[Levin]

Almost all of the country’s state and federal adult prisons have some sort of work program, employing around 800,000 people, the report said. It noted the vast majority of those jobs are connected to tasks like maintaining prisons, laundry or kitchen work, which typically pay a few cents an hour if anything at all.

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Altogether, labor tied specifically to goods and services produced through state prison industries brought in more than US$2 billion in 2021