Human Trafficking and Prison Labor

Some of these countries (such as Poland and Brazil) are actively working to redefine their relationship to forced labor for incarcerated people. Other countries (like North Korea) continue to endorse the practice with vigor. In Walk Free’s estimation, the United States is currently the country doing the most to revise its policies.

Where is prison labor most common?

It’s notoriously hard to find accurate data on exploited populations in countries like China and North Korea. In recent years, widespread reporting has highlighted the epidemic of Uyghur migrants being held in reeducation camps and forced into labor in China. Those outside of China cannot collect accurate data on exactly how many people belonging to this ethnic minority group are being forced to work, but estimates cited by the U.S. Department of Labor estimate that at least 100,000 people are being exploited. As a result, the U.S. has banned the import of select goods produced in the Xinjiang region, where the majority of Uyghur exploitation is taking place.

Similarly, the situation in North Korea is murky. No other country has had access to records from the country in decades. However, the UN’s best estimate is that a staggering 1 in 10 people in North Korea are forced to work by their government. Many of those are working in a penal framework.

The United States is far from blameless. Although the country is working towards reform, the U.S. still has one of the highest rates of prison labor in the world. This is partly due to the disproportionate imprisonment rates in the country. The United States holds 25% of the global incarcerated population, despite representing only 5% of the world’s population. The U.S. imprisons 639 people per every 100,000. This truly staggering, outsized U.S. incarceration rate creates an endless supply of prison laborers.

And that supply is being used. 3 out of 4 prisoners are forced to work. Often, even programs that are labeled as voluntary do not actually afford any choice in practice. Prisoners report retribution if they decline to work, including delayed parole dates and solitary confinement. These threats undermine the “voluntary” nature of these programs.

The history of forced labor in U.S. prisons

The history of forced labor in U.S. prisons is inextricably tied to the Transatlantic Slave Trade.

From the 16th to 19th centuries, around 13 million people were brutally abducted from Africa and enslaved by Europeans and Americans. 

Slavery was officially abolished in the United States in 1865 by the 13th Amendment. However, not everyone in the country backed this decision. As a result, the amendment contains a loophole commonly known as the Exception Clause or Punishment Clause. It reads:

Embittered former slave owners widely exploited that loophole to their advantage. This led to the convict leasing system that filled the labor gap in the post-Civil War South. Private companies paid pennies per incarcerated laborer to “rent” them from the government. This leasing practice was common from 1875 until World War II. 

To make matters worse, many southern states instituted “Black Laws.” These laws overpoliced daily activities like walking on grass or homelessness, arresting and incarcerating people of color who engaged in these behaviors. Black convicts were often placed back in the same plantations where they might have been enslaved just years earlier. 

The conditions in which the laborers worked were horrific. During that time span, the average lifespan of a leased laborer in Texas (beginning at their time of labor) was just 7 years. In Mississippi, during the entirety of the time convict leasing was practiced, no working inmate lived longer than a decade from the start of their exploitation.

While convict leasing was discontinued at the federal level in 1941, prison censuses have continued to be disproportionately black — making up two-thirds of the population of prisons despite black citizens only representing 14% of the U.S. population. People of color also serve longer prison sentences. In short, the United States is still disproportionately imprisoning minorities, a habit that has direct ties back to historical slavery. 

Today, 2.3 million people are imprisoned in the U.S. are in prisons. 76% of those people are working either in internal jobs (prison maintenance like housekeeping, cooking, etc) or external jobs contracted by private companies (everything from agriculture to factory work to fast food). But most of them make pennies an hour— or nothing at all.

In fact, many of the states that once held the highest populations of slaves are now the same states that do not pay their incarcerated workers for labor: Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Florida, Mississippi, South Carolina, and Texas. Some convicts find themselves working agricultural jobs for no pay on old plantation grounds. The infamous Parchman Farm in Mississippi is one example. 

One survivor who spent 51 years in the Louisiana prison system recalls picking cotton and okra while overseen by armed guards on horseback. This is not the distant past. This man was only released in 2015.

Who benefits from prison labor?

Prison labor is perpetuated primarily because it yields enormous profits. In the United States, prisoners produce around $11 billion in goods and services annually. That profit is hard to pass up. It’s impossible to know what kind of profits a country like North Korea might experience with 10% of its population enslaved, but the numbers are likely significant.

The process of implementing a reform such as a prison minimum wage would inevitably be very painful for institutions that depend on cheap (or free) labor. Entities that employ inmates receive tax credits that motivate them to keep doing so. For-profit private prisons themselves benefit immensely from this structure. In fact, because of the profit prisons can make from inmates’ labor, there is something of an incentive to keep as many prisoners incarcerated for as long as possible.

In a groundbreaking move, the State of Colorado passed a law in 2022 requiring that incarcerated people working for private entities must be paid minimum wage. This was a leap forward. However, data shows that the law has been slow to be actually implemented, and many prisoners continue to be paid far below the law. 

Several of the most recognizable brand names in the world have benefitted from this system. Goods produced with potentially unpaid prison labor are sold in stores like Walmart, Target, Costco, and Whole Foods.

An important counterpoint is that there are also some benefits for incarcerated people who work — when that work is set up ethically, or when the circumstances align to suit an individual inmates’ needs.

“When a prison inmate prays for release from her cell, prison industries can be her first salvation,” former inmate Chandra Bozelko shared in an LA Times op-ed. “ When a prisoner is working, she is the closest to free she can be, until she gets out. My prison job made me feel like I was fulfilling my existential duty to society: I was contributing.”

This is why the data overwhelmingly suggests that work programs reduce recidivism, by as much as 24%. For this reason, the widely revered Nelson Mandela Rules for treatment of prisoners includes encouragement towards work release programs and vocational training.

However, those benefits for incarcerated people cannot be fully realized when implemented in a way that erodes their fundamental human rights. Activists advocate for forms of labor that are equitable, humane, and fairly compensated — removing the elements that amount to forced labor or trafficking.

How does prison labor harm incarcerated people?

“People spend years cutting hair, becoming amazing barbers. But the irony is tremendous: once they are released from prison, they cannot become barbers, because it is illegal for felons to receive a barber’s license.”

That firsthand insight comes from Joseph Lascaze, who now works with the ACLU. 

This is just one of many work programs in prisons that does not translate to marketable skills post-incarceration. Often, the years or decades that prisoners spend investing in a trade is entirely wasted due to the limitations of employment for anyone with a criminal record. In other cases, tasks are so menial that they are not adequate for making anything close to a living wage. Because 70% of workers don’t even receive formal training, proving their skills to exterior employers can be impossible.

These employment challenges increase poverty, which is one of the greatest risk factors for incarceration in the first place. As Yale put it, “this lack of money combined with fragile post-release support systems is an explosive formula for recidivism and reincarceration.”

Without sick time, disability leave, or workman’s comp, inmates can also be left with lifelong illness or injury due to their unregulated work in prison. Prisoners have died due to a lack of safety equipment or training. A silent but large segment of COVID-19 cases (including deaths) came from incarcerated people who were forced to make protective equipment while being offered none for themselves. 

Other dangers can exist in these unregulated work sites. Laborers experience sexual assault and harassment with no recourse for reporting. Survivor Lakiera Walker told USA Today that she was punished for trying to report sexual harassment.

We also have to reckon with the reality that many survivors of human trafficking are unjustly imprisoned for crimes they were forced to commit during their exploitation. Imagine a reality where you are exploited in the most horrific ways, arrested because of that exploitation, and then re-exploited through unpaid labor while in prison. That multi-layered abuse would impart deep and lasting trauma.

This is a risk borne out by experts. In a UK study, Dr. Marija Jovanovic (University of Essex) said, “Shockingly, given how few convictions there are on modern slavery charges, it’s not out of the question that there might be more survivors than perpetrators in UK prisons.”

The same could be said of the United States, where imprisonment rates are higher, and trafficking convictions remain very low. Human trafficking subject matter expert and lived experience leader Sabra Boyd provided an example story of how this happens.

This is part of why vacatur mechanisms are so vital to prevent retraumatization of survivors. Right now, the Prison Industrial Complex is essentially serving as a continuation of some individuals’ trafficking.  

Reform for the U.S. prison labor system

What can the United States do about forced labor in the prison system? It starts with protecting incarcerated peoples’ fundamental rights.

Although the details of expert recommendations vary, most activists agree on some basic necessities:

• Minimum wage for privately employed inmates
• True voluntary status for work programs, with punishments removed
• An end to unjustly withheld wages
• Fair pricing on prison necessities
• Appropriate job and safety training
• Protective equipment and protocols
• Sick time
• A grievance process for workers
• Redesigned programs to provide employable skills only
• Reform to employment processes post-incarceration 

As the case study provided by Colorado proves, none of these reforms will be straightforward or easy to implement. But slow progress is still progress, and change  is worth pursuing — even with the inevitable pain point of lost revenue.

In fact, that short-term pain might even have long-term benefits. One study from Edgeworth Economics accounted for the kinds of gains that would come from reduced recidivism and reduced financial burden on inmates and their families. In summary, they predict, “families and children of incarcerated individuals would save on support costs and receive additional financial support totaling $4.5 billion to $5.8 billion annually leading to greater societal and economic stability.”

Next steps

How can you be part of the solution as someone who cares about ending human trafficking and forced labor?

1. Join Freedom United’s Amend the 13th campaign

Change has already begun at the state level. It has yet to make serious inroads federally, but momentum is growing. You can sign your name to the campaign, donate, or contact your representatives directly. 

2. Listen to survivor stories

Due to stigma and societal shame around incarcerated people, it can be easy to look away from their experiences. When we choose to see them as equal human beings with the same rights that we have, we are already challenging the systems that keep inequity in place. Here are some of the survivor voices we learned from to create this article:

• Willie Ingram
• Carla Simmons
• Dominique Morgan
• Christopher Blackwell
• Lakiera Walker
• Jonathan Archille
• Alimireo English
• Johnny Perez
• Britt White
• Chandra Bozelko
• Samual Brown
• Sharnalle Mitchell
• Aaron M. Kinzer
• Joseph Lascaze
• Ronald Smith
• Survivors interviewed by the Corporate Accountability Lab

You might also consider taking it a step forward and volunteering in prisons to provide emotional support and reintegration aid. This can offset some of the difficulty and trauma from years of unpaid labor abuse. In addition to local prison outreaches or ministries, you can see official peer volunteering opportunities from the Federal Bureau of Prisons.

3. Continue to educate yourself

The topic of prison labor, both in the United States and globally, is complex and constantly evolving. More and more states have proposed unique legislative solutions to what is increasingly recognized as an unjust and archaic system.

If you want to be informed as you vote and advocate to your representatives, access a database of resources on human trafficking and prison labor from Human Trafficking Search.