The use of incarcerated people to produce goods and services for little or no wages has existed in New York for over 200 years. Although slavery was abolished in our state in 1827, New York has an insidious exception in our state constitution that continues to require all who are “physically capable” to work for the state under a system that is akin to modern-day slavery.

Today, over 31,000 incarcerated New Yorkers are forced to work under the threat of punishment for as little as $0.10 per hour – before their wages are garnished to pay fines and fees. The majority of these workers earn $0.33 or less per hour staffing hundreds of jobs, from running programming to groundskeeping and laundry – wages that can only be called “slave wages.”

Some incarcerated individuals are assigned to Corcraft prison factories, working jobs described by formerly incarcerated individuals as dangerous and often physically demanding, where they are paid slightly higher wages – no more than $0.65 per hour – to manufacture essential state goods.

NYS Clean Covid-19 protective equipment, Medicaid eyewear, the school desks our public school children sit at, and the office furniture used by the state legislature and NYPD are each made from vastly underpaid labor that is coerced through violence, punishment, and retaliation.

Though the state brings in tens of millions of dollars a year in revenue from this manufacturing enterprise, incarcerated people face exorbitant prices for basic in-prison goods. As a result, one in three families supporting an incarcerated loved one go into debt, according to the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights, and this burden is borne chiefly by communities of color across our state.