prison labor system in South Carolina has faced significant condemnation for sustaining conditions reminiscent of contemporary slavery. Incarcerated individuals, predominantly Black men serving lengthy sentences, are mandated to engage in manufacturing, maintenance, and public service for remuneration ranging from $0 to $2 per hour, frequently without the option to decline. Although entrepreneurship programs assert they provide market-rate salaries ($7.25–$10/hour), deductions for lodging, board, taxes, and restitution often reduce actual earnings to below $1.25/hour. Legal attempts to contest this exploitation have proven mostly futile: in
Torrence v. SCDC, the court determined that convicts lack the standing to uphold wage protections, so depriving them of labor rights granted to all other employees. This legal vacuum perpetuates a system wherein the state directly benefits from coerced work while depriving jailed individuals of the capacity to self-advocate. Internal resistance has been increasing. South Carolina was instrumental in the 2016 national prison strike, during which jailed individuals organized hunger strikes and work stoppages at prisons such as Lee and Perry Correctional Institutions. The requests for the cessation of forced labor, equitable remuneration, and humane treatment were predominantly disregarded by officials, who persist in exploiting prison labor under the pretense of rehabilitation. Recent litigation, including a case initiated by
Tyger River convicts against
Shaw Industries, exposes a deliberate pattern of pay theft disguised as lawful deductions.
Texas Responsible for the largest prison population in the United States (over 140,000 inmates) the
Texas Department of Criminal Justice is known to make extensive use of unpaid prison labor. Prisoners are engaged in various forms of labor with tasks ranging from agriculture and animal husbandry, to manufacturing soap and clothing items. to produce various goods, including furniture, and
combat helmets. Private prisons have engaged in the practice of providing cheap, dangerous labor at low costs, resulting in improper safety & health standards to maximize profits. Private prisons are maintained as an institution to profit from, resulting in the incentive to mass incarcerate more individuals to further grow the prison labor market, in return to generate as much revenue as possible. In the aftermath of the
2021 storming of the United States Capitol, it was noted that FPI would receive priority when the federal government purchases products such as office furniture to replace what was damaged in the riots. ==Prison labor legislation==