The Uncounted Workforce
Prison labor has been a part of the U.S. economy since at least the late 19th century. Today it's a multi-billion dollar industry. Incarcerated people do everything from building office furniture and making military equipment, to staffing call centers and doing 3D modeling.
This industry is not well understood. Incarcerated workers are not included in official employment statistics and there's not a ton or economic research done on this topic, so it can be difficult to know just how substantial this sector of our economy actually is.
Today on the show, we bring you one person's story of working behind bars, and we look at what it can tell us about how America's prison labor system functions.
Music by Drop Electric. Find us: Twitter / Facebook / Newsletter.
Subscribe to our show on Apple Podcasts, PocketCasts and NPR One.
Correction Jan. 23, 2021
In an earlier version of this episode and in the Web introduction, we said several companies had relied on the labor of incarcerated people in past decades. One of those companies, AT&T, disputed the claim. We relied on sourcing from decades ago, but after review, could not independently and directly confirm those sources today. We have removed the language related to that.