The Price of Freedom: When Incarceration Becomes America’s Business Model

Unpaid labor, billion-dollar profits and the unfinished work of emancipation in the so-called land of the free 

An inmate describes working as “the closest to freedom” they feel in prison, but the working conditions still make them feel ”cheap“. Image credit: Shutterstock 

In Georgia’s prison system, work “details” are advertised to incarcerated people as opportunities — “freedom behind the wall.” But behind the rhetoric lies a stark truth: Prison labor is a finely tuned economic engine, enriching governments and corporations while extracting billions in unpaid labor from the very people it incarcerates. In a nation that pledges liberty as its highest value, the axis between freedom and slave labor is not just historical. It remains alive, running straight through our prisons. 

Economists argue this system is not only unjust but economically shortsighted. An Economic Policy Institute report estimated ending forced prison labor and paying fair wages would yield a net benefit of $20.3 billion per year, with $10.8 billion flowing to the South alone. 

The Prison Policy Initiative estimates in 2025, the U.S. will spend $80.7 billion annually on public prisons and jails, plus another $3.9 billion on private facilities. But profitability doesn’t end with housing costs. Nationwide, prison labor alone generates more than $2 billion in goods and services every year. Despite producing that value, most incarcerated people earn only pennies per hour — and in many states, nothing at all. Georgia, Texas, Arkansas, and Alabama are among those that routinely deny pay for core maintenance and support labor. On the federal level, the UNICOR program pays between 23 cents and $1.15 per hour, while allowing up to half of those wages to be garnished for restitution, taxes, or “room and board.” 

This is the fault line America has never resolved: the contradiction of a country that brands itself the “land of the free,” yet keeps freedom rationed, conditional, and commodified. As activist Angela Davis has long argued, “Prisons aren’t just flawed instruments; they’re instrumental in preserving racial and economic hierarchies.” 

“Teaching these men to read and write feels like planting seeds in concrete,” says Carter, an incarcerated GED instructor in a Georgia facility (who requested we use only his last name). “They’re desperate for knowledge, but knowing the system doesn’t value them — or care that they are eventually released — makes me feel helpless. Labor is worth more than education here. I watch students leave my classroom and return to unpaid work. This system won’t let them be free, even if they’re educated.” 

Economists argue this system is not only unjust but economically shortsighted. An Economic Policy Institute report estimated ending forced prison labor and paying fair wages would yield a net benefit of $20.3 billion per year, with $10.8 billion flowing to the South alone. A Worth Rises analysis went further, projecting annual benefits of up to $34.7 billion when factoring in reduced recidivism, higher family earnings, and increased tax revenue. Meanwhile, incarcerated workers are asked to maintain entire facilities without pay. Jamal, a maintenance worker, (who requested we use his first name) described it this way: “I fix lights, plumbing, paint, build and even load tool carts — all without money. The paid staff member walks around on the phone all day. He gets paid lunches. I get a pack-out bologna sandwich. Before prison, I was an HVAC tech. They use me instead of outside help to save money, and I make nothing. They call it a detail. I call it hard labor.” Jamal has served 11 years and for 6 of those he has made the administrative sections of the prison sparkle and gleam for corrections officials, legislators and others who might visit. He says that, all things considered, it’s not a terrible detail assignment, considering he use to work on a prison farm. 

This reality has deep roots. The 13th Amendment, ratified in 1865, abolished slavery “except as punishment for crime.” That exception gave rise to convict leasing, in which Southern states supplied Black incarcerated people to corporations. By 1898, convict labor generated nearly 73% of Alabama’s annual revenue. Though formally abolished in the 20th century, the practice never disappeared; it simply evolved into today’s unpaid prison labor system. 

And while some states have appeared to push back by passing voter-approved constitutional reforms, the results are uneven. In 2022, Alabama voters ratified a new constitution that deleted the punishment exception from its slavery provision. Section 32 now reads: “That no form of slavery shall exist in this state; and there shall not be any involuntary servitude.” Previously, the section had permitted slavery and involuntary servitude “for the punishment of crime.” 

The reality has proven far more complicated.  

Incarcerated people and advocates report compelled labor persists in practice, with those who refuse to work seeing punishment or coercion into programs under threat of discipline. Ongoing litigation now challenges the state to honor the constitutional change, arguing administrative rules and correctional policies continue to enforce practices that contradict the amendment’s plain language. In short, although the law on paper now rejects prison slavery outright, the lived experience for many inside remains unchanged. 

Mr. Smith, assigned to the laundry detail in a Georgia prison (who requested we use only his last name), explained how blurred the line is between labor and exploitation: “I do the count sheets, fill out audit forms — everything. The officer in charge makes $24 an hour plus overtime. I get no pay, just a packed lunch. This is the closest to freedom I’ve felt in prison, but it makes me feel cheap. How can I say no?” 

This is the fault line America has never resolved: the contradiction of a country that brands itself the “land of the free,” yet keeps freedom rationed, conditional, and commodified. As activist Angela Davis has long argued, “Prisons aren’t just flawed instruments; they’re instrumental in preserving racial and economic hierarchies.” 

The metaphor of prison as modern slavery is not figurative but literal. Incarcerated people are working without pay or dignity; their humanity is secondary to their utility. Rehabilitation collapses under profiteering. Families — already struggling — shoulder the additional burden of fees, markups and lost income. The struggle over prison labor is ultimately a struggle over what freedom means. If liberty is treated as a privilege, withheld from some and weaponized for profit, then the promise of emancipation remains unfinished. To break this cycle, society must move beyond punishment as a business model and embrace freedom as a public good: investing in education, jobs, housing and health rather than cages and coerced labor. 

As Mr. Carter, Mr. Jamal and Mr. Smith make clear, each paycheck denied is a freedom stolen. Their voices remind us behind every dollar earned by this shadow workforce lies the human cost of a system that continues to profit from oppression. Until that axis shifts — until freedom outweighs slavery — America cannot claim its promise of liberty fulfilled.