The Laken Riley Act is a new law that legalizes the indefinite imprisonment and deportation of possibly innocent legal immigrants. In this episode, we examine the law to see how it legalizes such injustices and we look at the profit motive behind expanding our prison population.
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Background Sources
Recommended Congressional Dish Episodes
The Laken Riley Case
“The political battle over Laken Riley’s murder, explained.” Andrew Prokop. March 21, 2024. Vox.
“For Suspect in U. of Georgia Killing, an Obscure Trail Across States.” Colbi Edmonds and Alessandro Marazzi Sassoon. February 29, 2024. The New York Times.
The Laken Riley Act
“Community Explainer: Laken Riley Act.” January 24, 2025. National Immigration Project.
“Congress Clears Measure to Deport Immigrants Accused of Crimes.” Maya C. Miller. January 22, 2025. The New York Times.
“This New Immigration Bill That’s About to Pass Is a Horrifying Trojan Horse.” Mark Joseph Stern. January 10, 2025. Slate.
Incarceration of Immigrants
“Law-Abiding Immigrants: The Incarceration Gap Between Immigrants and the US-born, 1870–2020.” Ran Abramitzky et al. July 2023. National Bureau of Economic Research.
8 U.S. Code § 1226 – Apprehension and detention of aliens
Guantanamo Bay
“Trump administration has cleared migrants out of Guantánamo Bay.” Courtney Kube and Julia Ainsley. February 20, 2025. NBC News.
“Guantánamo Is The Place Where Presidents Abuse Human Rights.” Nathan J. Robinson. February 18, 2025. Current Affairs.
“Expanding Migrant Operations Center at Naval Station Guantanamo Bay to Full Capacity.” January 29, 2025. The White House, Presidential Actions.
Asylum
“Judge bars immediate deportation of 8 asylum seekers fleeing torture, rape and other violence.” Kyle Cheney and Josh Gerstein. February 20, 2025. Politico.
CBP One App
“Migrants stranded when thousands of appointments to enter the US are canceled as Trump takes office.” Julie Watson and Megan Janetsky. January 20, 2025. AP News.
Private Prisons
“The wealthiest 10% of Americans own 93% of stocks even with market participation at a record high.” Jennifer Sor. January 10, 2024. Business Insider.
“A federal report just confirmed it: for-profit prisons are more dangerous than public ones.” German Lopez. August 12, 2016. Vox.
Biden and Trump Policies
“Biden promised but failed to end federal use of private prisons. That’s left the industry ready to cash in big under Trump.” Bob Ortega and Daniel Medina. February 11, 2025. CNN.
“Private prison operations contracts could resume under Trump executive order.” Benton Graham. January 29, 2025. Facilities Dive.
“Trump Reverses Biden Order that Eliminated DOJ Contracts with Private Prisons.” Lauren-Brooke Eisen. January 20, 2025. Brennan Center for Justice.
“Unchecked Growth: Private Prison Corporations and Immigration Detention, Three Years Into the Biden Administration.” Eunice Hyunhye Cho. August 7, 2023. American Civil Liberties Union.
“Breaking Down Biden’s Order to Eliminate DOJ Private Prison Contracts.” Lauren-Brooke Eisen. August 27, 2021. Brennan Center for Justice.
“Executive Order on Reforming Our Incarceration System to Eliminate the Use of Privately Operated Criminal Detention Facilities.” January 26, 2021. The White House, Presidential Actions.
CoreCivic Inc
“Damon Hininger, CEO of private prison giant Core Civic, tells investors….” More Perfect Union [@MorePerfectUS]. February 13, 2025. X.
“CoreCivic Reports Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2024 Financial Results.” February 10, 2025. CoreCivic.
“CoreCivic Inc Lobbyists: 2024.” OpenSecrets.
“CoreCivic Inc Lobbyists: 2023.” OpenSecrets.
“CoreCivic Inc.” AFSC Investigate.
“Damon T. Hininger: Executive Compensation.” Salary.com.
GEO Group
“GEO Group Profile: Summary.” OpenSecrets.
“GEO Group Lobbyists: 2024.” OpenSecrets.
“GEO Group Lobbyists: 2023.” OpenSecrets.
Prison Labor
“USA: More than 500 businesses, including McDonald’s, Burger King and Walmart, allegedly using Alabama prisoners as cheap labour.” December 20, 2024. Business & Human Rights Resource Centre.
“A Cost-Benefit Analysis: The Impact of Ending Slavery and Involuntary Servitude as Criminal Punishment and Paying Incarcerated Workers Fair Wages.” Stephen Bronars. January 31, 2024. Edgeworth Economics.
Firefighter Programs
“Conservation (Fire) Camps Program.” California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
“Rural counties rely on prisons to provide firefighters who work for free.” J. Carlee Purdum. April 18, 2024. Georgia Recorder.
Billionaires
“The World’s Real Time Billionaires List.” Forbes.
Laws
S.5 – Laken Riley Act
Audio Sources
Rules Committee Hearing H.R. 471 and S. 5
House Committee on Rules
January 21, 2025
Clips
13:05 Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA): You know, on the Laken Riley Act, a dedicated nursing student, talented cross country runner and beloved daughter. Her life was cut short. Laken Riley’s life was cut short and I’m glad that the man responsible for this is being brought to justice. But under this bill, you can be here legally under Programs like DACA or TPS, and you can be arrested for a crime you did not commit and then deported without even a trial, so you don’t have to be convicted of what you’re accused of in order to be subject to deportation. And I think some of us, if we had an opportunity to be able to amend things, would like to make sure that people had due process in this country. And by the way, I think some of you may have forgotten about DACA. This is a program that applied to people who were brought here through no fault of their own. Their parents brought them here sometimes when they were infants, you know, when they were only a few months old. And this is a program that has allowed them to remain in this country lawfully. Now, these kids we’re talking about are now in their 30s, many of them have never, ever been to their home country. All they know is this country. And so people who are being protected under DACA, under this bill, can be arrested for a crime they did not commit and deported.
1:31:05 Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) This measure, first introduced by Representative Mike Collins here in the House, would require ICE detention for illegal aliens who are charged with, arrested for, or convicted of any burglary, theft, larceny or shoplifting offense. Now, the Democrats have argued that mere accusation of committing a crime should not be grounds for detention. And besides, shoplifting is no big deal. They ignore the fact that every illegal alien is required to be detained by current law throughout the pendency of their asylum claims. The Democrats thumbed their noses at this law for the last four years. Their excuse is that they’re prioritizing detaining more dangerous offenders. Well, that’s exactly what this bill does, and yet they still oppose it.
1:39:20 Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD): This bill would expand the scope of mandatory immigration detention, going from the compulsory detention of any undocumented immigrant who is convicted of an act of theft, serious violent crime, larceny or shoplifting, to the compulsory detention of any such person simply charged with or even just arrested for such an offense, even if they are never charged with or convicted of a criminal offense at all. This is a huge departure from current law, which, since 1996 has only required mandatory detention for those who are criminally convicted or who admit to having committed certain crimes, that is when criminal guilt is certain. It’s important to note that the government already, as my friend acknowledges, has discretionary authority to detain any and all undocumented immigrants facing deportation. So this bill would actually take away the Executive’s discretion to detain those who are most dangerous or most likely to flee.
1:43:15 Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD): Moreover, Congress has never even appropriated enough money to detain all non citizens who fall under the currently serious mandatory detention categories. Since passage in the House earlier this month, the Department of Homeland Security estimates that this bill will cost at least $26 billion in the first year alone to enact, with the total cost coming at a minimum of $83 billion. For context, the current entire DHS budget is $62 billion. This is an unfunded mandate for a mass roundup of people without any regard to American due process.
2:02:25 Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez (D-NM): I want to talk a little bit about some of the maybe intended consequences, because this is the second bill that we are seeing here, which could have very negative consequences for immigrant women. And let me tell you a story. There was an immigrant woman who showed up in emergency room because she had been beaten so severely by her partner that she ended up in the hospital, but she was terrified, because she had been told by her abuser that if she said anything, he would make sure she got deported.
2:03:15 Rep. Teresa Leger Fernandez (D-NM): Looking at this bill here, her abuser would have to do nothing more than accuse her of maybe hitting him back, and if she were arrested but never charged and never tried for that crime, she could be incarcerated and deported. Is that what would happen here? Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD): That’s exactly what would happen, and that’s why 200 domestic violence groups have written to every member of Congress, Republicans and Democrats alike, to say, please don’t do this. That bill is going to harm the victims of domestic violence. You’re doing it in the name of the victims, but you’re going to injure them and expose them to more violence and control by their abuser.
An Examination of Prison Labor in America
Senate Judiciary Committee, Subcommittee on Criminal Justice and Counterterrorism
May 21, 2024
Witnesses:
- Terrance Winn, Prison Reform Advocate
- Jennifer Turner, Principal Human Rights Researcher, American Civil Liberties Union
- Charles Lehman, Fellow, Manhattan Institute
- Andrea Armstrong, Dr. Norman C. Francis Distinguished Professor of Law, Loyola University College of Law
Clips
4:40 Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ): Most Americans really are shocked when they learn that the 13th Amendment, which formally abolished slavery in our country, excludes incarcerated people. It’s called the exception clause, which was approved by our very Senate Judiciary Committee in 1864. The language of the exception clause lives on, not only in our federal Constitution, but also in 16 state constitutions. Today, almost 150 years after ratification, we’re here to discuss the legacy of this clause and how it impacts the treatment of incarcerated workers in our nation’s prisons and jails.
7:15 Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ): It’s this language that allows incarcerated workers to be denied the same protections every other worker enjoys under current law. Virtually every single worker in our country is guaranteed certain protections against exploitation and abuse. The government guarantees American workers that their workplace also will be safe and hazard free, and that they will not be discriminated against in the workplace, and that they will receive a minimum wage for their labor.
13:15 Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR): Contrary to what we’ll probably hear today, there’s nothing illegal or unconstitutional about prison labor, even for little or no pay, nor is there anything immoral about it. Prison labor is a way for inmates to give something back to the society they wronged. American society doesn’t owe criminals restitution. Criminals owe our society restitution, and if that means scrubbing toilets, mopping floors or picking up the garbage, then so be it.
14:45 Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ): Our first witness is Terrance Winn. At the age of 16, Mr. Winn was sentenced to life imprisonment without parole, and ultimately served 30 years of imprisonment after the US Supreme Court decision in Miller v. Alabama and Montgomery v. Louisiana resulted in his eligibility for parole. Mr. Winn was incarcerated in the Louisiana State Penitentiary, commonly known as Angola, where he worked on the cotton fields of Angola, in culinary services, and as a nurse’s aide. Since his release, Mr. Winn has become an advocate for prison reform and serves as the Executive Director and Founder of the Louisiana nonprofit Priority, Intentions, Practical Exchanges or PIPES.
18:40 Terrance Winn: My name is Department of Corrections #296659 or Terrance Winn, a native of the plantation known as Angola by way of Shreveport. Angola is also known as the Louisiana State Penitentiary, an 18,000 acre prison larger than the island of Manhattan. My name change took place on December 25, 1989 when I was a 16 year old kid and took the life of Jeffrey Owens and attempted to take the life of DeWan Lewis. For my actions, I was arrested and taken to Shreveport Juvenile Detention Center, where George Gallagher ordered that I be tried as an adult. I was immediately taken to juvie and left in a one man cell at the parish jail. For my crimes, Judge Hamilton gave me life without the possibility of parole, plus 25 years to be served at hard labor. I heard my mother cry when the judge read the sentence, but I promised her and myself that one day I will come home. I was eventually transferred to Angola, at the time one of the bloodiest penitentiaries in the world. Upon entering the gates of that former plantation, one sees a beautiful manicured lawn, there are flowers and open fields. For one second I thought, maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. That second didn’t last. Within a few days, I was transferred to the infirmary, where a doctor is in charge of determining if a person is fit to work the fields. As a 17 year old, the doctor confirmed that I was fit to work. I had never worked a day in my life when I found myself walking out of a gate, rifles pointing at me next to a guy that I didn’t know. The line was made up of 125 men. When the last guy came through the gates, we were counted by the guards and the field foreman and got on his horse and gave an order: Walk it out. The field is back breaking work. Every day we would walk for miles in excessively hot weather and work, sometimes bent over on our knees, without breaks for hours. We would go in to eat, then out again until the day was finished. Working in the fields, I was forced to goose pick. That’s picking grass with your hands. I was forced to dig ditches. I was forced to cut the levee with a hope while officers on horses looked over us holding rifles. There were a few occasions when the field warden decided to bring the line in early from work. Those rare occasions happened when one of the horses would fall due to the oppressive heat. If a man fell over, we kept working. If you got injured, you kept working. Nothing took precedence over going to work. I witnessed tools fights that led to the death of a man, and was and kept working. I suffered a back injury at the age of 25, an injury I live with today, and I was forced to work until I got so tired of suffering that I chose to be sent to the hole — that’s the dungeon or administrative segregation. I spent 30 years at Angola. 25 of those years I spent was spent working in the field. I received 75 disciplinary write ups for aggravated work offense. This means, in layman terms, refusing to work. I mostly refused to work because of the physical pain, more so than out of a rebellious nature. I admit, though, every time I was told to pick cotton, I refused to do it. Every time I chose to go to the dungeon. Two cents an hour, eight hours a day, five days a week. That is the pay that’s decided makes us human and not slaves. Those two cents never made me feel better than how I know my ancestors felt. I felt humiliated every time I had to use the restroom in the field, every time a horse defecated in my path as I walked to a work site, every time a guard refused to let me use the restroom with threats of writing me up, every time a white field farmer called the whole line peons or boys, and every time a guard took their anger out on me while I worked. Was the modern version of slavery better than better for me than it was for my ancestors? Two cents is what separates 17th century slavery and 21st century slavery.
23:25 Terrance Winn: After 25 years being forced to work in fields, I was assigned as a tier walker, to a job that forces you to be an inmate-guard. The job required me to walk up and down the extended lockdown tiers for hours making sure that no one was trying to commit suicide. You become a security guard and a mental health worker, while being labeled as a rat. I also attended the Culinary School of Arts in Angola, and once I completed the course, I became a kitchen worker. My last job was a nurse’s aide, a job that changed my life forever. Taking care of people who were dying and could no longer take care of themselves, showing care and compassion for guys in the final days, that truly changed me. 30 years of incarceration at hard labor, I never made more than 16 cents an hour. It would have been easy to come home and never look back, but when I was released, I found my old neighborhood plagued with violence and a lack of resources. So I immediately knew what I needed to do. I founded my organization, PIPES — Priorities, Intentions and Practical Exchanges. Our mission was and remains today to make life better for our community members, especially our youth, while working with formerly incarcerated people in their re-entry process. Post incarceration syndrome is real and our people need support. I still think about my family all those years serving time with me. I think about the families of people who are incarcerated today, all of them directly impacted as well. My goal during the work I do is to keep our communities safe and thriving. I believe we can create a system that does not simply punish perpetrators, but works with them while investing in our community and taking care of victims. Thank you.
25:50 Jennifer Turner: Today, our nation incarcerates over 1.2 million people in state and federal prisons, and two out of three of these incarcerated people are also workers. In most instances, the jobs these people in prisons have look similar to those of millions of people working on the outside. They work as cooks, janitors and grounds keepers or in laundries and factories outside the prison walls. Incarcerated people provide vital public services such as repairing roads, fighting wildfires, or clearing debris after hurricanes. They cultivate and harvest crops, some on penal plantations, situated on land that was originally the site of slave plantations. But there are two crucial differences. Incarcerated workers are under the complete control of their employers, and they’ve been stripped of even the most minimal protections against labor exploitation and abuse. From the moment they enter the prison gates, they can be forced to work. More than 76% of incarcerated workers report that they’re required to work or face additional punishments such as solitary confinement, denial of opportunities to reduce their sentence, and loss of family visitation. Illness, injury, disability or physical inability to work often does not relieve them of work duties. US law explicitly excludes incarcerated workers from the most universally recognized workplace protections, including health and safety laws. Incarcerated people sometimes work in dangerous industrial settings or hazardous conditions that would be closely regulated and monitored if they were not incarcerated. Workers are assigned work in unsafe conditions without the standard training or protective gear provided in workplaces outside prisons. In numerous cases we documented nationwide, serious injuries and deaths could have been prevented with proper training, machine guarding mechanisms, or personal protective equipment. Incarcerated workers are not covered by minimum wage laws and are paid on average 13 to 52 cents per hour, non industry jobs. More than 80% have maintenance jobs that support the operation of the prison facilities and are compensated at the lower end of prison pay scales. In seven states, incarcerated people are paid nothing at all for most jobs. Even if an incarcerated worker earns pennies, these low wages are not theirs to keep. Across the country, prisons deduct as much as 80% from incarcerated people’s paychecks for room and board and legal financial obligations. In the federal prison system, 59% of the wages earned by incarcerated workers employed in the Federal Prison Industries program was deducted by the federal government. Prison systems charge incarcerated people exorbitant costs for basic necessities like phone calls home, decent food, hygiene products and medical care. Families, many of whom are impoverished themselves, spend an estimated $2.9 billion a year on commissary accounts and phone calls. Over half of these families are forced to go into debt to afford the cost of a relative’s conviction and subsequent incarceration. However, someone is profiting in the American prison system. Incarcerated workers produce real profits for state prisons and state governments, the primary beneficiaries of forced prison labor. Nationally, incarcerated workers produce more than $2 billion a year in goods and commodities and over $9 billion a year in services for the maintenance of the prisons where they’re warehoused. The captive labor system of American prisons hides the staggering cost of our country’s bloated prison system.
28:45 Jennifer Turner: The promise of providing incarcerated people with transferable skills and work experience for their eventual re-entry into society often proves illusory. In reality, the vast majority of work programs in prisons involve menial and repetitive tasks that provide workers with no marketable skills or training. Prison industries jobs and vocational training programs are declining. Studies show that people who had some savings when they leave prison and got jobs after the release were less likely to recidivate than those who did not. We all have an interest in prison work being something beyond pure punitive exploitation.
29:25 Jennifer Turner: Work in prisons could be truly voluntary. Conditions could be safe. Jobs could provide incarcerated people with marketable skills and vocational training that will help them to find employment after release. Incarcerated workers should be paid a fair wage that enables them to save for the future, support their families, and sets them up for successful re-entry.
33:40 Charles Lehman: Policymakers should prioritize making offenders employable. Few interventions are as obvious for this purpose as giving people jobs in prison. Evidence supports this approach. One analysis of 77,000 Indiana and Tennessee prisoners employed by private firms found that participation in prison work is associated with significant reductions in recidivism at the one and two year marks compared to a matched control group. Another following a cohort of 6,000 offenders released in Minnesota found that those who worked were 24% more likely than controls to find a job, worked more hours and had higher total wages, and the number of hours working was significantly associated with lower recidivism rates. There’s also benefit to prisoners working outside the prison walls. Evidence suggests that work-release prisoners being moved to low security facilities and being allowed out to work during the day improves employment outcomes and reduces recidivism for property but not violent offenses.
42:00 Sen. Alex Padilla (D-CA): To help adjust the growing wildfire threat facing California, we have long relied on the Conservation Camp Program, which is our State Department of Corrections volunteer firefighting program. The incarcerated individuals who volunteer to join the Conservation Camp program have, at times, comprised up to 40% of the state’s total firefighting force. So it’s not insignificant, and I do want to make it a point to emphasize the voluntary nature of this program. It’s voluntary, but so attractive that we’ve often see waiting lists for incarcerated individuals who want to participate in the program. Now, many participants in California’s firefighting program have described the experience as valuable for building real life skills, and more than 300 formerly incarcerated firefighters have used these qualifications and actual certification — so it’s not just the skills, the training and experience, but certification — to go on to earn a job with Cal Fire, the state’s firefighting force. I think this program can serve as a model for how we help incarcerated individuals develop useful skills and the necessary certifications to help them find meaningful, well paying work post release. My first question is for Ms. Armstrong. How can we build on this model in California to help establish clear links between prison labor work and opportunities for employment post release? Andrea Armstrong: One of the most significant features, I believe, of the California system is the fact that legal roadblocks to people serving as firefighters upon release were removed, right? And so when we think about what happens behind bars, the things that people are trained for, it is also just as important to look at, are there barriers to them assuming those professions and vocations after the fact? The second thing that I would mention about the California Program is something that I hear from other programs, and I believe Mr. Winn also mentioned today, which is being trained in the helping professions — teaching, tutoring, nursing, those professions that help others — can be life changing in terms of the rehabilitative potential of prisons.
45:00 Jennifer Turner: But certainly, the path forward requires us to expand these vocational programs, to expand job opportunities that can directly lead to work opportunities after release, including direct lines to employment, letters of recommendation, skills training in industries that are projected to increase in the workforce. The reality is that many, even of our vocational programs, are in areas of work that are declining. Legislative Oversight of prison industries programs in Texas and Mississippi, for instance, found that they were training people in jobs that are little to no job prospects, such as garment industry, manufacturing, or farm work. But there are examples of programs and opportunities here to provide people with the training that will set them up for gaining stable employment after they’re released from prison.
47:25 Jennifer Turner: I just wanted to add, California is not alone in using incarcerated workers to fight wildfires. It is one of at least 14 states that does so, and not all these programs are fully voluntary, and we have seen serious injuries and deaths result from this work, both for non-incarcerated and incarcerated workers. But when people are desperate to support themselves and need to support themselves while incarcerated and facing legal financial obligations, that $1 an hour, for instance, in California is a very powerful incentive. And we see some states truly rely on incarcerated workers to perform this work, including, for instance, Georgia. 1/3 of counties rely on incarcerated firefighters to respond to motor vehicle accidents, wildfires and house fires and these workers are not paid a cent for their work.
48:15 Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR): Ms. Turner, in your opening statement, you called the so-called Exception Clause of the 13th Amendment a gaping loophole. Do you believe that is a loophole? Jennifer Turner: I do. I do. It is the foundation of prison labor programs today, and it led to the labor programs we have today that truly have forced labor. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR): Loophole implies it was unintended or accidental omission. You think the people who drafted the 13th Amendment and ratified it didn’t know what they were doing? Jennifer Turner: I think it was absolutely intentional, and it allowed for the use of incarcerated people to replace this free labor force provided by chattel slavery. And we saw it in some states, for instance, in Texas, following the passage of 13th Amendment, the state of Texas purchased 10 plantations and began running them as prisons, some of which still run today. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR): Did prisons use labor before the 13th Amendment was passed? Jennifer Turner: Yes. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR): So it was just continuing a long standing practice. It wasn’t replacing anything. Jennifer Turner: It expanded. It allowed for the expansion of prison labor programs, and in fact, became so lucrative that it led to passage of laws such as the Black Codes that encouraged the the reincarceration of black men on specialist charges to continue to work in prisons and to provide profit for prisons, both in the North and in the South. Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR): So it’s your testimony that we need to have a constitutional amendment to repeal that clause. Yes. Jennifer Turner: Yes, there’s no place for forced labor in the United States.
51:50 Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR): If prisons were forced to pay inmates those higher wages, probably a lot higher than what the current minimum wage is, given other democratic proposals, who is ultimately going to be paying for those higher wages? Charles Lehman: In contexts where they’re employed by the state or other public entities, the taxpayer ultimately funds those public entities. If they’re employed indirectly by private employers, then the people who are paying for those private employers, but that makes their labor much less competitive in that context.
1:02:25 Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ): Let’s just talk about the worker safety rules that we’ve done for Americans. It’s called OSHA, and there are certain things we’ve done that we think it’s horrific if we don’t do them to protect people from everything from the off-gassing of chemicals to, as you said, a printing press that might have unsafe features. When you go into prison, those basic worker standards that protect people from all kind of injury. Do they apply in prison? Professor Armstrong? Andrea Armstrong: So the general rule is we don’t expect them to apply, especially for things that are happening behind the wire. Now, there are limited circumstances where a state which has adopted its own OSHA Act can, in fact, choose to cover, but even then we see, according to research by the National Employment labor project, that those states have also made a choice not to cover incarcerated workplaces, and so it really does lead to this anomaly where the same activity, the same equipment, is regulated when it’s outside, but not inside. Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ): So what statutory protections in general are there for people that are behind bars when they’re working? Andrea Armstrong: Well, I don’t think that we have a specific statutory protection, federal or state for people who were working behind bars.
1:04:45 Andrea Armstrong: For example, there are cases where people have fallen off of roofs because they didn’t have safety belts or toe holds or knee pads. And so thinking about not just what rules govern the equipment, but also are they being provided with safety glasses and safety gear?
1:05:30 Jennifer Turner: The economic analysis by Edgeworth Economics and Worth Rises shows there’s a true fiscal argument for paying incarcerated workers minimum wage. To pay them a fair wage would actually generate revenue over the long term, and it would benefit victims of crime who would be paid victim restitution. Currently, incarcerated people are saddled with debts for victim restitution they’re unable to pay back when they’re released from prison, maintain those debts and struggle to pay them back. If incarcerated workers are paid a minimum wage, they’ll be able to pay restitution that will put money in the hands of victims of crime. It will also allow them to pay child support and support their families who are currently going into debt to support their loved one while they’re incarcerated. It will allow incarcerated people to become self sufficient and to have some savings to set them up for success upon release. Studies do show that some savings upon release sets people up for success and reduced recidivism, allows them to gain stable housing, stable employment, and that their addition generates tax revenue when this income is taxed.
1:24:05 Andrea Armstrong: I think there’s a lot of scenarios in which work can actually be something that is valuable and also can help create order and security within a facility. I think what’s really interesting is in my audits and visits behind the wire, people actually do not want to sit in their cell for 23 hours a day by themselves. That is not what they want to do. Instead, the program that is the most oversubscribed at Angola is the one where they are training dogs to be helping dogs to assist folks with disabilities who might need additional work and assistance. So I think when we think about labor behind bars, one line that I would draw is, is there the possibility of that person being able to apply for a job, to be able to have some agency or choice in which job they are training for or learning, and then thinking about the connections between that and the market outside, as Mr. Lehman talked about.
1:25:35 Jennifer Turner: The studies on recidivism largely focus on the very narrowest category of workers, people employed in prison industries jobs who account for only 6.5% of incarcerated workers nationwide. There really aren’t studies showing reduced recidivism rates for the types of maintenance work, janitorial work, kitchen work, laundry work, that the great majority, more than 80%, of incarcerated workers are engaged in. Many workers are tasked with tasks like digging ditches and cutting grass, and that’s not necessarily going to help them get employment after their release in prison.
1:27:40 Jennifer Turner: But the reality is that state licensing restrictions bar many formerly incarcerated people from engaging in work directly related to the work that they learned and took on while incarcerated, and these state licensing restrictions often aren’t related to their crime of conviction. There’s one thing to say, you can’t be involved as an accountant if you have a white collar embezzling conviction, for instance, but someone who’s worked as a hospice aide in prison, who’s worked for years tending to dying and sick incarcerated people may be barred in many states from obtaining work as home health care aides or hospice nurses, and that’s a problem as well, and while we look to the solutions that ensure people can succeed when they integrate into their families and their communities, we also have to consider ending these barriers to employment for people after they’re released.
Music
Tired of Being Lied To by David Ippolito
