CONVICTEDHow Corporations Exploit
the Thirteenth Amendment’s
Loophole for Profit

Corporate Accountability Lab
November 2022

Suggested Citation: Convicted: How Corporations Exploit the Thirteenth Amendment’s Loopholefor Profit, Corporate Accountability Lab (November 2022).
©2022 Corporate Accountability Lab. All rights reserved. All content contained herein is subject
to the terms and conditions of Corporate Accountability Lab’s copyright license. Read more at
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Contents

Contents
Letter from CAL’s Executive Director & Founder1

Executive Summary

2

Recommendations

6“No Use of Prison Labor” in Supply Chains: Model Contract Language

7

I.

8

Introduction: “Prison Labor is Like a Pot of Gold”

II. Methodology

10III. Private Use of Prison Labor, from Emancipation to the Present

11

IV. The Legal Framework Governing Prison Labor
A. The US Legal Framework Governing Private Use of Prison Labor:
		 One Prohibition Swallowed by Exceptions
B. The International Legal Framework Governing Forced and Prison Labor:
		 Never for Companies
C. ILO Forced Labor Indicators

16
16

V. Corporate Exploitation of the US Carceral State: Three Examples
A. The Agricultural Exception: Hickman’s Family Farms
B. The UNICOR Exception: AM General
C. The PIECP Exception: Dickinson Frozen Foods

24
24
29
34

VI. Conclusion: Looking Forward

38

Endnotes

39

17
20

Dear Reader,In the United States, only 2 percent of the population is born with green eyes, but 3 percent
of us will spend time incarcerated in our lifetimes. In fact, this experience is statistically more
American than making over $300,000 per year, or being from Idaho or Rhode Island.
My own experience spending six months in federal prison reflected this reality. Like many
Americans, incarcerated people are often people of color, lower income, and victims of violence.
They also value family, build deep friendships, and, like all of us, crave connection and long to
be cared for. At Pekin Federal Prison, the “long timers” formed a community of mutual care thatwas one of the few comforts we had. Just people, living our lives, enduring daily hardships, buton the inside.
This report seeks to illuminate another less-discussed aspect of this common experience: thatincarcerated workers in this country are not merely permitted or encouraged to work, but areforced to work. The facility that housed me was a work camp, and anyone who refused to work
would be sent to county jail. The penalty of being sent to county, where turnover was high andcommunity nonexistent, was no small threat.
And so, if we were able-bodied, we worked. I earned $0.12 per hour, which, after an eight-hour
shift, would allow me to buy a single tampon. Some women cleaned the men’s prison next door
or worked in the kitchen or laundry. Many of us worked in the UNICOR factory, or in factoryadjacent jobs like my own. Most of my job involved metals — aluminum and steel, in large
and small pieces. This metal was a byproduct of the prison factory, which built metal cages for
immigration agents to put in the back of their pickup trucks. To each cage was affixed a diagram,showing how eight grown men, likely picked up in the desert in the southern United States,
could fit into the cage, and where their ankle and waist chains would connect to their handcuffs
and to the cage itself. The cages also bore an “Escape Proof Guarantee,” which incarcerated
workers affixed as the final step before loading the cages into semi-trailers.
As I worked, there were times when guards — also our bosses — shouted at me and mocked
me. We all avoided the freezers, where the guards were rumored to sexually assault the inmates.
The expectation was silent obedience, and for the most part, we complied. If a newcomer failed
to do so, older women would say quietly to her “Just do your time. You will get through this.
Keep your head down.”
Prior to my arrest, I was involved in the student anti-sweatshop movement, protesting for better
conditions for workers around the world producing for Global North markets. I knew the valueof organizing, and that an organized workforce is the best way to shield workers from abuse. But
in prison, we couldn’t organize. We had no constitutional rights, we were explicitly prohibitedfrom congregating in groups of more than five without prior approval, and we certainly lacked
the right to bargain collectively.

1A photo of the Escape Proof Guarantee, which was affixed to each of the cages assembled
by incarcerated workers at Pekin Federal Prison when Charity Ryerson worked there in 2002.

The question this report responds to is whether the exception to the Thirteenth Amendment
prohibition on slavery, permitting slavery and involuntary servitude as punishment for a crime,
violates international law. The particular focus on companies and the flow of prison-madegoods into domestic markets parallels countries like China, known for using incarcerated labor
to produce apparel, toys, agricultural products, and even human hair. The free flow of prisonproduced goods into markets perversely incentivizes incarceration and operates as an extensionof the long history of race-based enslavement and convict leasing in the United States.
Even if prison abolition remains distant, there is much that can be done now to bring theUnited States into compliance with international standards. Work can be voluntary, workers
can be allowed to organize unions and bargain collectively, they can be compensated at
normal market rates and allowed to save money for their release, and they can be provided
the same protections and rights as workers on the outside. The historical victims of slavery
and convict leasing will never be made whole, and no form of reparation will be sufficient, but
the opportunity to dismantle the vestige of these practices, and provide some remedy to thevictims of today, stands before us now. Will we take it?
In solidarity,

Charity Ryerson
Executive Director and Founder
Corporate Accountability Lab
2

Executive Summary
Two million people — nearly a quarter of the global prison population — were incarcerated
in US state and federal penal institutions in 2022. Federal and state governments, as well as
the politics of white supremacy, are the primary beneficiaries and drivers of this carceral state.
Yet throughout US history, there has been a driver behind the driver: private profit. The rules
governing slavery and early-American private industry transformed into the rules governing
Jim Crow and convict leasing, which were adapted to become today’s modern penal system —an institution deeply influenced by the economic interests and political power of corporations,even as it disproportionately hurts Black, Brown, and low-income communities.
Today’s prison system extracts labor from those who are incarcerated, often for little or no pay.
This staggering injustice is possible — and legal — because of a single phrase in the Thirteenth
Amendment to the US Constitution:“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except asa punishment for crime whereof the party shall havebeen duly convicted, shall exist within the UnitedStates, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”
Those few words have allowed forced labor to continue in the United States since the Thirteenth
Amendment’s ratification in 1865. This exception to the prohibition on slavery and servitude
has allowed private capitalists and entities to profit by exploiting a vulnerable, shackled, anddisproportionately Black, Brown, and low-income workforce. This was true in the nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries, when companies leased convicts from states for nearly nothing,and it remains true today.
This report highlights a variety of strategies the private sector uses to exploit incarcerated
individuals for profit. It describes the varied ways that companies partner with state and federal
prison industries to reap the benefits of a cheap and captive labor force. Companies legally
exploit and profit from incarcerated workers, despite extensive regulation in the United Statesprohibiting the interstate sale of prison-made goods. The report then demonstrates the high riskof forced labor for incarcerated workers in the United States, based on the abusive conditions
under which they so often work.

3

1

Federal law generally prohibits goods produced with prison laborfrom being transported across state lines, but the numerous
exceptions to this prohibition erode its meaning substantially.
Corporations can legally hire incarcerated workers and buy goods produced in
US prisons — despite a series of federal laws restricting the production and saleof goods produced in prisons both in and outside the United States. The AshurstSumners Act of 1935 (as amended in 1940) prohibits any individual from “knowingly
transport[ing] in interstate commerce … any goods, wares, or merchandise
manufactured, produced, or mined, wholly or in part by convicts or prisoners.”
However, the many exceptions to this prohibition have rendered it moot. In myriadways, companies legally contract, partner, and transact with state and federal prison
systems, gaining access to a large labor force with very few labor rights.

2

The international legal prohibition on the use of forced labor, which
prison labor often constitutes, is a well-established international
human rights norm.
Since at least the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, there has beena clear prohibition on the use of forced labor under international law. While
the International Labour Organization’s (ILO) Forced Labor Convention (No. 29)
includes a narrow exception permitting incarcerated individuals to work, this is only
permissible if public authorities supervise and control the incarcerated workers andthe “person is not hired to or placed at the disposal of private individuals, companies
or associations.” As a member of the ILO, the United States is bound by the standards
ensconced in this law. The ILO Abolition of Forced Labor Convention (No.105), which
the United States has ratified, obligates ratifying nations “to suppress and not tomake use of any form of forced or compulsory labour […] (e) as a means of racial,social, national or religious discrimination.” Mass incarceration in the United States,
and the overwhelming impact it has had on communities of color, demonstrates
that the United States is an ongoing violator of international legal norms.

3

Many of the ILO indicators of forced labor apply to incarcerated
workers in the United States, and some — including abuse ofvulnerability, restriction of movement, and isolation — are inherent
qualities of incarceration, impossible to reform and addressable
only by abolition.
The eleven ILO indicators of forced labor provide a guide to establishing whether a
specific instance of abusive labor conditions meets the threshold for forced labor.
The indicators are: abuse of vulnerability, deception, restriction of movement,
isolation, physical and sexual violence, intimidation and threats, retention of identify
documents, withholding of wages, debt bondage, abusive working and living
conditions, and excessive overtime. Not all eleven indicators must be found for an4individual to be engaged in forced labor. Within the US prison system, in addition toabuse of vulnerability, restriction of movement, and isolation, incarcerated workers
often face intimidation and threats, have their wages withheld, and are subject toabusive working and living conditions. Taken together, there is a high risk of forcedlabor for all incarcerated workers in the United States.

4

Companies like Hickman’s Family Farms, AM General, and Dickinson
Frozen Foods represent some of the ways — and the extent to which— the private sector exploits and benefits from prison labor.

• For more than two decades, Hickman’s Family Farms (Hickman’s) has employedhundreds of incarcerated workers through a partnership with Arizona Correctional
Industries (ACI). The workers labor — and some even live — on chicken farms,
where the conditions are unsanitary and the machinery is dangerous.

• AM General, a world leader in the design of tactical vehicles and a frequent

Defense Department contractor, subcontracted with Federal Prison Industries(also called UNICOR) on at least eight occasions between 2019 and 2021. UNICOR
workers make between $0.23 and $1.15 per hour, before a portion of their wages
are withheld under the Inmate Financial Responsibility Program (IFRP).

• Dickinson Frozen Foods (Dickinson) was one of Idaho’s largest private employers
of incarcerated individuals in 2022, employing between 93 and 526 incarcerated
workers (depending on the quarter) through the Prison Industry Enhancement
Certification Program (PIECP). Conditions at Dickinson work sites were so
dangerous in 2016 that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s(OSHA) Idaho director said it was “a miracle no Dickinson Frozen Foods employees
were killed or hurt.”

Incarcerated individuals working for Hickman’s, AM General, and Dickinson suffer, at the very
least, from abusive working and living conditions, withholding of wages, and isolation — allindicators of forced labor.
Mass incarceration in the United States is a critical issue of our time. While Corporate
Accountability Lab’s (CAL) main focus is on human rights abuses committed by corporationsin global supply chains, these harms cannot be separated from abuses occurring in the UnitedStates. The patterns of carceral abuse that have strangled the United States for hundreds ofyears continue to be shaped by the demands of global capitalism. To tackle the crisis of mass
incarceration — and make strides toward abolition — the connection between capitalism andpunishment must be taken seriously. With this report, CAL hopes to contribute to this endeavor.

5

Recommendations
The following recommendations are meant to be short-term goals. We believe that dismantling
the carceral state is the only way to sever the link between profit and bondage; but the working
conditions for those incarcerated must change as we fight to build a new social, political, andeconomic orientation — one divorced from race, class, and punishment. We recommend thefollowing actions be a part of that process.

For Federal and State Government:
1

Congress and the states must eliminate the Thirteenth Amendment’s exception to theprohibition on slavery and involuntary servitude for convicted persons.

2

Both the federal government and all state governments must prohibit corporations
from hiring or contracting for the labor of incarcerated workers and from buying goods
produced in prisons.

3

Both the federal government and all state governments must require that all work within
prisons be offered voluntarily and that incarcerated workers be subject to the same working
conditions and labor protections as free workers. Incarcerated workers must be paid thesame amount as free workers for the same or similar work — without deductions — andbe protected by the same health and safety standards that apply to free workers, havethe right to form unions and bargain collectively, and work only under conditions that areconsistent with all other federal and state regulations, including auditing requirements.

For Companies:
1

Companies must adopt policies prohibiting hiring incarcerated workers and buying
any good produced by incarcerated workers along the entirety of their supply chains,encompassing both domestic and foreign suppliers.

2Companies must demonstrate that suppliers are not using prison labor, by implementing
due diligence standards that require tracing and reporting publicly on 100 percent of
their supply chains — from the production of raw materials to the end product, including
goods produced by subsidiaries — and adopting contract clauses, like the model provided
below, in all supplier contracts.

3

Companies must certify that all corporate lobbying activities are consistent with thecompany’s “no use of prison labor” policy.

6

“No Use of Prison Labor” in Supply Chains: Model Contract Language
The following model clauses can and should be adapted to fit the needs of particular buyers
and suppliers. Note that existing contracts may include language that conflicts with orsupersedes these clauses and should be reviewed in conjunction with this model language
to ensure harmonization.
1. “No Use of Prison Labor” in Supply Chains Clauses
1.1 Supplier acknowledges and agrees to the terms of [the Buyer’s No Use of Prison Labor
Policy/Policies]. This Agreement obligates Supplier to comply with [the Buyer’s Policy/Policies]
and prohibits Supplier from contracting with, purchasing from, or otherwise entering into anagreement, partnership, or transaction with a local, state, federal, or foreign department ofcorrections or penitentiary, or a state, federal, or foreign correctional industries program or entity.
1.2 Third-party beneficiaries: Supplier acknowledges and agrees that the terms of [theBuyer’s Policy/Policies] are intended to benefit and protect not only Buyer and Supplier, butalso incarcerated workers in and impacted by Buyer’s supply chain.
1.2(a) Any incarcerated worker who is injured or suffers damages, including but not limited tophysical injuries, non-payment of the minimum wage, and discrimination, following breachof [the Buyer’s Policy/Policies] is an intended third-party beneficiary to this Agreement.
1.2(b) All third-party beneficiaries to this Agreement have the right to enforce the relevant
provisions of [the Buyer’s Policy/Policies] against Supplier.
1.2(c) Assignment of rights: Third-party beneficiaries may assign their rights to a labor
union, nongovernmental organization, or other organization(s) providing legal assistancethey select.
1.3 Notice to subcontractors: Supplier shall provide a notice to all subcontractors, describing
the rights and responsibilities described herein. This notice may be contained within or
attached to an agreement or purchase order. If the notice is not a part of a commercial
contract, Supplier shall require that subcontractors sign the notice to confirm acceptanceand a commitment to compliance.
1.4 Non-obstruction: Supplier shall not obstruct the efforts of Buyer or its designees toinspect for compliance, in accordance with [the Buyer’s Policy/Policies]. Buyer reserves theright to designate inspectors, auditors, and evaluators to conduct due diligence on Supplier’s
operations at its discretion, and Supplier agrees to provide access to facilities, books andrecords upon reasonable notice.
1.5 Whistleblowers: Supplier or any party acting on behalf of Supplier shall not retaliate
against any person who considers making or makes an internal report of violations of[the Buyer’s Policy/Policies], considers making or makes an external report of violations to
Buyer or its designees, brings or participates in any legal action against Supplier related toany issue including violations of [the Buyer’s Policy/Policies], or assists in an investigation
pertaining to possible violations. Retaliation encompasses any action that would dissuade areasonable person from taking any action referenced in this paragraph.
7

I. Introduction:“Prison Labor
is Like a Pot of Gold”“For private business prison labor is like a pot of gold. No strikes. No union
organizing. No health benefits, unemployment insurance, or workers’
compensation to pay. No language barriers, as in foreign countries. New
leviathan prisons are being built on thousands of eerie acres of factories inside
the walls. Prisoners do data entry for Chevron, make telephone reservations
for TWA, raise hogs, shovel manure, and make circuit boards, limousines,
waterbeds, and lingerie for Victoria’s Secret – all at a fraction of the cost of ‘freelabor.’”1
Linda Evans & Eve Goldberg, The Prison Industrial Complex and the Global Economy(1997)In 2022, there were two million people incarcerated in US state and federal penal institutions,2
2.9 million people on parole,3 and an average per day of 19,245 non-citizens and undocumented
immigrants — often without charge or conviction — held in detention centers across thecountry.4 These individuals were stripped of their freedom to move, to be with family, to vote,and, in many cases, to refuse to work.
In this age of unprecedented mass incarceration and forced labor, much has been written
about state violence, especially violence unleashed on majority Black and Brown communities.5
Governments at all levels, as well as the politics of white supremacy, are the primary beneficiaries
and drivers of the racialized violence inherent in this carceral state.6 Yet throughout US history— including during slavery, convict leasing and Black Codes, Jim Crow, and the War on Drugs —there has been a driver behind the driver: private profit. Just as many of this nation’s eighteenth
century constitutional framers had a vested economic interest in prolonging the institution ofslavery, the modern US penal system is deeply influenced by the economic interests and politicalpower of corporations. Mass incarceration and the forced labor extracted from those stripped of
their rights during (and often after) incarceration is a direct outcome of immense state violence.
As the state has continued its centuries-long pursuit of racial and social control, private industry
has continued its centuries-long pursuit of economic control. These “mutually reinforcing
systems of capitalism and racial domination” fuel the growth of prison industries today, justas they maintained the “slave plantation economy” for hundreds of years.7 Ultimately, only by
fighting for a society in which state revenues and private capital are invested in communities —and never in prisons — can we cut ourselves loose from this violence. Abolitionist Angela Daviswarned in 2003:

8

“Extensive corporate investment in prisons has significantly raised the stakes for
antiprison work. It means that serious antiprison activities must be willing to look
much further in their analyses and organizing strategies than the actual institutionof the prison.”8
The fruit of US prison labor is in the restaurants we dine in, the offices we work in, the homes
we live in, the government coffers we depend upon, and the bank accounts of small and large
businesses around the world. This report aims to expose the extent of corporate interest in,and exploitation of, the US prison labor industry. Human rights lawyer Bryan Stevenson hasargued convincingly that the institution of slavery did not end in 1865, but merely evolved.9
If we acknowledge that truth — and recognize both the public and private beneficiaries ofthis evolution — it follows that the nation’s economic dependence on the cheap and rightsdeprived labor of shackled individuals also did not end, but merely evolved.

This report highlights the ways in which corporations exploit a captive labor force within the
United States for profit. It begins with a short overview of the history of corporate exploitationof prison labor and then follows with an explanation of the legal framework governing prison
labor — both under domestic and international law. The last section traces three supply chainsof US companies that profit from forced prison labor: Hickman’s Family Farms, AM General, andDickinson Frozen Foods.

9II. Methodology
Corporate Accountability Lab’s (CAL) work on forced labor in global supply chains provided theimpetus for, and helped to shape, this report. The United States has long recognized that forced
and prison labor are exploitative forms of labor — but only when they take place outside of
the United States. Section 307 of the Tariff Act of 1930 even prohibits the importation into theUnited States of all goods produced with forced or prison labor.10 For several years, CAL andpartner organizations have submitted petitions to the US Government that include information
about forced labor in specific international supply chains. These petitions have resulted inimports being blocked at the US border — incentivizing companies to modify their behavior
to ensure that they retain access to the US market. Despite this prohibition on foreign-madegoods produced with forced or prison labor, it remains legal — and quite normal — for thoseincarcerated in US prisons to have no choice but to work producing goods or providing services,
including for companies.
The analysis here builds on CAL’s expertise mapping international supply chains and recognizes
the hypocrisy of US policy toward domestic forced and prison labor. We have traced three
supply chains of goods produced by incarcerated workers in the United States to demonstratevarious forms of corporate exploitation. However, as the national narrative around prison labor
has evolved, it is, as one asset management company wrote in 2018, “no longer desirable [forcompanies] to publicly acknowledge or highlight the use of prison labor,”11 and many have begun
to hide their relationships with prisons. This lack of transparency makes it difficult to confirm
instances of prison labor in supply chains,12 obscuring from view — and thus entrenching —corporate exploitation of incarcerated individuals.
This report is based on desk research, as well as on interviews with non-governmentalorganizations, journalists, and academics that have made invaluable contributions to thisfield. We have relied in large part on the fantastic work of Worth Rises, which has documented
corporate exploitation of incarcerated individuals for years. Other key sources include Verité’s2022 report, Work Behind Bars: Analysis of Prison Labor in the United States Based on International
Labor Standards;13 and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and University of Chicago
Law School Global Human Rights Clinic’s 2022 report, Captive Labor: Exploitation of Incarcerated
Workers.14 We would like to thank Professor Andrea Armstrong, Jamila Johnson and the Promiseof Justice Initiative, Genevieve LeBaron, and Claire Brown for their insights. Local newspapers
provided outstanding reporting as well, including The Arizona Republic’s work investigating
Hickman’s Family Farms.15
In addition to the organizations and individuals listed above, we encourage readers to support
the Abolish Slavery National Network and its #EndtheException Campaign, Prison Policy
Initiative, Forward Justice, and Critical Resistance — all leaders in the fight to reform and abolishthe US prison system.

10

III. Private Use of Prison Labor,from Emancipation to the Present
The history of slavery in the United States is inextricably bound to the history of US economic
dominance, and both are bound to the modern structure of prison industries, which play apivotal role in the contemporary US economy. The rules governing slavery and early-American
private industry were transformed into the rules governing Jim Crow and convict leasing, whichwere adapted to become today’s carceral state — a state sustained by mass incarceration and a
growing prison economy open to corporate exploitation.16
This ongoing preservation of staggering injustice is possible — and legal — because of fourteen
words in the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution:“Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except asa punishment for crime whereof the party shall havebeen duly convicted, shall exist within the UnitedStates, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”
That single phrase has allowed forced labor to continue in the United States since the Thirteenth
Amendment’s ratification in 1865. By the time the Civil War was over, the economic, political,
and social infrastructures of the slaveholding states were “in shambles.”17 Plantation owners— without enslaved labor — were suddenly indigent, large swaths of real estate had been
destroyed, state governments were deeply indebted, and the loss of a formal racial hierarchy
presented an “extraordinary dilemma for Southern white society.”18 And yet, the Thirteenth
Amendment’s loophole presented an opportunity: those who had lost power and profit due tothe eradication of slavery could preserve their privilege by means of the criminal justice system.
In the words of a former slave owner in Alabama: “We have the power to pass stringent police
laws to govern Negroes — that is a blessing — for they must be controlled in some way orwhite people cannot live among them.”19 A new form of control arrived in the form of vagrancy
laws, which Southern states enacted in various forms and applied selectively to Black citizens.20
These laws criminalized unemployment, resulting in an early iteration of mass incarceration21
and allowing for the emergence of a robust convict leasing system across the Southern states.22
Huge prison populations — mostly Black men — were leased as laborers to private capitalists
for the duration of their sentences or until they had been worked to death.23 For states and theentities leasing these populations, this system was wildly successful. Incarcerated workers were
up to 50 percent more productive than free workers, and the leasing fees paid by corporations
to states amounted to nearly 400 percent of the cost of maintaining such a large prison system.24
Southern penitentiaries thereby supplanted Southern plantations as the economic engines forthe region.
11

In fact, Southern penitentiaries often were Southern plantations. Rather than build prisons, states
sent incarcerated Black men to sugar and cotton plantations or to coal mines, log forts, andsawmills.25 For corporations, leased convicts and prison factory workers were a replenishable
resource — most profitable if worked to death. Convicts were tortured with whips and shotguns,
starved, plagued by disease, shackled in crowded iron cages, and deprived for years of sunlight.26
In Texas, a convict during this period lived, on average, for seven years.27 In Mississippi, over thecourse of seven decades, not one convict survived for more than ten years.28“He Is For the Time Being the Slave of the State…”
In 1871 — just eight years after President Lincoln issued the Emancipation
Proclamation and six years after the Thirteenth Amendment purportedly set allindividuals in the United States free — the Supreme Court of Virginia issued an
opinion stating that,“[D]uring [a prisoner’s] term of service in the penitentiary, he is in a state of penal
servitude to the State. He has, as a consequence of his crime, not only forfeited his liberty,
but all his personal rights except those which the law in its humanity accords to him. He
is for the time being the slave of the State. He is civiliter mortuus; and his estate, if he has
any, is administered like that of a dead man.”29
This landmark decision — which in 2001 the US Supreme Court cited unfavorably,
without explicitly overturning30 — erased any legal distinction between an
incarcerated and an enslaved individual.31

At the time, corporations, some of which still exist today, thrived under the convict leasingsystem. In 1908, the United States Steel Company (known today as the US Steel Corporation)leased out every person arrested in Jefferson County, Alabama that year.32 Many died whileworking for US Steel and were either buried in unmarked graves or burned in the company’s
Alabama coal mine.33 An owner of a coal mining operation in Dade County, Georgia was said tohave turned “a coal mine into a gold mine”34 after leasing every convict in the entire state for aperiod of twenty years.35 In 1886, the US Bureau of Labor described the convict leasing system
as the “most remunerative” of any labor system.36 Some of this corporate profit was due to thewage-suppressing impact of prison labor on free labor. When convicts arrived at a work site,
conditions deteriorated for all workers. Convict labor — cheap and reliable — was used to bust
free labor organizing and drive down wages.37 Douglas Blackmon explained in 2008:“The utility of forced labor as a bulwark against disruptions of the South’s biggest
enterprises was obvious. Coal mines, timber camps, and farms worked by imprisoned
men couldn’t be shut down by strikers, or have wages driven up by the demands offree men. The new slave labor provided an ideal captive workforce: cheap, usually
docile, unable to organize, and always available when free laborers refused to work.”38
12

The Impact of Prison Labor on Free Labor
Since the 1920s, labor leaders and manufacturers have voiced their concerns thatthey are unable to compete with an unfree labor force.39 In 1928, the American
Federation of Labor (the AFL-CIO today) requested that both national political parties
endorse federal legislation prohibiting interstate sales of prison-made goods, callingcompetition between incarcerated and free labor a “menace.”40
Today, companies around the United States continue to complain that Federal Prison
Industries (FPI), also called UNICOR, hurts their sales and uses unfair methods ofcompetition — in the form of incarcerated workers — to undercut them. American
Apparel, Inc., a small business in Alabama that manufactures military uniforms andfrequently bids on government contracts (separate from the well-known clothingcompany), laid off between 150 and 175 workers over the course of several years
and several contract losses to UNICOR.41 Kurt Wilson, an executive at American
Apparel, Inc., said in 2012: “We pay employees $9 on average… They get full medical
insurance, 401(k) plans and paid vacation. Yet we’re competing against a federal
program that doesn’t pay any of that.”42

Convict leasing was richly remunerative for states as well. By the end of the nineteenth century,
just decades after being decimated by war and forced to retool entire economies, many Southernstates derived the majority of their annual revenue from renting incarcerated individuals out toprivate entities.43 This system was profitable, and it was soon flourishing in Northern states aswell. By the early and mid-1800s, the Industrial Revolution was booming and labor organizing
and debate over labor regulations had increased.44 States had an interest in discipline, andcompanies had an interest in cheap, compliant labor — a public-private synergy that resulted in
the rapid, massive growth of the prison population and the emergence of the industrial prisoncontracting system.45 Between 1855 and 1885, prison populations in the North expanded by 400
percent.46 The same new production and manufacturing processes taking root throughout theNorthern states were also used in Northern prisons.47 In the late nineteenth century, Northern
prison factories produced the equivalent of over $45 billion in goods in today’s dollars — morethan ten percent of total gross domestic product at the time.48
While prison factories could be beacons of technological advancement in the late nineteenth
century,49 methods of controlling incarcerated workers were medieval. The ever-quickening paceof production took its toll on bodies: in one Indiana state prison, nearly 65 percent of incarcerated
workers were permanently disabled or killed while working in a single year.50 Workers were
whipped, water-boarded, and hung from the ceiling by their thumbs — all the while neverbeing permitted to learn “even a fragment of a trade”51 (and thus, if ever released, likely unable
to find employment in the new, hyper-specialized economy that their bodies helped to create).
Prison industries remain extensive and economically influential today. Across the United States,
incarcerated individuals work in a variety of jobs for which they earn wages that, when paid at
13

all, are as low as a few cents per hour and top off at a few dollars per hour once a percentage of
the wage is paid back to the state as reimbursement for room and board.52 Nor has the price paid
for a captive workforce changed very much in the last 150 years. On at least one documented
occasion in the late nineteenth century, incarcerated workers were rented by a private capitalist
for less than seven cents per day.53 Adjusted for inflation, most incarcerated workers earned theequivalent of between 30 percent and four times that amount in 2022 (between two cents and27 cents per day).54

While many incarcerated individuals perform jobs that keep prison facilities operating — fromcooking to cleaning to electrical work — others work for companies, are engaged in agriculturalwork, or work for federal and state entities. In these jobs, incarcerated workers are not entitledto the same conditions, protections, or rights considered fundamental for free workers. They
are not entitled to the minimum wage or safety and health protections, do not enjoy the rightto form labor associations, are often restricted from managing (or even retaining) the meager
wages they do make, are generally unable to bring or succeed on claims against employers orstate officials after being injured while working, often cannot receive workers’ compensation,
and are frequently punished — often severely — for refusing to work or requesting a safer
position.55 This extreme lack of rights is tolerated only in the context of a prison system that has
disproportionately consumed Black, Brown, and low-income communities.
14

Although the number of incarcerated workers who operate internal prison facilities dwarfs
the number working for companies56 (or producing goods that will ultimately be purchasedby companies), one asset management company recently told investors, there is “very little
oversight or disclosure on what inmates are making and whether these products enter the open
market.”57 This makes it “nearly impossible to determine how many people in state prisons areproducing products for resale by private sector companies.”58 What is clear, however, is that there
is a large captive workforce and a slew of legal avenues available to, and used by, corporations
that wish to exploit this vulnerable population for profit.

The High Financial Cost of Incarceration To Incarcerated Individuals
Being incarcerated is expensive. Prisons do not always provide incarcerated
populations with basic necessities, such as toilet paper, soap, or sanitary products.59
In some cases, the food in prisons is so meager and inedible that those incarcerated
need to supplement their meals with food purchased from the canteen.60
Yet many incarcerated people cannot rely on their family members and friends
to support them and must instead earn money to pay for basic necessities. While
incarcerated individuals earn far below the federal and state minimum wage, thenecessities available for purchase are often sold for the same or higher than theprices charged in the free world.61 As a result, workers must labor for hours — or days
— to be able to afford the basic necessities. For example, a 12.5 oz bottle of shampoo
in Illinois costs between $1.25 and $1.69,62 which would take incarcerated workers
between one and nine and a half hours to earn, depending on their job and pay.63
Phone calls made from prisons are often so expensive that one in three families
dealing with incarceration goes into debt trying to stay connected to theirincarcerated loved one — all while the correctional telecom industry, which consistsof only a handful of corporations, makes well over $1 billion in revenue each year.64
According to Worth Rises, a leader in the fight against prison exploitation, these
corporations charge as much as $1 per minute to speak on the phone,65 meaning an
incarcerated worker making twenty cents per hour would have to work five hours totalk with a loved one for 60 seconds.
These prices, combined with the low wages incarcerated workers earn, mean that
individuals are often unable to pay for basic necessities, remain connected to theircommunities and families, or save any money for their release.

15

IV. The Legal Framework Governing
Prison Labor
A. The US Legal Framework Governing Private Use of Prison Labor:
One Prohibition Swallowed by Exceptions
Corporations’ ability to hire incarcerated workers and buy goods produced in US prisons isgoverned by a patchwork of state and federal laws. Prior to 1929, states were free to regulate theirown incarcerated workforces.66 But beginning in 1929 — at the onset of the Great Depression— Congress passed a series of laws restricting the production and sale of goods produced inprisons. These laws were intended to prevent direct competition between prison industries andthe free market at a time when unemployment was high.67
The laws applied to goods produced by incarcerated people both in and outside the UnitedStates. Section 307 of the Tariff Act of 1930 prohibited the importation of all goods producedwith forced or prison labor into the United States,68 and the Ashurst-Sumners Act of 1935 (asamended in 1940)69 criminalized the transportation of goods produced in US prisons acrossstate lines for private use.70 The Ashurst-Sumners Act includes a broad prohibition, restricting
any individual from “knowingly transport[ing] in interstate commerce… any goods, wares, or
merchandise manufactured, produced, or mined, wholly or in part by convicts or prisoners.”71
However, there are numerous exceptions to this prohibition — rendering it, at times andcertainly for some industries and companies, moot — including:.

1

An exception for intrastate commerce: If goods do not cross state lines,
the Ashurst-Sumners Act does not apply.72 Such goods can be produced byincarcerated workers, in accordance with state laws.

2

An exception for services: The Ashurst-Sumners Act does not regulate theprovision of services.73 Services encompass a broad range of activities, fromcleaning meat packing plants to working at call centers.74

3

An exception for agricultural goods: The Ashurst-Sumners Act does not apply
to “agricultural commodities or parts for the repair of farm machinery.”75 Suchgoods can be produced by incarcerated workers and transported in interstate
commerce.

4

An exception for goods used by governments and non-profit organizations:
The Ashurst-Sumners Act does not apply to goods sold to federal or state
governments, to the Washington, D.C. government, or to certain non-profit
organizations.76 Such goods can be produced by incarcerated workers andtransported in interstate commerce.

16

.

5

An exception for goods produced by UNICOR, a federally owned corporation:Federal Prison Industries, Inc. (FPI), which operates under the trade name
UNICOR, is a wholly owned US Government corporation created by Congress in1934.77 With a few exceptions, UNICOR is restricted to selling goods to the federal
government.78 Corporations can partner with UNICOR on contracts to provide
goods or services to public entities or nonprofits, or they can purchase from or
subcontract with UNICOR when competing for government contracts.79

6

An exception for companies reshoring in conjunction with UNICOR: The
Ashurst-Sumners Act includes an exception for reshoring the production of
goods, authorizing UNICOR to contract with companies to manufacture, produce,
mine, or assemble goods “that are currently, or would otherwise be, produced
outside the United States.”80

7

An exception for joint ventures between states and private entities: In 1979,
Congress introduced the Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program(PIECP),81 which allows companies to establish joint ventures with certified state
departments of corrections and be exempt from restrictions on the interstatesale of prison-made goods.82

Thus, while US law generally prohibits goods produced with prison labor from being transported
across state lines, the numerous exceptions to this prohibition erode its meaning substantially.
With these seven exceptions, state and federal prisons, as well as companies that rely on lowcost prison labor, can — and do — almost always find legal ways to sell prison-made goods
across state lines.

B. The International Legal Framework Governing Forced andPrison Labor: Never for Companies
The international legal prohibition on the use of forced and compulsory labor is one of themost well-established norms of international human rights,83 dating back to the 1948 Universal
Declaration of Human Rights.84 It is ensconced in treaty law — two fundamental International
Labour Organization (ILO) Conventions, No. 29 and No. 105, prohibit forced labor85 — and incustomary international law.86“[T]he term forced or compulsory labour shall mean all work or service whichis exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which thesaid person has not offered himself voluntarily.”ILO Convention No. 29, Article 1

17

The ILO Forced Labor Convention (No. 29)87 prohibits “all work or service which is exacted fromany person under the menace of any penalty and for which the said person has not offeredhimself voluntarily.”88 Convention No. 29 includes a narrow exception permitting incarcerated
individuals to work, but only if public authorities supervise and control incarcerated workers
and the “person is not hired to or placed at the disposal of private individuals, companies or
associations.”89 International law thus explicitly forbids private entities from employing orcontrolling prison labor.90

A key indicator for free consent is whether theconditions of employment are comparable to thoseof free labor relationships
Additionally, to ensure that incarcerated workers are not engaged in forced labor, all prison
labor must be undertaken freely.91 A key indicator for free consent is whether the conditions of
employment are comparable to those of free labor relationships.92 This means that incarcerated
workers are paid the same amount as free workers, are paid directly, are not threatened with a “lossof privileges or an unfavourable assessment of behaviour which could jeopardize any reduction
in his or her sentence,” are afforded working hours and health and safety conditions as regulated
by law, and are “included in the social security scheme for accident and health coverage.”93
Although the United States is only one of seven countries that has not ratified Convention No.
29,94 as a member of the ILO it is nevertheless bound by the principles underlying it. Convention
No. 29 is one of the eight fundamental ILO conventions. All ILO members, “even if they have not
ratified the Conventions in question, have an obligation, arising from the very fact of membershipin the Organization, to respect, to promote and to realize, in good faith and in accordance with
the Constitution, the principles concerning the fundamental rights which are the subject of
those Conventions, namely: …(b) the elimination of all forms of forced or compulsory labour.”95
The United States is in violation of Convention No. 29 in numerous ways — one reason it has not
ratified the convention.96 US law explicitly permits prison labor under the Thirteenth Amendment
and many states have similar laws. Yet the PIECP program, UNICOR programs that contract withcompanies, and all state-run programs that lease incarcerated workers to companies are blatantviolations of Convention No. 29.97
Moreover, the conditions for most employment for incarcerated workers are not the same as theywould be in the free world. Neither the Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) nor the National Labor
Relations Act (NLRA) apply to incarcerated workers.98 Nor do incarcerated workers generally
receive the same pay as free workers, and in some cases occupational health and safety
standards do not apply.99 Most glaringly, incarcerated workers are often subject to the threatof “loss of privileges or an unfavourable assessment of behaviour” if they refuse specific jobs.100

18

“Each Member of the International Labour Organisation which ratifies thisConvention undertakes to suppress and not to make use of any form of forced
or compulsory labour--[…] (e) as a means of racial, social, national or religious
discrimination.”
ILO Convention NO. 105, Article 1(e)A second fundamental ILO convention that the United States has ratified, the ILO Abolition ofForced Labor Convention (No.105),101 obligates each ratifying Member State “to suppress andnot to make use of any form of forced or compulsory labour […] (e) as a means of racial, social,national or religious discrimination.”102 The ILO’s Committee of Experts on the Application ofConventions and Recommendations (CEACR) explained that “This covers prison labor as wellas other forms of forced labour involving discrimination.”103 The CEACR recalled in its 2021
comments on the United States that “if the penal punishment is meted out more severely tocertain groups defined in racial, social, national or religious terms, and this punishment involves
compulsory labour, the situation is in violation of Article 1(e) of the Convention [No. 105].”104
Racial minorities, in particular Black and Brown individuals, constitute a vastly disproportionate
percentage of those subjected to compulsory prison labor in the United States.105 This is theresult of the broader phenomenon of racially discriminatory law enforcement, which is in turnthe result of a long history of racialized violence by state and private entities, and which has
resulted in dramatically disproportionate rates of incarceration of Black and Brown individuals
across the country.106 This manifests in the form of racial minorities being arrested at higher
rates and receiving longer sentences than white defendants for the same crimes.107
In 2015, the United Nations General Assembly adopted the Mandela Rules, which provide
minimum guidelines for how governments should treat incarcerated persons. Under the
Mandela Rules, “[t]he interests of the prisoners and of their vocational training… must not
be subordinated to the purpose of making a financial profit from an industry in the prison.”108
The rules further state that it is “preferabl[e]” that “institutional industries and farms should be
operated directly by the prison administration and not by private contractors.”109 However, italso provides that incarcerated workers “shall always be under the supervision of prison staff.”110
The United States is in violation of these Mandela Rules. For instance, across the country
incarcerated workers in the United States are placed in jobs overseen by companies rather thanby the prison administration.111 Moreover, many jobs available to incarcerated workers provide
no vocational training, but instead allow companies to profit while incarcerated workers often
carry out manual labor.112
Taken together, the United States’ high incarceration rate — the highest in the world — andthe prevalence of companies hiring incarcerated (and disproportionately Black, Brown, andlow-income) workers demonstrate that the United States is an ongoing violator of international

19

legal norms. The United States must prohibit companies from hiring or contracting for the laborof incarcerated workers and from buying goods produced in prisons, and the United States
must become compliant with basic and fundamental prohibitions on forced labor.

C. ILO Forced Labor Indicators
As explained above, under ILO Convention No. 29 “all work or service which is exacted fromany person under the threat of a penalty and for which the person has not offered himself [orherself ] voluntarily” constitutes forced labor.113 The ILO indicators of forced labor are guidelinesthat can help to establish whether a specific instance meets the threshold of forced labor.

The Eleven ILO Indicators of Forced Labor114
1

2

Abuse ofvulnerability

3

Deception

5

6

Physical andsexual violence

Intimidationand threats

9

Debt bondage

1�

Abusive working andliving conditions

4

Restrictionof movement

Isolation

8

7

Retention ofidentity documents

Withholdingof wages1�

Excessive
overtime

20

The ILO’s Special Action Programme to Combat Forced Labor has stated that not all elevenindicators must be found for an individual to be engaged in forced labor: “[t]he presence of a single
indicator in a given situation may in some cases imply the existence of forced labour. However, inother cases you may need to look for several indicators which, taken together, point to a forced
labour case.”115 While the ILO indicators are meant to assess whether an individual is engaged
in forced labor, the conditions experienced by individual incarcerated workers across states,
prisons, and work sites have enough similarities to be analyzed as a whole for the purpose ofthis report.
In the case of incarcerated individuals in the United States, many of the forced labor indicators
are often present. Indicators such as abuse of vulnerability, restriction of movement, andisolation are inherent in a system of incarceration, and cannot be sufficiently mitigated so as toeliminate the risk of forced labor. Other indicators, such as intimidation and threats, withholdingof wages, and abusive working and living conditions are not necessarily embedded in a carceralsystem of control and yet are found, to varying degrees, across states and prisons.
The following indicators apply to many incarcerated workers in the United States, underscoringthat the risk of forced labor in US prison industries is high:Abuse of vulnerability: Incarcerated individuals are in vulnerable situations
in part by virtue of being cut off from the outside world and under the state’scontrol. Once incarcerated, individuals are reliant on the prison system fortheir jobs as well as for food, necessities, and basic privileges, putting themin a vulnerable position. Prisons and corporations abuse this vulnerability by
forcing or coercing incarcerated individuals to work or to work in jobs they
do not want.
Restriction of movement: Prisons, as institutions, exert control overwhere incarcerated individuals can and cannot be at all times. Incarcerated
workers are not able to choose when to enter and exit their workspace. Their
movements into, out of, and within work areas are often controlled by thestate or by the private employer partnering with or buying from the state orfederal government.
Isolation: Incarcerated workers are isolated from the free population and, forthe most part, are not authorized to leave the prison or the work site. Whileprisons are often located in isolated, rural areas, prisons in urban centers still
succeed at isolating their incarcerated population from the outside world.

21

Intimidation and threats: Threats, such as the loss of privileges, loss of timeearned, and the threat of solitary confinement are often made against anyone
who refuses to work. A recent report found that “[m]ore than 76 percent ofincarcerated workers report that they are required to work or face additional
punishment such as solitary confinement, denial of opportunities to reduce
their sentence, and loss of family visitation, or the inability to pay for basic life
necessities like bath soap.”116
Withholding of wages: US federal and state laws permit correctional facilities
to withhold wages earned by incarcerated workers, and this practice occurs
across the country. In some states, incarcerated workers are not paid for theirwork at all. In others, they earn mere cents per hour, often for arduous work.
Even in PIECP, which requires companies to pay the “prevailing wage” in thearea and for the work performed, 80 percent of wages (and in some caseseven more) can be withheld from incarcerated workers.117
Abusive working and living conditions: Many of the jobs that incarcerated
workers are engaged in are dangerous or demeaning. Workers have reported
working in dangerous conditions and being subjected to verbal abuse. Prison
facilities are also notorious for abusive living conditions, often subjecting
incarcerated populations to conditions that are dirty, dangerous, and not fit
for humans.
Excessive overtime: Although a less common indicator, some incarcerated
workers have complained that they are forced to work excessively long hours.
For example, during the spring of 2020, incarcerated workers in Pennsylvania
had to work for twelve hours each day, six days a week, manufacturingpersonal protective equipment (PPE).118

22

Punitive State Laws: Threats and Intimidation
Several states have laws that require incarcerated individuals to work, punish refusals
to work, or criminalize attempts by incarcerated individuals to avoid work.119
North Carolina’s constitution declares that “all able-bodied prison inmates shall be
required to perform diligently all work assignments provided for them” and “thefailure to do so may result in disciplinary action.”120 If an incarcerated worker “willfully
and intentionally” injures themselves, “resulting in a permanent or temporary
incapacity to perform work or duties assigned,” the state can charge the incarcerated
worker with a felony.121 In other words, an individual who is so opposed to working
in the conditions forced upon them that they opt to self-injure can be charged withcommission of another serious crime.
In Colorado, where the state constitution prohibits involuntary servitude, even afterconviction, an appellate court upheld in 2022 the denial of specified privileges aspunishment for refusing to work.122 The court found that, so long as the incarcerated
individuals were not physically compelled or threatened with legal sanctions, themandated work did not constitute forced labor.123 Also in Colorado, an incarcerated
worker’s request to be placed in a less risky job while suffering ongoing symptoms
from COVID-19 was denied — and the worker was ultimately stripped of earned
time.124 Lawyers filed a class action on behalf of this worker and others in February2022, arguing that imposing severe penalties, such as longer prison sentences, forrefusal to work “amounts to servitude.”125

In the short term, ensuring that incarcerated workers receive the same compensation, areprotected by the same regulations, and are guaranteed the same rights as free workers isimperative. Even if this were accomplished, the existence of companies profiting from prison
labor creates a perverse incentive to incarcerate. As a practical matter, if incarcerated workers
and free workers are protected by and guaranteed the same rights, the incentives motivatingcompanies to partner with prisons will decrease substantially. However, there are forced labor
indicators that cannot be eliminated within the context of a prison system. Abuse of vulnerability,
restriction of movement, and isolation are inherent qualities of incarceration. As long as thesequalities are present, a worker cannot be said to be free from coercion. Private profit derived
from the prison system, and the mass incarceration that drives it, will thus never be acceptable.

23

V. Corporate Exploitation of the
US Carceral State: Three Examples“It’s really hard to be used and used and used… And it sucks because it should
be for a greater good [rather] than a greater profit. But that’s all it is. It’s just a
profit.”126
Marlo Kobylarek, an incarcerated worker for Arizona Correctional Industries

Corporations and governments together benefit from the labor of incarcerated workers.
Governments often receive large remittances for “hiring out” incarcerated workers127 —reminiscent of convict leasing — while companies often pay far less to these workers thanthey would for free labor. Within a narrow subset of prison/private relationships, companies
are legally required to pay a “prevailing wage” to incarcerated workers, but they still frequently
avoid paying social security and workers’ compensation and are not subject to liability for
injuries incarcerated workers sustain on the job (even when compliance with safety standards
is subpar). While many of these jobs pay more than work maintaining internal prison facilities,
take home pay is minimal — frequently only a fraction of wages earned — and the work can be
dangerous and occur in a coercive environment. In these circumstances, many ILO indicatorsof forced labor are present. Withholding of wages and abusive working conditions combinewith abuse of vulnerability, isolation, and restrictions on movement — inherent qualities ofincarceration — to create conditions in which incarcerated workers are at a high risk of forcedlabor, and from which companies profit.128
In the following section, we focus on a handful of companies and their supply chains to illustrate
three methods private entities leverage to make legal use of the forced labor of incarcerated
individuals.129 First, we examine the agricultural exception to the restriction on interstate
commerce of prison-made goods. We highlight Hickman’s Family Farms in Arizona, a leading
producer of eggs and egg products and a long-time partner of Arizona Correctional Industries.
Second, we discuss AM General, a defense contractor that has contracted with UNICOR. Third,
we trace the supply chain of an Idaho company, Dickinson Frozen Foods, that has partnered with
the Idaho Department of Corrections through the federal PIECP program. All three companies
legally contract with correctional industries and, under US law, legally sell their goods acrossstate lines. Yet the working conditions in all three examples also carry a high risk of forced labor.

A. The Agricultural Exception: Hickman’s Family Farms
18 USC § 1761(b): The Ashurst-Sumners Act does not apply to “agriculturalcommodities or parts for the repair of farm machinery.”130 Such goods can beproduced by incarcerated workers and transported in interstate commerce.
24

Arizona Correctional Industries
Arizona Correctional Industries (ACI) has embraced prison labor as a profitable business model.
ACI, which manages the Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry’s(ADCRR) collaboration with companies, touts itself as fulfilling its “mission to aid in the
successful reentry of offenders by providing [them with] training and support” for more than
three decades.131 However, rehabilitation does not appear to be ACI’s primary purpose — oreven, in most cases, one of its outcomes.
According to ACI’s 2020 Annual Report, prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, ACI “was projecting
the highest financial results in its history.”132 While the pandemic slowed this revenue growth,133
Arizona continues to profit from hiring out its captive workforce. In 2022, roughly 2,000
incarcerated individuals in Arizona worked for companies, while another 1,000 incarcerated
workers performed jobs for state municipalities and agencies.134

Hickman’s Family Farms: ACI’s Top Customer
Hickman’s Family Farms (Hickman’s), a privately held Arizona-based corporation, has relied
on incarcerated workers in Arizona for more than twenty years and is ACI’s top customer.135 In
2020, Hickman’s partnership with ACI accounted for 15 percent of ACI’s total revenue and nearly
30 percent of its revenue from labor contracts.136 Hickman’s is the largest egg producer in theSouthwest,137 with annual sales of over $53 million.138 The company owns nearly five million
birds139 and processes more than 750,000 eggs every hour.140 Hickman’s eggs are sold acrossthe United States, in grocery stores such as AJ’s, Albertsons, Bashas’, Food City, Fry’s Food Stores,
Safeway, and Sprouts.141 These national sales are legal because Hickman’s produces eggs, anagricultural product, which it can sell across state lines under the agricultural exception in the
Ashurst-Sumner Act. Hickman’s is in many ways typical — if on the larger side — of the type of
US corporation that uses prison labor: the company is not a well-known brand, yet its eggs andegg products make it into millions of homes every year.
Hickman’s began in 1944 with a flock of only 50 chickens, but in 1995 expanded its operations
dramatically.142 According to co-owners Glenn and Billy Hickman, this expansion required a“growing reliable workforce,” but “it was very difficult to keep folks around long enough to reallylearn the business.”143 Hickman’s found a solution in Goodyear, Arizona, where the Perryvillestate prison facility — and a growing, reliable (and incarcerated) workforce — is located.144 At
first, only ten incarcerated workers from the Perryville facility were transported to Hickman’s
farms to work each day,145 but the relationship with the prison system has since expanded.
Just prior to the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly 300 incarcerated workers from threedifferent Arizona state prisons worked at three separate Hickman’s locations.146 Incarcerated
workers carry out a wide range of tasks for Hickman’s, including managing much of the egg
production, maintaining barn facilities, taking care of chickens, and packaging eggs.147

25Withholding of Wages
According to public data, Hickman’s pays free employees between $13 and $20 per hour.148 Yet
the company’s incarcerated workforce earns much less, between $4.25 and $5.25 per hour,149
well below Arizona’s $12.80 minimum wage.150 After the ADCRR takes mandatory deductions, aworker may receive up to $1.39 per hour — or, in some cases, nothing, as deductions can easily
amount to the entire wage if the worker is subject to court-ordered dependent care.151 Most of
the money the worker retains is only made available to the worker upon release.152

Free Hickman’s
employees earn

Incarcerated Hickman’s
employees earn

per hourper hour$13 – 20

$4.25 – 5.25

After deductions, incarcerated workers takehome, at most, $1.39 per hour

Abusive Working and Living Conditions
While working at Hickman’s allows incarcerated workers to earn more than they would working
within prison facilities — where the pay ranges from ten cents to 45 cents per hour153 — thejob comes with an array of dangers. For years, incarcerated workers have received insufficienttraining and have been subjected to dangerous working conditions on Hickman’s farms, often
suffering injuries.154 Workers told The Arizona Republic that they “kept getting numb hands from
accidentally injecting themselves with antibiotics, chest pains from the feces in the air, and had
no choice but to drink water from a contaminated well.”155 Workers also reported that “they work
under sweatshop-like conditions and are immediately replaced when injured or sick.”156
Incarcerated workers have filed numerous lawsuits against Hickman’s for injuries on the job. In
September 2019, Mary Stinson, an incarcerated worker, filed a federal lawsuit against Hickman’safter losing part of a finger while operating machinery on a Hickman’s farm.157 According to26

Stinson, she received little training before beginning to operate the machinery.158 Just one
month later, in October 2019, another incarcerated worker filed a lawsuit after his left handbecame trapped in a machine with “no safety mechanism, guard, or emergency shut-off,” forwhich the worker had received no training “on the safe and proper way to use [the] machinery.”159
These lawsuits are only a sampling: incarcerated workers at Hickman’s filed a total of nine claims
against the company in 2019 and 2020.160“Figure it out — that’s pretty much what they tell you.”161
Mary Stinson, an incarcerated worker who lost part of a finger while working at
Hickman’s, describing Hickman’s training standards

Many of these working conditions worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic. In spring 2020,
public health officials around the world stressed the importance of isolation and distance. In
response, local and state officials closed schools, restaurants, and offices across the UnitedStates. The response from Hickman’s and ACI, however, differed considerably. In late March 2020,
ACI moved 140 incarcerated individuals from the Arizona State Prison Complex – Perryville toa 6,000 square foot warehouse building on Hickman’s property,162 where the workers slept inbunk beds that — according to a photo in ACI’s 2020 Annual Report — were lined up in rows
touching one another.163 In a joint letter announcing that incarcerated workers would be living
at Hickman’s facilities, Glenn Hickman and the ADCRR Director David Shinn described the moveas necessary “to ensure a stable food supply” for the nation.164 An email obtained by the Phoenix
New Times, written in March 2020 by a worker impacted by the move to the Hickman’s site, said
that officials were “concerned about the media finding out and our families.”165

Workers told The Arizona Republic that they
“kept getting numb hands from accidentally
injecting themselves with antibiotics, chest
pains from the feces in the air, and had nochoice but to drink water from acontaminated well.”At least nine of the workers living at the Hickman’s facility subsequently tested positive
for COVID-19.166 Carlos Garcia, Executive Director of the Arizona Correctional Peace Officers
Association, told reporters that, because “the inmates are on top of each other, literally… [i]fthese inmates had it, they’ve all been exposed.”167 Incarcerated workers also described excrement
filling up the toilets — placed next to their living space — and having water that was not always
potable. There were, in fact, signs on water fountains warning pregnant women not to drink
the water.168 Workers reported that “[c]orrections officers brought in fans to circulate fresh air,27

but instead of respite from the smell and heat, the fans just stirred up dust, bacteria, dirt andchicken feces.”169
While Hickman’s does make an effort to hire formerly incarcerated workers170 — more thanmany companies that use prison labor do — the public relations rhetoric surrounding the hiring
program may be more impressive than its implementation. According to The Arizona Republic,“the job [at Hickman’s] is not enjoyable, even for civilian farmworkers, who often leave the job
after just a few days. One of the men who worked at Hickman’s while incarcerated said people on
the outside sometimes come in for work, but don’t last even a few days.”171 Hickman’s leverages
its exploitation of a captive workforce and the fact that few employers will hire workers withcriminal records to maintain a full staff when no “civilian farmworkers” will choose the work.

Isolation and Intimidation and Threats
Incarcerated workers are inherently isolated, and the 140 workers from the Perryville correctional
facility were isolated further from the broader prison population — and opportunities to connect
with family and friends — when they were moved to the Hickman’s farm in spring 2020. At least
one woman was forced to stop taking GED classes after being told by a corrections officer that“the job at Hickman’s was more important”172 — this occurred despite Hickman’s purported
requirement that all incarcerated workers have a GED or be working towards a GED.173 Another
woman reported not wanting to move to the farm, for fear she would lose access to phone calls
and tablets — her connections to the world outside prison.174 Incarcerated workers understood,
however, that refusing to work at a chosen site could mean losing the right to work for three
to six months, and work is a necessity in a system that does not always provide enough food.175
One worker, who claims to have not even applied for a Hickman’s job but was nonetheless forced
to work for the company, told The Arizona Republic that she was put on “a six month [work] hold”
after quitting.176“You work at Hickman’s… It doesn’t matter if you’re in school.”177
Tianna Boswer’s recollection of what she was told when she asked to finish her GED
classes, rather than move to the Hickman’s farm in 2020

Hickman’s extensive support for the prison labor system — and its openness about its
exploitation of incarcerated workers — may be a bit of an outlier. But its desire for a cheap,
malleable, and replenishable workforce is not. Hickman’s merely exemplifies one method
companies use to exploit an incarcerated labor force: to pay lower wages and yet retain workers
despite dangerous working conditions.

28

Incarcerated Workers Were Housed Within A Private Entity –How Is This Legal?
When asked by Phoenix New Times about whether the Arizona Department ofCorrections had legal authority to move the incarcerated women to Hickman’s
facilities, the ADCRR spokesperson responded that the “Director has both general andspecific legal authority under Title 31 and Title 41 of the Arizona Revised Statutes toact in the event of a public health emergency.”178 Title 41 Section 1609(E) authorizes
the ADCRR Director to “confine persons who are committed to the department in…
a private institution” when an emergency has been declared.179 Section 1609 places
various time limits on this type of emergency situation.180
Hickman’s seems to have been interested in amending this authority to allow
incarcerated workers to live on the farm indefinitely. Glenn Hickman wrote anemail in May 2020, just weeks after the women were “temporarily house[d]” in the
Hickman’s warehouse, suggesting the creation of a “permanent work camp”:181“I’m not the expert, but am guessing that legislation and regulations might be needed inorder to have any chance of being able to break ground on a permanent facility aroundthis time next year.”182

B. The UNICOR Exception: AM General
Federal Prison Industries
Federal Prison Industries, Inc. (FPI), which operates under the trade name UNICOR, is a wholly
owned US government corporation Congress created in 1934.183 In 2022, UNICOR operated
in 51 prisons through 63 factories and two farms across seven business segments: clothing
and textiles, electronics, agribusiness, office furniture, fleet, recycling, and services.184 TheFederal Bureau of Prisons requires all medically able incarcerated individuals to work, whether
for UNICOR or maintaining internal prison facilities.185 In fiscal year 2021, UNICOR employed
16,315 incarcerated workers.186 Currently, only 8 percent of work-eligible individuals participate
in UNICOR, though there are approximately 25,000 on a waitlist for the program, likely aconsequence of UNICOR’s paltry wages still being higher than wages for many other jobs.187
Any work assignment above entry level requires a high school diploma or GED.188
By statute, with a few exceptions discussed below, UNICOR is restricted to selling goods madeby incarcerated workers to the federal government.189 Moreover, federal agencies are generally
required to purchase goods from UNICOR, provided the products meet the agency’s quality,
price, and delivery standards.190 UNICOR’s biggest customer is the Department of Defense,
accounting for 56 percent of its total revenue.191 In fiscal year 2021, UNICOR reported net sales

29totaling $404,065,000 with earnings of $43,732,000.192 Yet for each dollar that UNICOR earns,
only $0.04 is paid to incarcerated workers.193

For each dollar
that UNICOR earns,
only $0.04 is paid
to incarcerated
workers
While UNICOR has historically produced goods for the federal government, more recently it
has expanded its partnerships with the private sector. The UNICOR website boasts that “justabout any company can team with UNICOR to take advantage of our modern manufacturing
capabilities, diverse product line, talented labor pool, and nationwide locations.”194 For
instance, “[p]rivate firms that compete for government contracts might be allowed to purchase
manufacturing time and subcontract parts and services directly through UNICOR.”195 Under its
reshoring initiative, UNICOR allows companies to contract with it in a variety of ways, as longas each contracting company “signs an agreement with UNICOR certifying that the company
would have otherwise produced its product(s) outside of the United States.”196

Reshoring: Made in America
UNICOR has promoted its reshoring initiative by emphasizing the benefits companies
can accrue by producing US-made goods. As of 2022, it appears that numerous
companies recognize the benefit of this UNICOR program. For example, in 2015,
Suniva, a Georgia-based solar panel manufacturer, moved some of its operations
from Asia to the United States to contract with UNICOR.197 Suniva’s decision to
manufacture some solar panels in UNICOR prison factories in Oregon and New York
allowed the company to market such products as “American-made” and to avoid
tariffs on Chinese-made solar panels.198 Defending this decision, Matt Card, Suniva’s
Vice President of Global Sales and Manufacturing at the time, explained that thecompany had no “visibility” into what UNICOR workers were paid — although thisinformation was publicly available — and that “[i]t costs us more to manufacture
through Unicor than it does in China.”199
This shift towards using incarcerated workers has become increasingly common. In
2018, Professor Lan Cao argued that “[u]tilizing incarcerated people that work for
low or no pay, instead of low-wage foreign workers that labor in unsafe working

30

conditions, is a cynical channeling of the rising awareness of the domestic American
worker’s plight in the age of globalization.”200 Companies like Suniva seem to movefrom one vulnerable worker population to another, while trying to reap the rewardsof labeling their products as Made in America.

AM General: Winning Defense Contracts with UNICOR
Companies frequently take advantage of the benefits offered by UNICOR, but these partnerships
are shrouded in secrecy. UNICOR — a government entity that is subject to the Freedom ofInformation Act (FOIA) — has denied requests to release the names of companies it contracts
with, claiming the data is privileged communication between or within government agencies.201
Despite this lack of transparency, public information is available about certain partnerships.
AM General is a world leader in the design, engineering, and manufacturing of tactical vehicles,
such as the High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (known as the “Humvee”).202 The
company, headquartered in South Bend, Indiana, was awarded its first contract with the US
Army in 1861,203 and this close relationship with the Department of Defense has continued
ever since. In the last 25 years, the company has been awarded nearly 300 defense contracts,
together worth several billion dollars.204 AM General competes for each of these opportunities,
and over the last four years there is evidence that it has done so successfully on at least eightoccasions with UNICOR’s help.205 According to HigherGov.com, an online database that “provides
comprehensive market intelligence and business development tools for federal government
contractors, grant recipients, consultants, and agencies,”206 AM General subcontracted withUNICOR to provide mounting bases and loudspeakers as part of contracts between AM
General and the US Army Contracting Command in Detroit in 2019, 2020, and 2021 (with six
such contracts in 2021).207 The contracts obligated AM General to provide Humvees to the
Department of Defense and the Army National Guard.208 UNICOR advertises on its website bothits capacity to refurbish Humvees and its expertise manufacturing speakers for military tactical
vehicles.209 AM General was awarded nearly $900 million for the contracts for which it used
UNICOR as a subcontractor, and UNICOR was awarded over $2.5 million210 — only 4 percent of
which was likely paid to the incarcerated workers performing the subcontract.211
AM General’s Code of Conduct promises a “safe and healthy work environment”212 and explicitly
states its expectation that all “joint venture partners, contractors, and suppliers [] be guided bythese standards.”213 KPS Capital Partners, which acquired AM General in 2020, commits on its
website to “hold[] itself, its portfolio companies and their employees to the highest standardsof ethical and principled conduct,” and claims to “demonstrate[] the power that results fromlabor and capital working together constructively.”214 We found no evidence to suggest thatthe use of prison labor is a major or long-standing strategy for either AM General or KPS CapitalPartners. However, any instance of profiting from forced labor is sufficient to taint a supply
chain. Incarcerated workers have repeatedly reported dangerous conditions and abusive
environments in UNICOR factories.215 This reality cannot be reconciled with AM General’s and
KPS Capital Partners’ claims of safety, high standards, and ethical conduct.
31

Withholding of Wages
While in some cases UNICOR pays more than prison facilities, the pay is quite low and has notincreased since at least the early 1990s.216 Incarcerated workers receive between $0.23 and $1.15
per hour, divided into five pay grades.217
Table 1: UNICOR Pay Grades and Deductions218

UNICOR Pay Gradesand Hourly Pay
1 = $1.15 per hour
2 = $.92 per hour

Minimum Inmate Financial
Responsibility Program (IFRP)
Payment for UNICOR
50%/monthly pay

3 = $.69 per hour
4 = $.46 per hour
5 = $.23 per hour

$25/quarter

Nor do incarcerated workers actually retain the small hourly wage they earn, as their pay issubject to deductions under the Inmate Financial Responsibility Program (IFRP).219 The IFRP ismeant to “encourage” incarcerated individuals “to meet his or her legitimate financial obligations”
by developing financial plans with staff who subsequently review the worker’s compliance inmaking payments according to the plan.220 IFRP payments go toward court-ordered fines, childsupport, incarceration fees, victim restitution, and other monetary judgments.221 For incarcerated
workers earning $0.23 per hour, the minimum quarterly IFRP payment is $25, while workers at
grades 1−4 are required to allot at least 50 percent of their income to IFRP payments.222 If a grade
5 worker employed by UNICOR works 40 hours per week for three months, and then forfeits$25 to the government, the worker’s effective rate of pay is $0.18 per hour — a staggering 2.5
percent of the federal minimum wage.223
Although the IFRP is considered a “voluntary” program, incarcerated workers face repercussions
for not participating,224 including notifications to the parole board of the worker’s failure toparticipate; denial of furlough; denial of assignments to work outside the prison or participate
in UNICOR; subjection to more stringent commissary spending limits; placement at the lowest
housing status; denial of placement in community-based programs; and denial of incentives
for participating in residential drug treatment programs.225 As a result, there is little that is truly“voluntary” about this program.

32

Little Evidence of Rehabilitation
UNICOR claims that “[r]esearch shows that offenders who participate in the UNICOR
program are 24% less likely to return to criminal activity and 14% more likely toobtain employment upon release from prison compared to those without similar
experience.”226 However, in a July 2020 report, the United States Government
Accountability Office (GAO) found that the Bureau of Prisons (BOP) “relies on
outdated studies that assessed the impact of FPI on inmates released in the 1980s.”227
While the “BOP made a plan to evaluate FPI,” it ignored its own timeline and does notappear to have ever done so.228
A 2009 study on the impact of UNICOR’s program on incarcerated workers infederal prisons found that “no significant differences emerge in terms of rearrest or
recommitment to federal prison” and that “existing evaluations of prison industries
programs are limited and often plagued with serious methodological concerns.”229

Abusive Working Conditions and Intimidation and Threats
UNICOR boasts that it is “self-sustaining and operates at no cost to the taxpayer”230 — but it
accomplishes this by exploiting incarcerated individuals for profit. A 2006 report by the Center
for Environmental Health on incarcerated workers who were exposed to toxic materials whileworking at UNICOR’s electronic recycling plants found that UNICOR “failed to adequately protect
prisoners and staff from exposure to toxics.”231 A worker anonymously quoted in the report said
that when he and others asked for information on hazardous materials they were told “‘If you
are not happy here, you can quit,’ meaning ‘Shut up. Don’t ask us for anything. Do your job, or
we’ll replace you by pushing you out or forcibly retiring you.’”232
The COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the abusive conditions suffered by UNICOR workers.
Despite knowledge that COVID-19 was spreading in prisons, many UNICOR workers were madeto work in crowded factories and without face masks throughout spring 2020.233 Patrick Jones,
the first documented federally incarcerated individual to die from COVID-19, worked in a prison
textile factory in Louisiana — without a mask — until he collapsed and was taken to a hospital,
where he passed away less than two weeks later.234 Jones’ death caused the US Bureau of
Prisons to implement a fourteen-day lockdown, but several UNICOR factories remained open.235
Workers continued to report to work at a license-plate prison factory in Maryland through at
least mid-April 2020, even after someone at the factory had tested positive for the virus.236
These pandemic risks existed in workplaces that were already rife with danger and fueled byfear of punishment for refusal to work. Prison labor expert Heather Ann Thompson explainedthat “Working conditions [in prisons] are always terrible and super-oppressive… You add ontothat the possibility of disease and you realize that those things that are already bad become
worse.”237

33

“We were completely overworked like slaves. We were completely underpaid
and it showed that the value of what we manufactured was undervalued.
Sometimes the pay for the entire day was $1. The supervisors were strict andnot compassionate.”
Former UNICOR worker238

C. The PIECP Exception: Dickinson Frozen Foods
The Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program
The Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program (PIECP) is the most well-known program
through which companies hire incarcerated workers. Congress established PIECP in 1979 toallow companies to set up joint ventures with certified state departments of corrections andbe exempt from restrictions on the interstate sale of prison-made goods.239 Despite being theflagship corporate program for prison labor, PIECP employs only 5,000 incarcerated workers
across the country.240
Numerous laws regulate PIECP, yet they are primarily meant to ensure that the program does notundercut free labor — rather than meant to protect incarcerated workers.241 First, PIECP requiresthat companies pay their workers the “prevailing wage” in the area, which cannot be lower than
the jurisdiction’s minimum wage.242 Second, the Department of Corrections and PIECP employers
must document “that employment of inmates will not result in the displacement of employedworkers within the locality.”243 Third, the program prohibits companies from hiring incarcerated
workers “to be used in skills, crafts, or trades in which there is a surplus of available gainful laborin the locality or [when it will] significantly impair existing contracts.”244 Lastly, departments ofcorrections and PIECP employers are required to consult “with representatives of local labororganizations and local businesses prior to the use of inmate workers in the production of
goods for sale in interstate commerce or to the federal government.”245
Yet companies have been known to ignore these regulations without repercussion. There
are numerous allegations of companies circumventing the requirement that corporations
contracting with state carceral facilities pay incarcerated workers the prevailing wage. Companies
have allegedly delineated incarcerated workers who are involved in final assembly of a product(paid PIECP wages) from those involved in the production of pieces of the product (paid nonPIECP wages).246 Some state PIECP programs undercut the prevailing wage requirements byhaving long training periods — during which prevailing wages are not required — with multiple
levels, which may be extended if an incarcerated worker moves to another position.247

34

PRIDE: PIECP in Florida
In 2010, the Prison Rehabilitative Industries and Diversified Enterprises, Inc.
(PRIDE), Florida’s authorized state-level PIECP program, was criticized for requiring
incarcerated workers to complete an initial 480-hour training course, before
completing three more training “levels” over the course of two years. Only after
these trainings did the worker have “the potential of making the prevailing wage.”248
At any time during the four-tiered training program the worker could be (and often
was) moved to another position to begin training on different equipment, further
extending the training period and the period of depressed wages.249

Moreover, instead of consulting with local labor organizations and local businesses, companies
have sometimes “simply advertised in local papers or notified the local Chamber of Commerce of
their intent to establish such programs.”250 Companies’ ability to circumvent these regulations isless surprising given that, in 1995, the US Bureau of Justice Assistance outsourced managementof PIECP to the National Correctional Industries Association (NCIA),251 a nonprofit professional
association for members from correctional industry agencies and corporate suppliers andpartners in work programs.252 This structure creates a conflict of interest that has led to abusesof the program because the NCIA is composed of “the very PIECP participants that it is charged
with monitoring; in effect, it is overseeing itself.”253

Dickinson Frozen Foods: A PIECP Company
In Idaho, Dickinson Frozen Foods (Dickinson), a subsidiary of privately owned Oregon Potato
Company,254 is one of the largest private employers of incarcerated workers. Depending on thequarter, Dickinson employs between 93 and 526 incarcerated workers to process potatoes, onions,and peppers.255 Dickinson has two processing plants in the state, in Sugar City and in Fruitland.256
The company employs incarcerated workers in St. Anthony and Kuna, presumably from the St.
Anthony Work Camp and the Idaho State Corrections Center located near these facilities.257
As is true of many companies that use prison labor, available information on buyers of Dickinson
products is scant. Companies that hire incarcerated workers are often not well-known brands, butthey supply key products — like onions, peppers, and potatoes — to consumer-facing brands.
As a result, little is publicly known about which companies ultimately sell Dickinson’s products
to consumers. However, there is evidence that as of 2005, Dickinson distributed products to“household food brands” like Pillsbury and Campbell’s Soup.258 In 2007 then-company-president
Paul Fox told the Oregon-based Argus Observer that Dickinson supplied onions to Wendy’s for
its chili.259 More recently, a truck driver reported delivering Dickinson’s products to a Stouffer’s
plant.260 While Dickinson does not provide information on who it sells to, it touts itself as “thepremier [individually quick frozen] onion supplier in the United States,”261 implying that it sells
to many consumer-facing companies.

35

Withholding of Wages
Between 2015 and 2020, Dickinson earned between $150 million and $254 million in annual
revenue,262 yet its incarcerated workforce takes home far less than the minimum wage.263 In 20182020, Dickinson paid incarcerated workers between $7.80 and $10.68 per hour,264 compared to
between $9.62 and $22.87 per hour (plus benefits) to its free workers.265 For incarcerated workers
at Dickinson, take home pay was often significantly less than the purported wage. Under PIECP,
the Idaho Department of Corrections is authorized to retain 25 percent of incarcerated workers’“total gross wages for room and board, and garnish[] an additional 31 percent of the moneyfor ‘victims programs,’ including court-ordered restitution. More [can be] withheld for family
support and taxes.”266 As a result, a worker who technically earns $7.80 per hour might only
receive $1.95 per hour, with another $1.15 deducted and placed into a mandatory savings
account, meaning the worker takes home only $0.80 per hour.267

A worker who technically earns$7.80 per hour might only receive$1.95 per hour, with another $1.15
deducted and placed into a
mandatory savings account,meaning the worker
takes home only
$0.80 per hour
The Idaho program is not an outlier. Within all PIECP programs, state correctional institutions
can deduct money for taxes, room and board, court-ordered and voluntary family support, andcontributions to victim funds.268 While these deductions cannot exceed 80 percent of the grosswages, court-ordered family support and court-ordered victim restitution may be taken fromnet wages after the 80 percent deduction from gross wages if provided for in the Worker’s
Voluntary Participation form.269 PIECP also allows mandatory savings accounts, which are notconsidered deductions.270 While the incarcerated worker may someday receive this money,
most workers need income in the present to be able to buy basic necessities, such as tampons
or food.

36

Abusive Working Conditions
Working conditions at Dickinson’s facilities in Idaho have been found to be dangerous on
numerous occasions. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), under the US
Department of Labor, has found that Dickinson has committed both “serious” and “willful” OSHA
violations that put incarcerated workers at risk.271 For example, in 2016, OSHA cited Dickinson
for its inadequate preparation and response during a 13,000 pound ammonia leak and fined thecompany $273,000.272 The ammonia levels at the plant were not measured, despite this being
the typical procedure during a response. As a result, the level of employee exposure remains
unknown.273 Although no one was seriously injured, OSHA’s Idaho director stated it is “a miracle
no Dickinson Frozen Foods employees were killed or hurt last year.”274 OSHA subsequently issued
the company nineteen serious citations and two willful citations.275
Dickinson has had a number of other “major ammonia releases” that have hospitalized
employees,276 pointing to systemic safety issues at Dickinson’s facilities.277 In 2018, OSHA againcited the company for a “serious” violation due to compressor room doors not being tightly
sealed and for inadequate process safety management of highly hazardous chemicals.278
Although not all of the injured employees were incarcerated, the fact remains that incarcerated
workers employed by Dickinson are exposed to unsafe working conditions.
Dickinson highlights that even “good” prison jobs are problematic. While take home pay fromPIECP jobs is often higher than the pay for prison facility jobs, external incentives drive companies
to ignore detrimental impacts on incarcerated workers. For example, Idaho companies have
openly been looking for workers to replace the often undocumented migrant workers in thestate who used to work in agriculture.279 Turning to prison labor allows corporations to shift
from one vulnerable, exploitable population to another.

37

VI. Conclusion: Looking Forward
One hundred and fifty years after the end of the Civil War, it is past time that the United Statesclose the Thirteenth Amendment’s exception to the constitutional prohibition of slavery andservitude. This loophole permits the state to force the “duly convicted” to work under abusive
and even dangerous conditions. Moreover, federal and state policies that allow private entities
to use and profit off prison labor forever fasten the United States to “the wedding of slavery, theplantation economy, and capitalism.”280
Discourse in the United States all too easily falls into the (often) racist and dehumanizing tropesthat the incarcerated are somehow less human, less important, and less deserving of rights. These
tropes allow state and federal governments to incarcerate millions of people, disproportionatelyfrom Black, Brown, and low-income communities, and it allows companies — together withgovernments — to generate wealth off the backs of a captive and vulnerable workforce without
needing to answer to public sentiment or mitigate political fallout. The United States is certainly
not the only country to allow prison labor, nor is it the only country to allow private markets tobenefit from domestic prison industries. This, however, does not excuse the blatant hypocrisyof the United States’ treatment of domestic and foreign forced labor. As long as the UnitedStates continues to protect its own racist institutions of forced labor, it will remain in violationof international human rights norms. No amount of leadership in the global fight against forced
and prison labor will save the United States from this status.
In the immediate term, the Thirteenth Amendment’s loophole must be eliminated, andincarcerated workers must be guaranteed the same protections and rights as all other workers.
This includes paying incarcerated workers at least minimum wage, eradicating state and federal
programs that allow wages to be withheld (even temporarily), and prohibiting all forms of threatsand punishment for refusing to work. Incarcerated workers must have the right to organize andmust be protected by the same health and safety standards that all other workers are subject to.
Moreover, private entities must never be authorized to use prison labor in their supply chains.
Many incarcerated individuals want to work, and the highest paying jobs have often been thoseworking for the private sector. We recognize incarcerated workers’ need to earn the higher —and yet still paltry — income from these jobs in the current system, yet reject that this is, or ever
could be, the answer. When corporations are allowed to benefit from the existence of vulnerable
labor groups, whether in the United States or elsewhere, more and more egregious exploitation
will always follow.
These reforms — although imperative — are insufficient. No amount of protection can rid theprison system of forced labor indicators like abuse of vulnerability, restriction of movement, andisolation. These are inherent qualities of incarceration in the United States, impossible to reform
and addressable only by abolition. While we must fight for improved labor conditions and basic
rights for the incarcerated, we cannot settle for incremental change. Rather, we must push —through legal, policy, and social means, and with as much creativity as possible — for an entirely
new system free of all forms of exploitation.
38

Endnotes
Linda Evans & Eve Goldberg, The Prison Industrial Complex and the Global Economy, p. 16 (1997).
The Sentencing Project, Criminal Justice Facts, https://www.sentencingproject.org/criminal-justice-facts/; see also Wendy
Sawyer & Peter Wagner, Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2022, Prison Policy Initiative, March 14, 2022,
https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2022.html [hereinafter Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2022]; see generally Earl
Smith & Angela
J. Hattery, Incarceration: A Tool for Racial Segregation and Labor Exploitation, Race, Gender, & Class Journal, Vol. 15:1-2, 2008,
p. 80 [hereinafter Incarceration: A Tool for Racial Segregation and Labor Exploitation].
3 See Mass Incarceration: The Whole Pie 2022, supra note 2.
4 In fiscal year 2021, 189,847 people were detained. Immigration Detention 101, Detention Watch Network,https://www.detentionwatchnetwork.org/issues/detention-101.
5 See e.g., Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow (2020) [hereinafter The New Jim Crow]; Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped From the
Beginning (2017) [hereinafter Stamped From the Beginning]; Douglas A. Blackmon, Slavery by Another Name: The
Re-Enslavement of Black Americans From the Civil War to World War II (2008) [hereinafter Slavery by Another Name]; Ruth
Wilson Gilmore, Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and Opposition in Globalizing California (2007).
6 See The New Jim Crow, supra note 5.
7 Incarceration: A Tool for Racial Segregation and Labor Exploitation, supra note 2, p. 80.
8 Angela Y. Davis, Are Prisons Obsolete?, p. 100 (2003).
9 Liz Mineo, The Need to Talk About Race, The Harvard Gazette, Dec. 7, 2017, https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2017/12/bryan-stevenson-seeks-national-conversation-about-slaverys-legacy/ (quoting part of a lecture given by
Bryan Stevenson); see also Emma Seslowsky, Bryan Stevenson says ‘slavery didn’t end in 1865, it just evolved,’ CNN Politics,
Dec. 7, 2018, https://www.cnn.com/2018/12/07/politics/bryan-stevenson-axe-files.
10 19 U.S.C. § 1307.
11 Julie Goodridge, et al., Prison Labor in the United States: An Investor Perspective, Northstar Asset Management, April 2018
(rev. May 2018), p. 8, https://northstarasset.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/revMay2018_Prison-Labor-in-the-SupplyChain.pdf [hereinafter Prison Labor in the United States: An Investor Perspective].
12 See Id.
13 Vérité, Work Behind Bars: Analysis of Prison Labor in the United States Based on International Labor Standards, p. 5, June 2022
[hereinafter Work Behind Bars].
14 American Civil Liberties Union & the University of Chicago Law School Global Human Rights Clinic, Captive Labor:
Exploitation of Incarcerated Workers, p. 5, 2022 [hereinafter Captive Labor].
15 See, e.g., Joseph Darius Jaafari, et al., Was that made by Arizona prison labor? Prisoners make many everyday items,
The Arizona Republic, July 18, 2022 (updated July 19, 2022), https://www.azcentral.com/in-depth/news/local/arizonainvestigations/2022/07/18/prison-labor-in-arizona-is-a-win-for-everyone-but-the-prisoners/9636709002/ [hereinafter Was
that made by Arizona prison labor?]; Joseph Darius Jaafari, et al., Arizona Changed How it Sells Prisoners to Companies. The
State Raked in Millions, But Workers Were Neglected, The Arizona Republic, July 18, 2022, https://www.azcentral.com/in-depth/
news/local/arizona-investigations/2022/07/18/arizona-rakes-in-millions-from-prison-labor/9724295002/?gps-source=BR
NMSVCPSPXXPRISONRECIRC&itm_source=usat&itm_medium=onsite-spike&itm_campaign=prisonsell-storytellingstudion&itm_content=static [hereinafter Arizona Changed How it Sells Prisoners to Companies]; Michael Braga, Most prisoners in
Arizona work for pennies. But there’s an elite workforce that’s paid more, The Arizona Republic, July 19, 2022,
https://www.azcentral.com/story/news/local/arizona-investigations/2022/07/19/how-much-arizona-prisonersmake/10062068002/ [hereinafter Most prisoners in Arizona work for pennies].
16 See generally The New Jim Crow, supra note 5.
17 Id. p. 34.
18 Id. p. 33 (paraphrasing C. Vann Woodward, The Strange Career of Jim Crow (1955)).
19 Id., p. 35 n.12.
20 See, e.g., Andrea Armstrong, Slavery Revisited in Penal Plantation Labor, Seattle University Law Review, Vol. 35:869, 2020, p. 902,
https://digitalcommons.law.seattleu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=2085&context=sulr;
Andrea Armstrong, Beyond the 13th Amendment, Ohio State Law Journal, Vol. 82:6, 2021, p. 1042.
21 See The New Jim Crow, supra note 5, pp. 35-36.
22 Id., pp. 38-40 (citing Slavery By Another Name, supra note 5).
23 See Genevieve LeBaron, Rethinking Prison Labor: Social Discipline and the State in Historical Perspective, WorkingUSA: The
Journal of Labor & Society, Vol. 15, 2012, pp. 337-41 [hereinafter Rethinking Prison Labor]
24 Matthew Mancini, One Dies, Get Another: Convict Leasing in the American South, 1866–1928, p. 58 (1996); see also Rethinking
Prison Labor, supra note 23, pp. 337-38 (citing One Dies, Get Another; referencing generally Martha A. Myers, Race, Labor andPunishment in the New South (1998); Alex Lichtenstein, Twice the Work of Free Labor: The Political Economy of Convict Labor in
the New South (1996) [hereinafter Twice the Work of Free Labor]).
25 Rethinking Prison Labor, supra note 23, p. 338; see also Incarceration: A Tool for Racial Segregation and Labor Exploitation,
supra note 2, p. 85.
12

39

26 Twice the Work of Free Labor, supra note 24, p. 35; David Oshinsky, Worse than Slavery: Parchman Farm and the Ordeal of Jim
Crow Justice, p. 61 (1996) [hereinafter Worse than Slavery]; see also Rethinking Prison Labor, supra note 23, pp. 337-39 (citing
Twice the Work of Free Labor and Worse than Slavery).
27 Worse than Slavery, supra note 26, p. 61; see also Rethinking Prison Labor, supra note 23, pp. 339 (citing Worse than Slavery,
supra note 26).
28 Worse than Slavery, supra note 26, p. 61; see also Rethinking Prison Labor, supra note 23, pp. 339 (Worse than Slavery, supranote 26).
29 Ruffin v. Commonwealth, 62 Va. 790, 796 (1871).
30 Shaw v. Murphy, 532 U.S. 223, 228 (2001) (citing Ruffin and finding: “Indeed, for much of this country’s history, theprevailing view was that a prisoner was a mere ‘slave of the State,’ who ‘not only forfeited his liberty, but all his personal
rights except those which the law in its humanity accords him’… In recent decades, however, this Court has determinedthat incarceration does not divest prisoners of all constitutional protections… We nonetheless have maintained that theconstitutional rights that prisoners possess are more limited in scope than the constitutional rights held by individuals insociety at large.”).
31 See The New Jim Crow, supra note 5, p. 39.
32 Rethinking Prison Labor, supra note 23, pp. 339-40.
33 Slavery By Another Name, supra note 5, p. 312 (2008); see also Daniel Kovalik, Our Original Sin: Slavery in America Keeps
Taking on New Guises, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 3, 2008, https://www.post-gazette.com/opinion/2008/07/04/Ouroriginal-sin/stories/200807040089.
34 Worse than Slavery, supra note 26, p. 64 (citing a newspaper report from the 1880s); see also Rethinking Prison Labor, supranote 23, p. 339 (citing Worse than Slavery).
35 Worse than Slavery, supra note 26, p. 64 (citing a newspaper report from the 1880s); see also Rethinking Prison Labor, supranote 23, p. 339 (citing Worse than Slavery, supra note 26).
36 Rethinking Prison Labor, supra note 23, p. 340.
37 Slavery By Another Name, supra note 5, p. 90; Twice the Work of Free Labor, supra note 26, p. 13; see also Rethinking Prison
Labor, supra note 23, p. 340 (citing Slavery By Another Name, supra note 5; Twice the Work of Free Labor, supra note 26).
38 Slavery By Another Name, supra note 5, p. 90; see also Rethinking Prison Labor, supra note 23, p. 340 (citing Slavery By Another
Name, supra note 5).
39 Cazzie Reyes, State Imposed Forced Labor: History of Prison Labor in the U.S., End Slavery Now, Feb. 8, 2016,
https://www.endslaverynow.org/blog/articles/state-imposed-forced-labor-history-of-prison-labor-in-the-us [hereinafter
State Imposed Forced Labor].
40 Captive Labor, supra note 14, pp. 26-7.
41 Derek Gilna, Businesses, Members of Congress Not Happy with UNICOR, Prison Legal News, March 15, 2014,
https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2014/mar/15/businesses-members-of-congress-not-happy-with-unicor/[hereinafter Businesses, Members of Congress Not Happy with UNICOR]; Emily Jane Fox, Factory Owners: Federal Prisoners
Stealing our Business, CNN Business, Aug. 14, 2012, https://money.cnn.com/2012/08/14/smallbusiness/federal-prisonbusiness [hereinafter Factory Owners: Federal Prisoners Stealing our Business].
42 Businesses, Members of Congress Not Happy with UNICOR, supra note 41; Factory Owners: Federal Prisoners Stealing Our
Business, supra note 41.
43 See Prison Labor and The Private Sector: The Corporate Exploitation of Prison Labor Reaches Deep into the Supply Chain, WorthRises, Dec. 9, 2021, https://worthrises.org/blogpost/the-corporate-exploitation-of-prison-labor-reaches-deep-into-thesupply-chain [hereinafter Prison Labor and The Private Sector].
44 See Rethinking Prison Labor, supra note 23, p. 333.
45 See generally id.
46 See generally id.
47 Id.
48 Rebecca M. McLennan, The Crisis of Imprisonment: Protest, Politics, and the Making of the American Penal State, 1776–1941,
p. 90 (2008); Rethinking Prison Labor, supra note 23, p. 334. $45 billion (in 2022) is equivalent to $1.47 billion in 1885. US
GDP in 1885 was roughly $15.76 billion (as reported on Our World In Data, which lists 1885 GDP as $365.4 billion in 2011
dollars). $1.47 billion is approximately 10 percent of $15.76 billion. If this calculation is done based on 2008 dollars/
inflation (rather than 2022), which is when the relevant source was written, the percentage is closer to 13 percent of
GDP. As this difference in years leaves dome room for ambiguity, we chose to say “more than 10 percent.” Our World In
Data, GDP, 1820-2018, https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-world-regions-stacked-area?country=~USA; The Inflation
Calculator, https://westegg.com/inflation/; see also Inflation Calculator, https://www.in2013dollars.com/.
49 See Rosalind Petchesky, At Hard Labor: Penal Confinement and Production in Nineteenth-Century America, in David F.
Greenberg (ed.), Crime and Capitalism Readings in Marxist Crimonology, pp. 569–611 (1993); see also Rethinking Prison Labor,
supra note 23, p. 333 (citing At Hard Labor).
50 See Glen A. Gildemeister, Prison Labor and Convict Competition with Free Workers in Industrializing America, 1840–1980, PhD
Dissertation in History, Dekalb: Northern Illinois University, p. 96 (1987); see also
Rethinking Prison Labor, supra note 23, p. 334 (citing Prison Labor and Convict Competition with Free Workers).

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51 Report of the Joint Special Committee of the Legislature of Pennsylvania on Contract Convict Labor, with Accompanying
Testimony, Pennsylvania Legislature, Jan. 16, 1878, p. 28; see also Rethinking Prison Labor, supra note 23, p. 335 (citing
Pennsylvania Legislature).
52 See, e.g., 18 U.S.C. 1761(c); A.R.S. § 31-254(E).
53 Rethinking Prison Labor, supra note 23, p. 339.
54 In the late nineteenth century, Joseph Brown rented incarcerated workers in the state of Georgia for less than sevencents per day. In 2022, an incarcerated individual in a federal prison working for UNICOR makes at most $1.15 per hour;assuming an 8-hour workday, this values a worker’s labor at $9.20 per day. Many incarcerated workers in state and federal
prison working to maintain internal facilities make as little as $0.10 per hour (and in at least six states some workers arepaid nothing); assuming an 8-hour workday, this values a worker’s labor at $0.80 per day. Based on the Consumer Price
Index statistics from Historical Statistics of the United States (for data before 1975) and the annual Statistical Abstracts of
the United States (for data post 1975), $9.20 today (October 19, 2022) is equivalent to $0.27 in 1894 and $0.80 is equivalent
to $0.02 in 1894 (the year of Joseph Brown’s death). See Rethinking Prison Labor, supra note 23, p. 339; The Legacy of Slavery
is Why Prisoners Make 10 Cents an Hour, Freedom United, Sept. 2, 2019, https://www.freedomunited.org/news/the-legacy-ofslavery-is-why-prisoners-make-10-cents-an-hour/; Beth Schwartzapefel & Lawrence Bartley, What People Really Make (andSpend) Behind Bars, The Marshall Project, Aug. 16, 2022, https://www.npr.org/sections/money/2022/08/16/1117123303/
what-people-really-make-and-spend-behind-bars; U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General, The Federal
Bureau of Prisons’ Inmate Financial Responsibility Program, Report No. I-2000-023, 2000, https://oig.justice.gov/reports/BOP/
e0023/intro.htm#:~:text=The%20purpose%20of%20the%20IFRP,BOP%20institutions%2C%20including%20contract%20
facilities; The Inflation Calculator, https://westegg.com/inflation/; see also Inflation Calculator, https://www.in2013dollars.
com/.
55 Captive Labor, supra note 14, p. 48; Natalie Hurst, Prisoners Are Not For Sale: Incarcerated Workers Deserve Employee Status,
University of Cincinnati Law Review Blog, Nov. 24, 2020; Sessi K. Blanchard, Labor Law Doesn’t Apply If You’re in Prison, Truthout,
March 30, 2019, https://truthout.org/articles/labor-law-doesnt-apply-if-youre-in-prison/ [hereinafter Labor Law Doesn’t
Apply If You’re in Prison]; Keri Blakinger, Some Prison Labor Programs Lose Money — Even When Prisoners Work for Pennies,
NBC News, Sept. 2, 2021, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/some-prison-labor-programs-lose-money-evenwhen-prisoners-work-n1278326; see e.g., Fla. Stat. Ann. § 946.002(5) (categorically excluding incarcerated individuals fromworkers’ compensation); Vereen v. North Carolina Dept. of Correction, 168 N.C. App. 588, 608 S.E.2d 412 (2005) (holdingthat when a state does extend workers’ compensation to incarcerated workers, tort suits are then barred); Koprowski v.
Baker, 822 F.3d 248 (6th Cir. 2016) (finding that an incarcerated worker must show the injury was caused by “deliberate
indifference”).
56 Captive Labor, supra note 14, p. 17 (citing Survey of Prison Inmates, United States, 2016, U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of
Justice Statistics, Inter-University Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], Sept. 2021,
https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR37692.v4). This figure is based on the ACLU’s analysis of the raw survey data: “More than
80 percent of incarcerated workers in state and federal prisons who were surveyed by the Bureau of Justice Statistics
reported working in jobs that served to maintain the prisons where they are incarcerated.”
57 Prison Labor in the United States: An Investor Perspective, supra note 11, p. 28.
58 Id.
59 See, e.g., Beatrix Lockwood & Nicole Lewis, The Hidden Cost of Incarceration, The Marshall Project, Dec. 17, 2019,https://www.themarshallproject.org/2019/12/17/the-hidden-cost-of-incarceration [hereinafter The Hidden Cost of
Incarceration]; Tiana Herring, For the Poorest People in Prison, it’s a Struggle to Access Even Basic Necessities, Prison Policy
Initiative, Nov. 18, 2021, https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2021/11/18/indigence; Kimberly Haven, Why I’m Fighting for
Menstrual Equity in Prison, ACLU, Nov. 8, 2019, https://www.aclu.org/news/prisoners-rights/why-im-fighting-for-menstrualequity-in-prison.
60 See, e.g., Alysia Santo & Lisa Iaboni, What’s in a Prison Meal? The Marshall Project, July 7, 2015,
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2015/07/07/what-s-in-a-prison-meal; Elizabeth Weill-Greenberg, Prison Food is
Straight Out of a Nightmare, The Appeal, July 6, 2022, https://theappeal.org/prison-food-virginia-fluvanna-correctionalcenter/.
61 The Hidden Cost of Incarceration, supra note 59.
62 Stephen Raher, The Company Store: A Deeper Look at Prison Commissaries, Prison Policy Initiative, May 2018,https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/commissary.html.
63 In Illinois, incarcerated individuals earn between $0.13 and $0.39 per hour for non-industry jobs and $0.30 and $2.40 per
hour at jobs in state-owned correctional industries. Captive Labor, supra note 14, p. 102.
64 Worth Rises & Connecting Families, https://connectfamiliesnow.com/.
65 Id.
66 See Dereck Orr, Alison Spock & Michael Vaughan, Private Sector Prison Industries: A Report to the States, The Council ofGovernors’ Policy Advisors and The Thomas Jefferson Program in Public Policy: The College of William & Mary, p. 6 (n.d.),https://www.wm.edu/as/publicpolicy/documents/prs/prison.pdf [hereinafter Private Sector Prison Industries].
67 Mary Bosworth, Encyclopedia of Prisons and Correctional Facilities, p. 43 (2005) (The Ashurst-Sumners Act of 1935 “sought tostop inmate-manufactured goods from flooding the market and undermining free labor.”); Private Sector Prison Industries,
supra note 66, p. 6. Notably, Congress began passing these laws at the outset of the Great Depression. Manufacturers,
labor leaders, and employers advocated for such legislation out of concern that they would not be able to compete with afree labor force that lacked the ability to strike. State Imposed Forced Labor, supra note 39.

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68 Section 307 of the Tariff Act of 1930 is codified as 19 U.S.C. § 1307. At the time it was passed, Section 307 included aconsumptive demand loophole, which allowed goods produced with forced or prison labor to be imported into theUnited States if goods that were not “mined, produced, or manufactured in such quantities in the United States as to meetthe consumptive demands of the United States.” 19 U.S.C. §1307. The Trade Facilitation and Trade Enforcement Act of 2015(2016), 2016-Pub. L. 114–125, struck this out.
69 The Ashurst-Sumner Act is codified as 18 USC § 1761(a).
70 The first law passed was the Hawes-Cooper Act of 1929, which required that the laws of the destination state controlled
when prisoner-made goods were transported across state lines. The Ashurst-Sumners Act of 1935 made it a federal
offense for carriers to transport prisoner-made goods to states that, under the Hawes-Cooper Act, had banned the receiptof those goods. As a result, railroads refused to transport prisoner-made goods across state lines. The Sumners-Ashurst Act
of 1940 superseded state laws and made it a federal crime to transport prisoner-made goods in interstate commerce forprivate use. Private Sector Prison Industries, supra note 66, p. 7.
71 18 USC § 1761(a).
72 See generally 18 USC § 1761(a).
73 Id.; Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance, Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program (PIECP):
Compliance Guide, Dec. 2021, p. 12, https://bja.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh186/files/media/document/PIECP-ComplianceGuide.pdf [hereinafter Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program (PIECP): Compliance Guide].
74 See, e.g., Joseph Neff, North Carolina Prisoners Still Working in Chicken Plants, Despite Coronavirus Fears, The Marshall Project,
March 19, 2020, https://www.themarshallproject.org/2020/03/19/north-carolina-prisoners-still-working-in-chicken-plantsdespite-coronavirus-fears (explaining that incarcerated workers provide cleaning services for a sub-contractor at a Tyson
plant in North Carolina); Arizona Correctional Industries, Call Center, https://aci.az.gov/labor-partnerships/call-center/.
75 18 USC § 1761(b).
76 Id.
77 Federal Bureau of Prisons, UNICOR: Program Details, Federal Bureau of Prisons, https://www.bop.gov/inmates/custody_
and_care/unicor_about.jsp [hereinafter UNICOR: Program Details].
78 UNICOR, Customer and Private Sector Frequently Asked Questions, https://www.unicor.gov/FAQ_Market_Share.aspx[hereinafter Customer and Private Sector Frequently Asked Questions].
79 UNICOR, State and Local Government Customers, https://www.unicor.gov/FSACustomers.aspx; UNICOR, Commercial
Customers, https://www.unicor.gov/CommercialCustomers.aspx [hereinafter Commercial Customers].
80 UNICOR, Work with UNICOR and Help Make Repatriation a Reality, p. 4, https://www.unicor.gov/publications/corporate/
RepatriationWithUNICOR.pdf [hereinafter Work with UNICOR and Help Make Repatriation a Reality].
81 See The Justice System Improvement Act of 1979 (Public Law 96-157, Sec. 827); The Crime Control Act of 1990 (Public Law
101-647).
82 National Correctional Industries Association, About PIECP, https://www.nationalcia.org/about-piecp [hereinafter AboutPIECP]. Under the Crime Control Act of 1990, the program is indefinitely authorized. Id.; The Crime Control Act of 1990
(Public Law 101-647).
83 Susan Kang, Forcing Prison Labor: International Labor Standards, Human Rights and the Privatization of Prison Labor in theContemporary United States, Vol. 31:2, New Political Science, June 2009, p. 143 [hereinafter Forcing Prison Labor].
84 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Dec. 10, 1948, art. 23 paras. 1 and 3, https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universaldeclaration-of-human-rights.
85 International Labor Organization, Abolition of Forced Labour Convention, 1957, No. 105, https://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:12100:0::NO::P12100_ILO_CODE:C105 [hereinafter Abolition of Forced Labour Convention,
1957, No. 105]; International Labor Organization, Forced Labour Convention, 1930, No. 29, https://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=1000:12100:0::NO::P12100_ILO_CODE:C029 [hereinafter Forced Labour Convention, 1930, No. 29].
86 See generally Jean-Marie Henckaerts & Louise Doswald-Beck, Customary International Humanitarian Law, Vol. 1 Rules (2005)(identifying the prohibition on “uncompensated or abusive forced labour” as a norm of customary international law.); Seealso Philip Alston & Ryan Goodman, The Human Rights Regime: Background and Birth in International human rights: The
Successor to International Human Rights in Context 78 (2013) (stating that while there are very few “preemptory norms” ofinternational law, “[s]ome writers suggest that there is considerable agreement on the prohibition on the use of force, of
genocide, slavery, of gross violations of the right of people to self-determination, and of racial discrimination.”).
87 Although the United States has not ratified Convention No. 29, as an ILO member it has “an obligation, arising from thevery fact of membership in the Organization, to respect, to promote and realize, in good faith and in accordance with
the Constitution, the principles concerning fundamental rights.” ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Right at
Work (1998), as amended in 2022, art. 2, https://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=1000:62:0::NO:62:P62_LIST_ENTRIE_
ID:2453911:NO.
88 Forced Labour Convention, 1930, No. 29, art. 2 para. 1, supra note 85.
89 Id., No. 29, art. 2.
90 See Forcing Prison Labor, supra note 83, pp. 144-45; Work Behind Bars, supra note 13, p. 3; Captive Labor, supra note 14, p. 83;
International Labor Organization, Q&As on Business and Forced Labour – Use of Prison Labor, https://www.ilo.org/empent/areas/business-helpdesk/faqs/WCMS_DOC_ENT_HLP_FL_FAQ_EN/lang--en/index.htm#Q3 [hereinafter Q&As on Businessand Forced Labour].

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Q&As on Business and Forced Labour, supra note 90.
Id.
Id.
In addition to the United States, Afghanistan, Brunei Darussalam, the Marshall Islands, Palau, Tonga, and Tuvalu have
not ratified Convention No. 29. International Labour Organization, C029 - Forced Labour Convention, 1930 (No. 29),
Countries that have not ratified this convention, https://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:11310:0::NO::P11310_INSTRUMENT_ID:312174.
95 International Labour Organization, ILO Declaration on Fundamental Principles and Rights at Work, art. 2(b),https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_norm/---declaration/documents/normativeinstrument/wcms_716594.pdf.
96 Work Behind Bars, supra note 13, p. 3.
97 The fact that the United States permits companies to run prisons is also a violation of Convention No. 29, specifically art.
2(2)(c).
98 Megan Russo, Regulating Prison Labor, The Regulatory Review, Oct. 20, 2021, https://www.theregreview.org/2021/10/20/
russo-regulating-prison-labor/ [hereinafter Regulating Prison Labor]; Labor Law Doesn’t Apply If You’re in Prison, supra note
55; see also If Prison Workers Are Essential, We Should Treat Them Like It: Prison Labor in the US, Part I, Corporate Accountability
Lab, Aug. 5, 2020, https://corpaccountabilitylab.org/calblog/2020/8/5/if-prison-workers-are-essential-we-should-treatthem-like-it-prison-labor-in-the-us-part-i.
99 Regulating Prison Labor, supra note 98.
100 See Q&As on Business and Forced Labour, supra note 91. This report highlights examples of instances when incarcerated
workers were threatened with a loss of privileges for refusing to work.
101 The United States ratified in 1991, see International Labor Organization, Ratifications of C105 - Abolition of Forced
Labour Convention, 1957 (No. 105), https://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=NORMLEXPUB:11300:0::NO::P11300_
INSTRUMENT_ID:312250.
102 Abolition of Forced Labour Convention, 1957, No. 105, art. 1 (e), supra note 85.
103 International Labour Conference, Report of the Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions andRecommendations, p. 230, para. 138, 1962, https://www.ilo.org/public/libdoc/ilo/P/09661/09661(1962-46-IV)191-289.pdf.
104 Committee of Experts on the Application of Conventions and Recommendations, Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted
2020, published 109th ILC session (2021), Abolition of Forced Labour Convention, 1957 (No. 105) - United States ofAmerica (Ratification: 1991), https://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?p=1000:13100:0::NO:13100:P13100_COMMENT_
ID:4046585.
105 Work Behind Bars, supra note 13, p. 5.
106 See generally The New Jim Crow, supra note 5; Stamped from the Beginning: supra note 5.
107 Report of The Sentencing Project to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Racism, Racial
Discrimination, Xenophobia, and Related Intolerance Regarding Racial Disparities in the United States Criminal Justice
System, March 2018, p. 1, https://www.sentencingproject.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/UN-Report-on-RacialDisparities.pdf (“African Americans are more likely than white Americans to be arrested; once arrested, they are more
likely to be convicted; and once convicted, and they are more likely to experience lengthy prison sentences.”); The New
Jim Crow, supra note 5, p. 123.
108 Mandela Rules, Rule 99(2), https://documents-dds-ny.un.org/doc/UNDOC/GEN/N15/443/41/PDF/N1544341.
pdf?OpenElement.
109 Mandela Rules, Rule 100(1).
110 Mandela Rules, Rule 100(2).
111 Two of the three companies highlighted in this report, Hickman’s Family Farms and Dickinson Frozen Foods, oversee
incarcerated workers. Workers labor on at least three different Hickman’s Family Farm’s locations. In PIECP (the federal
program that allows state prison systems to form joint ventures with companies), of which Dickinson Frozen Foods is apart, workers frequently work outside the prison on company property. See Arizona Correctional Industries, Hickman’s
Family Farms, Buckeye, AZ, https://aci.az.gov/casestudy/hickman%E2%80%99s-family-farms-buckeye-az [hereinafter
Hickman’s Family Farms, Buckeye, AZ]; Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program (PIECP:) Compliance Guide, supranote 73, p. 5.
112 Dani Anguiano, US Prison Workers Produce $11bn Worth of Goods and Services a Year for Pittance, The Guardian, June 15,2022, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2022/jun/15/us-prison-workers-low-wages-exploited; Leah Wang, The
State Prison Experience: Too Much Drudgery, Not Enough Opportunity, Prison Policy Initiative, Sept. 2, 2022,
https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2022/09/02/prison_opportunities/.
113 International Labour Organization, ILO Forced Labour Convention (No. 29), art. 2, https://www.ilo.org/dyn/normlex/en/f?
p=NORMLEXPUB:12100:0::NO::P12100_ILO_CODE:C029.
114 ILO Indicators of Forced Labor, https://www.ilo.org/wcmsp5/groups/public/---ed_norm/---declaration/documents/
publication/wcms_203832.pdf.
115 Id.
116 Captive Labor, supra note 14, p. 5 (citing the U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Survey of Prison
Inmates, United States, 2016. Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [distributor], (Sept. 2021),
https://doi.org/10.3886/ICPSR37692.v4. This figure is based on the ACLU and University of Chicago Law School’s Global
Human Rights Clinic’s analysis of the published raw survey data.)
91
92
93
94

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117 Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program (PIECP): Compliance Guide, supra note 73, p. 23.
118 Captive Labor, supra note 14, p. 70.
119 See e.g., Code of Ala. § 14-9041 (creates a categorical class system where prisoners who “are able to work and refuse”
are Class IV which results in the person not accruing any good time for a deduction in sentence term. Basically, unless aperson works, they are not able to start accruing time off for good behavior); A.R.S. § 41-1604.07(D) (“On reclassificationof a prisoner resulting from the prisoner’s failure to adhere to the rules of the department or failure to demonstrate acontinual willingness to volunteer for or successfully participate in a work, educational, treatment or training program,the director may declare all release credits earned by the prisoner forfeited. In the discretion of the director, forfeitedrelease credits may subsequently be restored. The director shall maintain an account of release credits earned by eachprisoner.); 11 Del. C. § 6532(h) (“The Department is authorized to revoke previously earned good time (whether such
good time was earned pursuant to this section or other provisions of this title) from inmates who refuse to perform
labor as required by the Department pursuant to this section.”); MCLS § 801.85 (requires a prisoner to “cooperate withthe county in seeking reimbursement under this act for expenses incurred by the county for that prisoner” and a refusal
disqualifies them from “a reduction in his or her term”.); T.C.A. § 41-2-123 and T.C.A. § 41-2-146 (Those who refuse to work
will lose two days of sentence reduction credit for every day refused, or if there are no such credits, can be confined insolitary confinement or other such punishment.).
120 N.C. GEN. STAT. §148-26 (a) (2022).
121 N.C. GEN. STAT. § 148-46.1. (2022).
122 Lamar v. CDOC, 21CA0511, (Colo. App. 2022).
123 Id.
124 Allison Sherry, Prisoners Allege Forced Labor Violates Colorado’s Anti-Slavery Law, CPR News, Feb. 15, 2022,
https://www.cpr.org/2022/02/15/prisoners-allege-forced-labor-violates-states-anti-slavery-law/.
125 Id.
126 Arizona Changed How it Sells Prisoners to Companies, supra note 15; see also Rehabilitate Prisoners? Actually, Arizona’s Prison
Labor Program is More Like Slavery, AZ Central, July 31, 2022,
https://www.azcentral.com/story/opinion/editorial/2022/07/31/arizona-prison-labor-system-like-modern-dayslavery/10166194002/ [hereinafter Rehabilitate Prisoners? Actually, Arizona’s Prison Labor Program is More Like Slavery].
127 See, e.g., Arizona Correctional Industries, Achieving Balance: 2020 Annual Report, 2020, p. 20, https://aci.az.gov/sites/
default/files/ACI_AR_2020.pdf [hereinafter Achieving Balance: 2020 Annual Report]. However, some programs operate at aloss.
128 See generally Captive Labor, supra note 14, pp. 47-50.
129 Agricultural and food products constitute a major sector of goods produced with prison labor. This is reflected in the
choice of two companies that we highlight: Hickman’s Family Farms and Dickinson Frozen Foods. However, while foodsupply chains proved to be some of the more feasible to trace, prison labor exists within many domestic industries,
including call centers, meat packing, defense production, textiles, appliances, and furniture production.
130 18 USC § 1761(b).
131 Arizona Correctional Industries, Thinking Forward: 2021 Annual Report, 2021, p. 3, https://aci.az.gov/sites/default/
files/2021%20Annual%20Report.pdf [hereinafter Thinking Forward: 2021 Annual Report].
132 Achieving Balance: 2020 Annual Report, supra note 127, p. 20.
133 See id., p. 20; Thinking Forward: 2021 Annual Report, supra note 131, p. 3.
134 Rehabilitate Prisoners? Actually, Arizona’s Prison Labor Program is More Like Slavery, supra note 126.
135 See Captive Labor, supra note 14, p. 33; Achieving Balance: 2020 Annual Report, supra note 127, p. 21.
136 Achieving Balance: 2020 Annual Report, supra note 127.
137 Hickman’s Family Farms, About, https://hickmanseggs.com/about.
138 Hickman’s Egg Ranch, Inc., Mergent Intellect, https://www.mergentintellect.com/index.php/search/companyDetails/35864263.
139 Id.
140 Chad Marks, Hickman’s Egg Farm Puts Prisoners to Work at High Cost to the Community, Residents Say, Prison Legal News,
Dec. 10, 2019, https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2019/dec/10/hickmans-egg-farm-puts-prisoners-work-high-costcommunity-residents-say [hereinafter Hickman’s Egg Farm Puts Prisoners to Work at High Cost to the Community].
141 Hickman’s Family Farms, Find Our Eggs, https://hickmanseggs.com/find-our-eggs.
142 Hickman’s Family Farms, Buckeye, AZ, supra note 111.
143 Id.
144 Id.; Arizona Department of Corrections Rehabilitation & Reentry, Perryville, https://corrections.az.gov/location/19/
perryville.
145 Hickman’s Family Farms, Buckeye, AZ, supra note 111.
146 Id.
147 Hickman’s Family Farms, How It Works, https://hickmanseggs.com/rch/how-it-works [hereinafter How It Works].
148 Indeed, Hickman’s Family Farms, Hickman’s Family Farms salaries: How much does Hickman’s Family Farms pay?,
https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Hickman%27s-Family-Farms/salaries.

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149 Captive Labor, supra note 14, p. 42; Arizona Auditor General, Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation andReentry, Capital Projects Funding and Department Finances, Performance Audit, Oct. 2020, pp. 20-21, 23,https://www.azauditor.gov/sites/default/files/20-109_Report.pdf. According to the 2020 ACI Audit report, Hickman’s
must pay ACI a “minimum wage surcharge,” which is the difference between the state minimum wage and the amount
paid to incarcerated workers, and an 11 percent fee on all gross wages paid. These profits go to ACI, not to workers.
150 Industrial Commission of Arizona, Labor Department – Minimum Wage, https://www.azica.gov/labor-minimum-wagemain-page.
151 A.R.S. § 31-254(E). For wages over $2 per hour, $0.50 per every hour is put in the worker’s “spendable account” (plusanother 10 percent of the amount left after mandatory deductions. Mandatory deductions include: 25 percent of thegross wage until the “discharge account” equals $250 ($50 if serving for life), 20 precent of the gross wage if the worker
initiates a lawsuit (not included in the calculation made here), 5 percent of the gross wage for the “transition program,”
30 percent of the gross wage for room and board, and 30 percent for court-ordered dependent care.
152 A.R.S. § 31-254(F)-(H).
153 Most Prisoners in Arizona Work for Pennies, supra note 15.
154 Captive Labor, supra note 14, p. 63; Hickman’s Blames Inmates for Injuries They Suffer While Working on Its Egg Farms,
Phoenix New Times, https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/hickmans-cfo-says-inmates-are-to-blame-for-workinjuries-11363596.
155 Arizona Changed How it Sells Prisoners to Companies, supra note 15.
156 Was That Made by Arizona Prison Labor?, supra note 15.
157 Hickman’s Egg Farm Puts Prisoners to Work at High Cost to the Community, supra note 140; Elizabeth Whitman, Barely
Trained Inmate Loses Finger Working at Hickman’s Egg Farm, Phoenix New Times, Sept. 12, 2019,https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/inmates-maricopa-county-arizona-injured-labor-hickman-eggfarms-11354362.
158 Hickman’s Egg Farm Puts Prisoners to Work at High Cost to the Community, supra note 140.
159 Id.
160 Josh Kelety, Hickman’s Family Farms’ Reliance on Prison Labor Is Starting to Yield Lots of Lawsuits, Phoenix New Times, June18, 2021,https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/hickmans-family-farms-hit-with-new-lawsuits-over-inmate-workerinjuries-11563930.
161 Hickman’s Egg Farm Puts Prisoners to Work at High Cost to the Community, supra note 140.
162 Arizona Department of Corrections Rehabilitation & Reentry, COVID-19 Management Updates, March 25, 2020,
https://corrections.az.gov/covid-19-management-updates?page=2; Achieving Balance: 2020 Annual Report, supra note
127, pp. 33-34; see also Jimmy Jenkins, Emails Show Hickman’s Lobbied Arizona Department of Corrections For ‘PermanentWork Camp’ To House Inmate Laborers, KJZZ, Aug. 19, 2020, https://kjzz.org/content/1610962/emails-show-hickmanslobbied-arizona-department-corrections-permanent-work-camp [hereinafter Emails Show Hickman’s Lobbied Arizona
Department of Corrections For ‘Permanent Work Camp’]; Elizabeth Whitman, Hickman’s Family Farms to House Arizona
Inmate Workers During COVID-19 Pandemic, Phoenix New Times, March 25, 2020, https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/
hickmans-egg-farm-to-house-its-prison-workers-during-pandemic-11460873 [hereinafter Hickman’s Family Farms to
House Arizona Inmate Workers]; Captive Labor, supra note 14, p. 71; Arizona Changed How it Sells Prisoners to Companies,
supra note 15.
163 Achieving Balance: 2020 Annual Report, supra note 127, p. 34.
164 Id., pp. 33-34.
165 Hickman’s Family Farms to House Arizona Inmate Workers, supra note 162. The quoted email was sent to Sue Braga, who
was formerly incarcerated at the Perryville prison.
166 Emails Show Hickman’s Lobbied Arizona Department of Corrections For ‘Permanent Work Camp’, supra note 162.
167 Dave Biscobing, Inmates Catch COVID-19 at Hickman’s Egg Farm, ABC Arizona, https://www.abc15.com/news/local-news/
investigations/inmates-catch-covid-19-at-hickmans-egg-farm.
168 Arizona Changed How it Sells Prisoners to Companies, supra note 15.
169 Id.
170 How It Works, supra note 147.
171 Was That Made by Arizona Prison Labor?, supra note 15.
172 Emails Show Hickman’s Lobbied Arizona Department of Corrections For ‘Permanent Work Camp’, supra note 162; see also
Arizona Changed How it Sells Prisoners to Companies, supra note 15.
173 How It Works, supra note 147.
174 Hickman’s Family Farms to House Arizona Inmate Workers, supra note 162.
175 Arizona Changed How it Sells Prisoners to Companies, supra note 15.
176 Id.
177 Id.
178 Hickman’s Family Farms to House Arizona Inmate Workers, supra note 162.
179 Arizona Revised Statutes, Title 41 § 1609(E).
180 Id.
181 Emails Show Hickman’s Lobbied Arizona Department of Corrections For ‘Permanent Work Camp’, supra note 162.

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182 Id.
183 UNICOR: Program Details, supra note 77; see generally, Factories With Fences: 75 Years of Changing Lives, UNICOR, 2009,https://www.unicor.gov/publications/corporate/CATMC1101_C.pdf.
184 Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Prisons, Federal Prison Industries, Inc.: Fiscal Year 2021 Annual Management
Report, Nov, 12, 2021, p. 7, https://www.unicor.gov/publications/reports/FY2021_AnnualMgmtReport.pdf [hereinafter
Federal Prison Industries, Inc.: Fiscal Year 2021 Annual Management Report].
185 Christopher Zoukis, Inmate Work Assignments in Federal Prison, Zoukis Consulting Group, Sept. 20, 2017,https://prisonerresource.com/inmate-work-assignments-federal-prison/; Federal Bureau of Prisons, Work Programs,
https://www.bop.gov/inmates/custody_and_care/work_programs.jsp#:~:text=Sentenced%20inmates%20are%20
required%20to,hour%20for%20these%20work%20assignments.
186 Federal Prison Industries, Inc.: Fiscal Year 2021 Annual Management Report, supra note 184, p. 11.
187 UNICOR: Program Details, supra note 77.
188 Id.
189 Customer and Private Sector Frequently Asked Questions, supra note 78.
190 Federal Prison Industries, Inc.: Fiscal Year 2021 Annual Management Report, supra note 184, p. 21.
191 Id.
192 Id., p. 8.
193 UNICOR: Program Details, supra note 77.
194 UNICOR, Doing Business with UNICOR, https://www.unicor.gov/BusinessOpportunities.aspx.
195 Commercial Customers, supra note 79.
196 Work with UNICOR and Help Make Repatriation a Reality, p. 4, supra note 80.
197 Nichola Groom, Prison Labor Helps U.S. Solar Company Manufacture at Home, Reuters, June 10, 2015,
https://www.reuters.com/article/solar-prison-suniva-idUSL1N0YV2ZJ20150610.
198 Id.
199 Id.
200 Lan Cao, Made in the USA: Race, Trade, and Prison Labor, N.Y.U. Review of Law & Social Change, Vol. 43:1, 2019, p. 5,
https://socialchangenyu.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/Lan-Cao_RLSC_43.1.pdf [hereinafter Made in the USA: Race,
Trade, and Prison Labor].
201 Chris Caesar, Bureau of Prisons Refuses to Name Businesses that Employ Prison Labor: UNICOR Cites Deliberative Privilege toWithhold List of Contractors, Muckrock, March 27, 2014, https://www.muckrock.com/news/archives/2014/mar/27/bureauprisons-refuses-name-businesses-employ-pris.
202 See generally AM General, Who We Are, https://www.amgeneral.com/who-we-are/; https://www.mergentintellect.com/
index.php/search/companyDetails/54681739 [hereinafter Who We Are].
203 AM General, Our History, https://www.amgeneral.com/who-we-are/our-history. When awarded the first contract in 1861,
the company operated under the name Studebaker.
204 The HigherGov Docs, https://docs.highergov.com/ (search filtered for defense contracts awarded to AM General since 1997).
205 Highergov.com search. The contracts and subcontracts are listed in the public database, Highergov.com. Beyond thisrecord of a relationship between UNICOR and AM General, we found the following information: ACC-Detroit, the agency
that awarded the primary contracts to AM General, “provides comprehensive acquisition, contracting, business advisory,
production support and depot-level maintenance services” and “supports Warfighters by procuring systems, researchand development, repair parts and services, including, but not limited to: Combat and tactical vehicles/trailers.” U.S.
Army, Army Contracting Command, Detroit Arsenal, https://acc.army.mil/files/ACC-DTA%20Fact%20Sheet%202021.pdf;
see also U.S. Army, Army Contracting Command: Subcontracting, https://acc.army.mil/smallbusiness/sub_contracting.
html. ACC-Detroit is also the headquarters for the Red River Army Depot, which has entered into a partnership with
AM General “to refurbish and upgrade older Humvee models.” Lincoln Wright, AM General soldiers on after losing federal
contract: Company adapts after losing bid for JLTV contract, South Bend Tribune, Sept. 27, 2015,
https://www.southbendtribune.com/story/business/2015/09/27/am-general-soldiers-on-after-losing-federalcontrac/46412351/. On its website, the Red River Army Depot states that it works to refurbish Humvees and has signed
over 40 teaming agreements and 200 partnering contracts since 2002. Red River Army Depot website,
https://redriver.army.mil/rradsite/pages/aboutrrad.html. In addition to this, the Detroit Army Corps of Engineers admits
to using UNICOR for equipment recycling and refurbishment, including for vehicles. Emily Schaefer, Logistics teamremoves area offices’ excess equipment, USACE, Detroit District, Sept. 16, 2021, https://www.lre.usace.army.mil/Media/
News-Stories/Article/2777062/logistics-team-removes-area-offices-excess-equipment/.
206 The HigherGov Docs, https://docs.highergov.com/.
207 The HigherGov Docs, https://docs.highergov.com/ (contract numbers: W56HZV18C0177, W56HZV17D0071W56HZV19F0018, W56HZV17D0071-W56HZV20F0246, W56HZV17D0071-W56HZV20F0302, W56HZV18D0084W56HZV20F0260, and W56HZV17D0071-W56HZV20F0398 (three awards under this contract) / subcontract numbers:
968116970 (five awards under this subcontract), 0968116970-0071-0398-08, 0968116970-0071-0398-12, and
0968116970-0071-0398-11). On October 18, 2022, a CAL staff member spoke with the management office for UNICOR’s
Vehicle Uplift, Remanufacturing, and Fleet Services program. When asked whether UNICOR worked with AM General, theprogram manager could not say for sure but confirmed that he/she/they thought UNICOR did work with AM General.

46208 The HigherGov Docs, https://docs.highergov.com/ (contract numbers: W56HZV18C0177, W56HZV17D0071W56HZV19F0018, W56HZV17D0071-W56HZV20F0246, W56HZV17D0071-W56HZV20F0302, W56HZV18D0084W56HZV20F0260, and W56HZV17D0071-W56HZV20F0398 (three awards under this contract)).
209 UNICOR, Fleet Heavy Equipment Remanufacturing Services, https://www.unicor.gov/Product.aspx?idproduct=3896;
UNICOR, Speakers, https://www.unicor.gov/Category.aspx?idCategory=291.
210 The HigherGov Docs, https://docs.highergov.com/ (contract numbers: W56HZV18C0177, W56HZV17D0071W56HZV19F0018, W56HZV17D0071-W56HZV20F0246, W56HZV17D0071-W56HZV20F0302, W56HZV18D0084W56HZV20F0260, and W56HZV17D0071-W56HZV20F0398 (three awards under this contract) / subcontract numbers:
968116970 (five awards under this subcontract), 0968116970-0071-0398-08, 0968116970-0071-0398-12, and 09681169700071-0398-11). AM General was awarded $59.9 million, $207.1 million, $23.5 million, $124 million, $107.3 million, and $365
million for these contracts, respectively (totaling $886.8 million). UNICOR was awarded $274.4K, $102.4K, $194.3K, $423.6K,$30.3K, $1.4 million, $51.3K, and $97.3K for these subcontracts, respectively (totaling $2.57 million).
211 See UNICOR: Program Details, supra note 77.
212 AM General, Code of Conduct and Business Ethics, p. 13, https://www.amgeneral.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/
Code-of-Conduct.-Business-Ethics-2019.pdf.
213 Who We Are, supra note 202.
214 KPS Capital Partners, LP, Transforming Manufacturing and Industrial Businesses, https://www.kpsfund.com/; KPS CapitalPartners, LP, Working with Unions, https://www.kpsfund.com/about/union-relationships.
215 See e.g., Anita Sarah Jackson, et al., Toxic Sweatshops: How UNICOR Prison Recycling Harms Workers, Communities, theEnvironment, and the Recycling Industry, Center for Environmental Health , Oct. 2006, p. 6, https://static.prisonpolicy.org/
scans/ToxicSweatshops.pdf [hereinafter Toxic Sweatshops]; Cary Aspinwall, et al., Federal Prison Factories Kept Running as
Coronavirus Spread, The Marshall Project, April 10, 2020, https://www.themarshallproject.org/2020/04/10/federal-prisonfactories-kept-running-as-coronavirus-spread [hereinafter Federal Prison Factories Kept Running as Coronavirus Spread];
Safia Samee Ali, Federal Prison-Owned ‘Factories With Fences’ Facing Increased Scrutiny, NBC News, Sept. 4, 2016,
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/federal-prison-owned-factories-fences-face-scrutiny-n639791.
216 See e.g., United States General Accounting Office, Report to the Honorable Harry Reid, U.S. Senate, Prison Labor:
Perspectives on Paying the Federal Minimum Wage, United States General Accounting Office, May 1993, p. 5,
https://www.gao.gov/assets/ggd-93-98.pdf.
217 U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector General, The Federal Bureau of Prisons’ Inmate Financial Responsibility
Program, Report No. I-2000-023, 2000, https://oig.justice.gov/reports/BOP/e0023/intro.htm#:~:text=The%20purpose%20
of%20the%20IFRP,BOP%20institutions%2C%20including%20contract%20facilities.
218 Id.
219 28 C.F.R. § 545.10.
220 Id.
221 UNICOR: Program Details, supra note 77.
222 28 C.F.R. § 545.11(b)(1)−(2). Minimum payments may be higher based upon the inmate’s particular circumstances. Staff
are to exclude a certain amount from this assessment, deposited into the inmate’s trust fund account for telephone
communications. 28 C.F.R. § 545.11(b).
223 U.S. Department of Labor, Minimum Wage, https://www.dol.gov/general/topic/wages/minimumwage.
224 28 C.F.R. § 545.11(d).
225 28 C.F.R. § 545.11; 28 C.F.R. § 545.11; see also United States v. Boyd, 608 F.3d 331, 333−34 (7th Cir. 2010) (holding thatparticipation in the IFRP must be voluntary; while an incarcerated worker may lose the above specified privileges forrefusing to participate, a court cannot compel program participation).
226 Work with UNICOR and Help Make Repatriation a Reality, p. 5, supra note 80.
227 United States Government Accountability Office, Report to Congressional Committees, Federal Prison Industries: Actions
Needed to Evaluate Program Effectiveness, July 2020, https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-20-505.pdf.
228 Id.
229 Kerry Michele Richmond, Factories with Fences: The Effect of Prison Industries on Female Inmates, Dissertation submitted to
the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Maryland, College Park (2009).
230 UNICOR, Fact or Fiction Frequently Asked Questions, https://www.unicor.gov/fact_v_fiction.aspx.
231 Toxic Sweatshops, supra note 215, p. 6.
232 Id., p. 15.
233 Federal Prison Factories Kept Running as Coronavirus Spread, supra note 215.
234 Id.; Maurice Chammah, Coronavirus Ended His Shot at a Second Chance, The Marshall Project, April 3, 2020,
https://www.themarshallproject.org/2020/04/03/coronavirus-ended-his-shot-at-a-second-chance.
235 Federal Prison Factories Kept Running as Coronavirus Spread, supra note 215.
236 Id.
237 Id.
238 This quote is from a phone interview between a former UNICOR worker and a CAL staff attorney on October 12, 2022.
The former UNICOR worker asked to remain anonymous.

47

239 The program also exempts certified entities from the restriction on the use of inmate labor for federal government
contracts exceeding $10,000. See The Justice System Improvement Act of 1979 (Public Law 96-157, Sec. 827); The Crime
Control Act of 1990 (Public Law 101-647); About PIECP, supra note 82. Under the Crime Control Act of 1990, the programis indefinitely authorized. Id.; The Crime Control Act of 1990 (Public Law 101-647).
240 National Correctional Industries Association, Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program Certification &Cost Accounting Center Listing: Statistics for the Quarter Ending June 30, 2022, https://www.nationalcia.org/_files/
ugd/569cf7_9f455783046546e88dae7eb750f5c849.pdf [hereinafter Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program
Certification & Cost Accounting Center Listing: Statistics for the Quarter Ending June 30, 2022].
241 Bureau of Justice Assistance, Program Brief: Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program, p. 3,
https://bja.ojp.gov/sites/g/files/xyckuh186/files/Publications/PIECP-Program-Brief_2018.pdf.
242 18 U.S.C. 1761(c)(2); Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program (PIECP): Compliance Guide, supra note 73, p. 16.
243 South Dakota Department of Corrections, Department of Corrections Policies and Procedures, June 1, 2022,
https://doc.sd.gov/documents/1.5.A%202%20Prison%20Industry%20Enhancement%20Certification%20Program612022.pdf.
244 Id.
245 See SDCL § 24-7-3(2).
246 Prison Labor in the United States: An Investor Perspective, supra note 11, p. 22. For example, a prison could have various
facilities that make sub-assembly pieces that are sold to the prison industry itself where inmates may be paid thestandard prison wage for their labor (such as one facility producing legs for a chair, one facility producing chaircushions), and then inmates who assemble the final product for the final PIECP customer are paid PIECP wages. Bob
Sloan, PIECP, Prison Labor, Prison Industries Violations, PIECP Program Violations Web Site, http://prison-labor.50megs.com/
rich_text_1.html.
247 See Bob Sloan, The Prison Industries Enhancement Certification Program: Why Everyone Should be Concerned, Prison Legal
News, March 15, 2010, https://www.prisonlegalnews.org/news/2010/mar/15/the-prison-industries-enhancementcertification-program-why-everyone-should-be-concerned/ [hereinafter The Prison Industries Enhancement Certification
Program: Why Everyone Should be Concerned].
248 Id.
249 Id.
250 Made in the USA: Race, Trade, and Prison Labor, supra note 200, pp. 27-28 (citing The Prison Industries Enhancement
Certification Program: Why Everyone Should be Concerned, supra note 247).
251 Prison Labor in the United States: An Investor Perspective, supra note 11, p. 22.
252 National Correctional Industries Association, About NCIA, https://www.nationalcia.org/about.
253 The Prison Industries Enhancement Certification Program: Why Everyone Should be Concerned, supra note 247.
254 Oregon Potato Company, Dickinson Frozen Foods, https://www.oregonpotato.com/companies/dickinson-frozen-foods/[hereinafter Dickinson Frozen Foods].
255 National Correctional Industries Association, Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program Certification & Cost
Accounting Center Listing: Statistics for the Quarter Ending March 31, 2022, p. 11, https://www.nationalcia.org/_files/
ugd/569cf7_f35ce93f268641018ad08c58f2230c28.pdf [hereinafter Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program
Certification & Cost Accounting Center Listing: Statistics for the Quarter Ending March 31, 2022]. In the third quarter of 2021,
the two plants collectively employed 93 incarcerated workers. That number then soared to 526 in the first quarter of2022, before dropping to 100 in the second quarter of 2022. See National Correctional Industries Association, Prison
Industry Enhancement Certification Program Certification & Cost Accounting Center Listing: Statistics for the Quarter Ending
September 30, 2021, 11, https://www.nationalcia.org/_files/ugd/569cf7_0ab8d011f21b4127b18d15c77d104f45.pdf;
Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program Certification & Cost Accounting Center Listing: Statistics for the Quarter
Ending March 31, 2022, supra note 255, p. 11; Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program Certification & Cost
Accounting Center Listing: Statistics for the Quarter Ending: Statistics for the Quarter Ending June 30, 2022, supra note 240.
256 Dickinson Frozen Foods, supra note 254.
257 See Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program Certification & Cost Accounting Center Listing: Statistics for the
Quarter Ending March 31, 2022, supra note 255, p. 11.
258 Prison Labor and The Private Sector, supra note 43.
259 H. Claire Brown, This Under-the-Radar Supply Chain Routes Food From Prisons to Hospitals, Food Banks, and Even Schools, The
Counter, May 25, 2021, https://thecounter.org/this-under-the-radar-supply-chain-routes-food-from-prisons-to-hospitalsfood-banks-and-even-schools/ [hereinafter This Under-the-Radar Supply Chain Routes Food From Prisons to Hospitals, Food
Banks, and Even Schools].
260 Id.
261 Dickinson Frozen Foods, supra note 254.
262 Dickinson Frozen Foods, Inc., Mergent Intellect, https://www.mergentintellect.com/index.php/search/companyFinancials/153972922.
263 Id.
264 This Under-the-Radar Supply Chain Routes Food From Prisons to Hospitals, Food Banks, and Even Schools, supra note 259.
265 Dickinson Frozen Foods, Indeed.com (visited Oct. 10, 2022), https://www.indeed.com/cmp/Dickinson-Frozen-Foods/salaries.
266 This Under-the-Radar Supply Chain Routes Food From Prisons to Hospitals, Food Banks, and Even Schools, supra note 259.

48

267 Id.
268 Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program (PIECP): Compliance Guide, supra note 73, p. 23.
269 Id.
270 Id.
271 U.S. Department of Labor, OSHA Cites Idaho Potato Processor for Major Safety and Health Violations: Dickinson Frozen
Foods to Pay $273K After December 2015 Ammonia Release, May 31, 2016, https://www.osha.gov/news/newsreleases/
region10/05312016 [hereainfter OSHA Cites Idaho Potato Processor for Major Safety and Health Violations].
272 The citation states that the employer did not train or communicate with employees, was not prepared in emergency
recognition and prevention measures, decontamination procedures, and had inadequate protective clothing
and respirators that were not fit tested or medically cleared for use by the maintenance employees. Citation and
Notification of Penalty, inspection number 1124372, 1/5/2016, issued 5/25/2016, https://www.osha.gov/ooc/citations/
DickinsonFrozenFoods1124372.pdf.
273 Citation and Notification of Penalty, inspection number 2016/5/1 ,1124372, issued 2016/25/5, https://www.osha.gov/
ooc/citations/DickinsonFrozenFoods1124372.pdf.
274 Associated Press, Feds: Dickinson Frozen Foods Fined $273K for Releasing Dangerous Gas, Idaho News, May 31, 2016,
https://idahonews.com/news/local/feds-dickinson-frozen-foods-fined-273k-for-releasing-dangerous-gas.
275 OSHA Cites Idaho Potato Processor for Major Safety and Health Violations, supra note 271.
276 Id.
277 Potato Processor Dickinson Frozen Food Fined 273K for Health and Safety Violations Related to Ammonia Leak, Potato Pro,
June 2, 2016, https://www.potatopro.com/news/2016/potato-processor-dickinson-frozen-food-fined-273k-health-andsafety-violations-related.
278 United States Department of Labor, Occupational Safety and Health Administration, Inspection Detail: 1307189.015 Dickinson Frozen Foods, Inc., April 2, 2018, https://www.osha.gov/pls/imis/establishment.inspection_detail?id=1307189.015.
279 See, e.g., Stian Rice, Convicts are Returning to Farming – Anti-Immigrant Policies are the Reason, The Conversation, June 7,
2019, https://theconversation.com/convicts-are-returning-to-farming-anti-immigrant-policies-are-the-reason-117152; H.
Claire Brown, Idaho Inmates are Picking Apricots, The Counter, Oct. 19, 2017, https://thecounter.org/idaho-inmates-pickingapricots-immigration/.
280 Incarceration: A Tool for Racial Segregation and Labor Exploitation, supra note 2, p. 9.

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