Prison Labor

Race To The Bottom: Prison Labor Exploitation In The South

May 13, 2026 Sumona Gupta, Black Agenda Report. Educate! Exploitation, Hyundai, Kia, Prison Labor, The South, Worker Rights

In November 2025, non-profit Jobs to Move America (JMA) filed a lawsuit against Korean car companies Hyundai and Kia in a California state court for the companies' reliance on incarcerated workers' labor, despite the alleged unsafe and exploitative working conditions. JMA claimed that the companies' use of incarcerated workers' labor in Alabama and Georgia is in violation of California state laws and California public purchasing standards, that incarcerated workers are working under forced labor conditions, and that the alleged underpayment and mistreatment of workers provides Hyundai and Kia an "unfair competitive advantage in the California automotive sales market."

Alabama Voters Banned Prison Slavery But Prisoners Say It Hasn’t Stopped

June 21, 2025 Shaun Traywick, Truthout. Educate! Alabama, Criminal Justice and Prisons, Legal System, Prison Labor, Slavery

In 2022, Alabama became one of the first states in the nation to ban slavery without exception. A constitutional amendment, passed overwhelmingly by voters, removed language that had long allowed involuntary servitude to continue in state prisons — a holdover from the 13th Amendment’s infamous “exception clause.” The 13th Amendment, though widely celebrated at the time for abolishing most forms of slavery, still allows for involuntary servitude as punishment for a crime, and has remained the legal backbone for the vast system of prison labor in the U.S., where incarcerated people can be compelled to work under threat of punishment.

Inmates Challenge Motion To Dismiss In Alabama Forced Labor Federal Lawsuit

June 12, 2024 Alander Rocha, Black Agenda Report. Resist! Alabama, Criminal Justice and Prisons, Forced Labor, Human Rights, Legal System, Prison Labor, Worker Rights

Incarcerated individuals in Alabama have filed a 214-page response opposing a motion to dismiss their lawsuit accusing state prisons of using slave labor. The case involves multiple claims against state officials, private employers and local governments alleging Alabama’s prison labor program system is a form of modern-day slavery. Each defendant filed motions to dismiss the lawsuit, claiming that counsel for plaintiffs did not state a legal claim in the lawsuit. “Despite Defendants’ strenuous efforts to dispute Plaintiffs’ well-founded allegations—a strategy that cannot justify dismissal of Plaintiffs’ claims at this juncture...

Lawsuit: Alabama Is Denying Prisoners Parole To Lease Their Labor

April 19, 2024 Kim Kelly, In These Times. Resist! Alabama, Capitalism, Criminal Justice and Prisons, McDonald's, Prison Labor

Working in the freezer at Southeastern Meats, a meatpacking facility based in Birmingham, Ala., “was the worst job I’ve ever had in my entire life,” Lakiera Walker tells In These Times. Her 12-hour shifts were spent inside a refrigerated building as cold as 30 or 40 degrees, and she had to beg or borrow warm clothes from her friends and family because the employer didn’t provide any. She couldn’t even take solace in the idea that she was saving up money for her future, because the prison where she spent the rest of her waking hours was taking a 40% cut on top of various fees.

Prisoners Are A Hidden Workforce Linked To Popular Food Brands

February 3, 2024 Margie Mason and Robin McDowell, New York Amsterdam News. Educate! Big Ag, Criminal Justice and Prisons, Food and Agriculture, Prison Labor, Slavery, Wages, Worker Rights

Angola, LA - A hidden path to America’s dinner tables begins here, at an unlikely source – a former Southern slave plantation that is now the country’s largest maximum-security prison. Unmarked trucks packed with prison-raised cattle roll out of the Louisiana State Penitentiary, where men are sentenced to hard labor and forced to work, for pennies an hour or sometimes nothing at all. After rumbling down a country road to an auction house, the cows are bought by a local rancher and then followed by The Associated Press another 600 miles to a Texas slaughterhouse that feeds into the supply chains of giants like McDonald’s, Walmart and Cargill.

Prisoners Strike At Oak Park Heights Canteen

September 17, 2023 Dan Feidt, Unicorn Riot. Resist! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Minnesota, Prison Labor, Strikes, Wages, Water

Oak Park Heights, MN — Just days after prisoners at the Stillwater prison staged civil disobedience actions by refusing a staff lockdown, incarcerated workers at the nearby ‘level 5’ MCF-Oak Park Heights prison canteen have staged a work strike, according to activists who regularly stay in touch with prisoners. The use of segregation, or sending prisoners to ‘the hole,’ has increased in recent years. Oak Park Heights administrators sent prisoners there 694 times in 2018, according to state Department of Corrections (DOC) data. The Twin Cities branch of the Incarcerated Workers Organizing Committee (IWOC) sent out a press release on the Oak Park Heights work stoppage.

On Prison Journalism: ‘The Lesson Here Is That the System Is Cruel’

January 13, 2023 Maggie Duffy, In These Times. Educate! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Journalism, Prison Labor

From 2010 to 2012, Keri Blakinger was incarcerated in state and county correctional facilities for possessing a “tupperware of heroin.” Since then, she has gone on to work as a prison reporter at the Houston Chronicle, The Marshall Project and, most recently, the Los Angeles Times. In June 2022, Blakinger published Corrections in Ink, a memoir about her experience in the prison system. The book shows how Blakinger and fellow incarcerated people navigated the New York state prison system, profiling their resilience in the face of dehumanizing conditions. Since its release, Blakinger has shared notes on Twitter from people in prison who have found the book to be a tool for hope and post-carceral strength. But a few months after its publication, Blakinger learned the Florida Department of Corrections was considering permanently banning her “dangerously inflammatory” book at prisons across the state after an inmate at Okaloosa Correctional Facility requested the book through the Prison Book Program.

One In Three Big Defense Contractors Profits From US Prisoner Suffering

February 16, 2022 Alan Macleod, Mintpress News. Educate! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Prison Industrial Complex, Prison Labor, Weapons makers

Washington – America’s largest arms companies are increasingly finding lucrative new ways of profiting from the prison industrial complex; in many cases, weapons of war are directly manufactured using coerced prison labor. A new MintPress News study of the 100 largest private Defense Department contractors found that 37% of them were also profiting from incarcerated Americans, either in prisons and jails, or in Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) camps. This proportion rose to 16 of the top 25 largest arms manufacturers, including Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, General Dynamics and Northrop Grumman. The complete list of top corporations profiting from mass incarceration, displayed in order of value of Department of Defense contracts received, is as follows...

Italian Co-Ops Hire Inmates To Make Food And Fashion

February 12, 2022 Rozanna Travis, Open Democracy. Create! Criminal Justice and Prisons, Italy, Prison Labor, Worker Rights

Hand-made jewellery, bottles of locally produced wine and other artisanal products line the shelves of a small shop in the centre of Turin, northern Italy. Two fashionably dressed women are browsing the selection of handbags. ‘Made in Italy’ is a popular label that attracts both tourists and locals. But here the products are more specifically, and proudly, ‘made in carcere’ (the Italian word for prison). Forty co-operatives supply the shop – called Freedhome – with goods produced by around 2,000 prisoners. About half of them work on day-release outside prison: on farms, wineries or different workshops in nearby towns.

Scheer Intelligence: Prisons Enable America’s Obscene Wealth

August 13, 2021 Robert Scheer, ScheerPost.com. Educate! Podcast, Prison Labor, Prisons, Worker Rights

The story of Marshall “Eddie” Conway, a military veteran and former Black Panther who was imprisoned for 43 years for a crime he didn’t commit, is one that gets to the heart of systemic racism in the United States. Despite grueling conditions, in prison Conway pursued three college degrees, and was considered an “exemplary” prisoner for starting a prison literacy program and organizing the prison library. On the other hand, his efforts to organize a union among his fellow convict laborers was crushed by the authorities. After being released in 2014 following an appellate court judgment that his jury had been given improper instructions, Conway has become executive producer of The Real News Network (TRNN), a progressive media organization based in Baltimore, MD, with his own show, “Rattling the Bars” that focuses on the many social justice issues that intersect with mass incarceration in the U.S.

Rather Than Pay Fairer Wages, Businesses Look To Prisons

August 7, 2021 Eddie Conway, The Real News Network. Resistance Report Finance and the Economy, Jobs, Prison, Prison Labor

For months, business owners and corporate media pundits in the US have complained about a “labor shortage,” claiming that businesses are struggling to find new employees because “no one wants to work.” Rather than enticing applicants with more competitive wages and stronger benefits and protections, though, many businesses are opting to exploit prison slave labor.

How corporations buy and sell food made with prison labor

May 19, 2021 H. Claire Brown, The Counter Educate! Finance and the Economy, Food and Agriculture, Prison Labor, Worker Rights

In 2011, Leprino Foods, the $3 billion company that supplies all the mozzarella to Papa John’s, Pizza Hut, and Domino’s pizza chains, lost its buffalo milk supplier in India. Water buffalo milk isn’t easy to find in the United States, especially not as much as a company as big as Denver-based Leprino could use. The animals are finicky, sometimes refusing to give milk at the sight of a stranger, and they produce only a fraction of the milk that cows make. But Leprino was in luck: One of its existing suppliers, which soon became one of the largest buffalo dairies in the United States, agreed to step in, and the milk began to flow. Leprino trademarked the slogan “with a kiss of buffalo milk” for Bacio, its premium mozzarella line marketed to independent pizzerias.

Ending Private Prisons Is Not Enough

March 7, 2021 Ashish Prashar, Business Insider. Educate! Corporations, Joe Biden, Prison Labor, Private Prisons

President Joe Biden, by executive order, directed the Department of Justice to end its private prison use. It's a step in the right direction and a symbolic moment for this administration to say they are going to take criminal justice reform seriously. While this step decouples the federal government's relationship with private prisons, let's remember that such institutions hold just about 9% of the federal prison population — a little more than 14,000 people. Profit from incarcerated people doesn't meet the moral standards of justice. However, private prisons aren't even where the biggest profits exist. Private companies continue to profit off the labor of inmates in the public prison system, or, the "prison industrial complex." President Biden must also dismantle this repugnant practice. These corporations have monetized crime and punishment with the government's help.

Formerly Incarcerated Organizer On February 6 St. Louis Jail Protest

February 14, 2021 Ryan Hamby, Liberation News. Resist! COVID-19, Prison Labor, Prisoner rights, St. Louis

EXPO is an organization of formerly incarcerated individuals and other people involved with the criminal justice system. We are a voice for people adversely affected by this system. We are an offshoot of EXPO Wisconsin, which started in 2014. In just a few years, we have made tremendous strides to address issues that reduce the quality of life for people transitioning after being incarcerated. We are leading a few campaigns now. One is Unlock the Vote, which is a fight to restore voting rights for individuals convicted of a felony and who are now on probation or parole. We hope to restore these rights because people who have had a brush with law need to be able to return to society as assets, to be able to contribute in a positive way.

Forced Labor In The United States

February 13, 2021 Margaret Kimberley, Black Agenda Report. Educate! China, Human Rights, Prison Labor, Uyghurs

By any measure, the United States has the worst human rights record among the nations called democratic or developed or advanced or “free world” or any of the other labels that rich capitalist countries use to describe themselves. The U.S. has the worst health care system in that group, the worst benefits for workers, and the worst income inequality. It also has the dubious distinction of being the world’s biggest jailer, with some 2.3 million people behind bars. This country which treats its people so terribly is also the one most likely to project its evil doing on to others. There is a method to the madness.

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