A deceitful US Department of Justice marketing brochure for call centers staffed by inmates in federal prison.
Credit: Federal Prison Industries

Prisoners in 17 states began a three-week strike this week, with many refusing to eat or work to protest what they consider “modern-day slavery” in America’s correctional facilities.

Among other demands, prisoners want to earn more than a few dimes for each hour of work that they do, considering that their work brings in billions of dollars in revenue to state and federal prisons. Most inmates across the country do skilled and unskilled labor typically for less than a dollar per hour. (In some states, it’s entirely unpaid.) The work ranges from building office furniture to answering customer service calls to video production and farm work — sometimes without the guarantee of safe work conditions.

Prisoners and human rights activists say this dynamic is a form of exploitation and disproportionately harms people of color, who are more likely to be incarcerated in the first place. But correctional facilities argue that prison laborers learn real-life […]