State of the Laws: Workers’ Rights in Prisons

• In Event: Labor, Learning, and Liberation: Programming, Education, and Work in Carceral Contexts

Abstract

As of year end 2022, there were approximately 1,230,100 people incarcerated in state and federal prisons in the United States. Among this population, approximately two-thirds, or 800,000, of these people report working while incarcerated. These workers, however, often face labor conditions absent of workers’ rights afforded to non-incarcerated laborers–including involuntary servitude provisions, low wage ceilings, and even lower actual wages. They are also often left unprotected against workplace safety hazards and are generally ineligible for workers’ compensation.

This paper presents a fifty-state landscape analysis of the laws regarding workers’ rights in state prisons. It also evaluates whether relevant reforms should be considered abolitionist and provides recommendations to advocates and lawmakers on how to advance workers’ rights reforms that are aligned with penal abolitionism.

Author

• Rachel Wallace, University of California, Berkeley School of Law