Highway Signs and Prison Labor

Summary

Freakonomics Radio: Highway Signs and Prison Labor - A Comprehensive Summary

Release Date: January 6, 2025
Episode: Highway Signs and Prison Labor
Host: Zachary Crockett
Produced by: Freakonomics Radio + Stitcher

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Introduction

In this compelling episode of Freakonomics Radio's special series, "Economics of Everyday Things," host Zachary Crockett delves into the intricate world of highway sign manufacturing and the pervasive role of prison labor in this seemingly mundane industry. Through on-the-ground reporting in Bunn, North Carolina, Crockett uncovers the hidden economic decisions, historical contexts, and ethical dilemmas that shape the production of the highway signs we see every day.

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Manufacturing Highway Signs in Bunn, North Carolina

Bunn, a modest town with a population of fewer than 330, houses North Carolina's primary highway sign manufacturing plant. Managed by Lee Blackman, the facility operates behind secured gates, producing a vast array of road signs essential for traffic management across American highways.

Key Operations:

• Production Processes: Workers shear aluminum panels, apply green adhesive sheets, and meticulously space letters to craft signs ranging from stop signs to extensive guide signs.
• Scale of Production: The plant is responsible for millions of highway signs, ensuring consistency and reliability in road signage nationwide.

Notable Quote:
Lee Blackman [02:36]: "This sign right here is 12 foot tall. This is going somewhere on Interstate 95 in North Carolina."

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The Economics and Design Standards of Highway Signs

Behind every sign lies a complex web of economic decisions and regulatory standards aimed at ensuring uniformity and effectiveness.

Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD):
Established in the 1930s and currently managed by the Federal Highway Administration, the MUTCD is a comprehensive 1,200-page manual that standardizes over 500 types of traffic signs, markings, and signals across the United States.

Design Considerations:

• Typeface and Spacing: Utilizing the specialized "highway gothic" font with increased letter spacing for legibility at high speeds.
• Color Selection: Green was chosen in the 1950s for its superior retroreflectivity, enhancing visibility under headlights.
• Size and Shape: Specific dimensions ensure recognizability and consistency, such as the octagonal shape for stop signs.

Notable Quotes:
Gene Hawkins [07:36]: "The spacing between the letters in the highway Alphabet is much greater than the spacing between letters on a printed page for reading."
Gene Hawkins [16:54]: "It's not a whole lot of leeway."

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The Role of Prison Labor in Highway Sign Manufacturing

The Bunn sign plant operates within the Franklin Correctional Center, a medium-security prison staffed predominantly by incarcerated individuals. This integration allows the state to manufacture signs at significantly reduced costs.

Economic Advantages:

• Cost Efficiency: Labor costs are drastically lower, with prisoners earning between 13 cents to 52 cents per hour, compared to an average labor cost of 25-35% in typical businesses.
• Revenue Generation: Service signs featuring corporate logos serve as advertisements, providing an additional revenue stream for the state.

Operational Insights:

• Production Oversight: Renee Roach of the North Carolina Department of Transportation manages the placement and maintenance of signs, ensuring they meet stringent quality standards.
• Manufacturing Process: From blueprinting to final assembly, the production of a single large highway sign can take up to 12 hours, involving precise craftsmanship by inmate workers.

Notable Quotes:
Renee Roach [12:30]: "We want to make sure that we get a good quality product because we want it out there for 20 years. We've got to be good stewards of the taxpayers money."
Lee Blackman [16:42]: "These letters can only be off an eighth of an inch."

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Impact and Implications of Prison Labor in Production

Ethical Considerations:

• Labor Classification: Prisoners are classified as non-market workers, exempting employers from adhering to minimum wage laws and standard employment protections.
• Voluntary vs. Coercive: While prison programs often portray employment as voluntary, in reality, participation can be pressured, with disciplinary actions looming for refusals.

Benefits and Drawbacks:

• State Savings: Correction Enterprises, the entity overseeing prison-run manufacturing, reported $121 million in sales with minimal labor costs, passing substantial savings onto taxpayers.
• Limited Worker Protections: Inmates lack access to workplace safety regulations and workers' compensation, raising concerns about the exploitation of vulnerable populations.
• Recidivism and Skill Development: Although intended to equip prisoners with marketable skills to reduce reoffending, evidence remains mixed. Many released individuals still face significant employment barriers.

Personal Accounts:
Brian Scott [21:08]: "Get my thoughts together, get down and then get my hygiene together."
Christopher Barnes [21:45]: "We made report cards there for high schools and colleges."

Notable Quotes:
Laura Appleman [28:36]: "Prison labor is classified as non market work, so you don't have to pay them anything near the minimum wage."
Lee Blackman [28:18]: "If you pay taxes, and I'm a taxpayer in the state of North Carolina, I want everybody to be as frugal with my tax dollars as they can be."

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Conclusion

The episode intricately weaves the economic efficiencies achieved through prison labor with the broader ethical and social implications of such practices. While the use of incarcerated individuals in manufacturing highway signs results in significant cost savings for state governments and contributes to sustaining an extensive network of road signage, it simultaneously raises critical questions about labor rights, exploitation, and the true benefits for the incarcerated workforce.

Through firsthand accounts and expert insights, Zachary Crockett presents a nuanced exploration of how a commonplace object like a highway sign is embedded within a complex interplay of economic strategies and social policies. This investigation not only sheds light on the hidden mechanisms behind everyday infrastructure but also invites listeners to reflect on the broader societal values and consequences of utilizing prison labor in essential industries.

Final Reflection:
As Stephen Dubner aptly summarizes, understanding the hidden side of everyday things like highway signs encourages us to question and appreciate the intricate systems that underpin our daily lives, prompting informed discussions about ethics, economics, and social justice.

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Notable Contributors:

• Zachary Crockett: Host and Reporter
• Lee Blackman: General Manager, Bunn Sign Plant
• Renee Roach: State Signing and Delineation Engineer, North Carolina Department of Transportation
• Gene Hawkins: Forensic Engineering Expert, Texas A&M University
• Laura Appleman: Professor of Law, Willamette University

Produced by Zachary Crockett and Sarah Lilly, with assistance from Daniel Moritz Rabson. Mixed by Jeremy Johnston.

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Note: This summary excludes all advertisement segments and non-content sections to focus solely on the episode's substantive discussions.

Transcript

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[Stephen Dubner]

Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Capital One. Banking with Capital One helps you keep more money in your wallet with no fees or minimums on checking accounts and no overdraft fees. Just ask the Capital One bank guy. It's pretty much all he talks about in a good way. He'd also tell you that this podcast is his favorite podcast. Thanks Capital One Bank Guy. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See capitalone.com bank capital1na member FDIC hey there, it's Stephen Dubner, and today we've got a bonus episode for you. It is an episode of another show in our network. It's called the Economics of Everyday Things, which is hosted by Zachary Crockett. In the past, Zachary and his team have made episodes about Michelin stars, snake venom, prosthetic limbs. Today they bring us their reporting on highway signs and prison labor. If you like this episode, be sure to follow the show on your podcast app. Again, it's called the Economics of Everyday Things and let us know what you think. Our email is radioreconomics.com okay, here is Zachary Crockett.

[Zachary Crockett]

The town of Bunn, North Carolina is easy to miss. It occupies a total area of just half a square mile, and it's home to fewer than 330 people. Most of the surrounding land is used to grow tobacco and soybeans. But off the main road, behind a series of chain link fences and secure gates, is the state's primary manufacturer of highway signs. Inside the plant, workers are busy shearing giant aluminum panels, cutting sheets of green adhesive, and measuring out the spacing between letters. And outside in the shipping yard, the plant's general manager, Lee Blackman, is admiring a row of completed products.

[Lee Blackman]

This sign right here is 12 foot tall. This is going somewhere on Interstate 95 in North Carolina.

[Zachary Crockett]

This facility makes all kinds of road signs, stop signs, yield signs, construction signs. But its biggest products, both by size and revenue, are those huge green signs that loom over you on the highway.

[Lee Blackman]

That's going to give you information about what road you're on right now, the intersections that are coming up, what is the next town coming up, the exit, and so forth.

[Zachary Crockett]

Signs like this are all over American highways and freeways, there are literally millions of them. And they're so familiar that many of us don't stop to think about where they come from or why they look the way they do. Behind every highway sign there's a long and winding road of economic decision making.

[Renee Roach]

We want to make sure that we get a good quality product because we want it out there for 20 years. We've got to be good stewards of the taxpayers money.

[Zachary Crockett]

For the Freakonomics radio network. This is the economics of everyday things. I'm Zachary Crockett. Today, highway signs. Back in the early days of the automobile, driving on American roadways was a free for all.

[Gene Hawkins]

There was no coordinated effort to manage the movement of vehicles, whether it be through road construction. A connected network of roadways, highways, traffic control devices.

[Zachary Crockett]

That's Gene Hawkins. He works for the forensic engineering firm Kittleson, and he's a professor emeritus in the Department of Civil Engineering at Texas A and M University. He's one of the foremost experts on the history, design and installation of traffic signs.

[Gene Hawkins]

The vehicles back then would not be used to travel long distances anyway. As the ability to travel longer distances increased, they created these trail systems, which were typically run by trail associations.

[Zachary Crockett]

These informal networks of roads were a predecessor to the highway system in America. And along these roads there were very rudimentary ways of telling drivers where they were and what was up ahead. Most of these signs were hand painted. Some had words, others had symbols. They were made from an assortment of materials in all different sizes and shapes, and the signs were different from place to place.

[Gene Hawkins]

I've seen pictures of stop signs that looked like coffins, signs with skull and crossbones on them.

[Zachary Crockett]

As people started driving further and crossing state lines, they didn't know how to interpret all the markers they saw.

[Gene Hawkins]

The state highway department people recognized we need to do a better job of providing a consistent, uniform system of traffic control devices.

[Zachary Crockett]

In the 1930s, these efforts culminated in the Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices, or MUTCD for short. It provided a set of standards for traffic control devices across America's growing system of roads. Today, it's run by the Federal Highway Administration, and every state in the US adheres to its guidelines. It's nearly 1,200 pages long, and it lays out the ground rules for more than 500 signs, markings and signals. Everything from the octagon shape of stop signs to the precise size of an exit sign on the freeway. These rules are determined by the National Committee on Uniform Traffic Control Devices. Hawkins serves as the committee's chair.

[Gene Hawkins]

The MUTCD gets into issues such as the design of the signs typically will give some indication on when or how to use the device.

[Zachary Crockett]

Technically, highway sign refers to any type of sign that communicates something to drivers on the road. And the MUTCD breaks these signs down into three categories.

[Gene Hawkins]

There's regulatory signs which tell you what to do. It expresses the law like a stop sign or speed limit. There are warning signs, and those are yellow diamond signs which warn you of a potential hazard, like a curve in the road or a pedestrian crossing. And then there are guide signs which give directions.

[Zachary Crockett]

Guide signs are those enormous placards on the freeway that tell you which exits or intersecting highways are coming up and how far away they are. And everything you see on one of these signs is a calculated decision, starting with the font. Most signs use a special sans serif typeface that's unofficially called highway gothic. It's almost exclusively designed for highway signage.

[Gene Hawkins]

The spacing between the letters in the highway Alphabet is much greater than the spacing between letters on a printed page for reading.

[Zachary Crockett]

The words on these guide signs are almost always set in mixed case, with initial capitals followed by lowercase letters. There's a good reason for that.

[Gene Hawkins]

If you know what city name or street name you're looking for, you could recognize that it was on a sign even before you could read it. When it's mixed case, for example, my name Hawkins, the h sticks up and the case sticks up. The word English, the e sticks up, the g descends, and the l sticks up. So if you're looking for the city hawkins, or the road English, you have a shape that you're expecting to see, and you can see that shape from further away than you can actually read the letters. And that was recognized as a real advantage when the traffic is moving at 70 miles an hour.

[Zachary Crockett]

There are also guidelines around the size of the font on highway signs. And from below, it's hard to grasp just how big the characters are.

[Gene Hawkins]

If it's an overhead sign, it's 20 inches for a capital letter. So the letter is almost 2ft tall. The general rule is the space between lines of text is going to be equal to the height of the line of text. So it's very easy to have a freeway sign that may only have three or four lines of copy that could end up being 10ft tall.

[Zachary Crockett]

Then there's the color of the sign. In the 1950s, the federal government looked into the legibility of black, blue, and green signs. Officials staged a test with hundreds of motorists on a road in New York and found that 58% of drivers preferred green. Turns out, the color green has another benefit, too. It provides the best base for retroreflectivity. Basically, what makes signs legible. When they're illuminated by a car's headlights in the dark, the reflectivity of signs has come a long way. Engineers initially used something called cat's eyes, tiny marbles embedded in each letter on the sign. These have since been replaced by reflective sheeting that covers the whole sign.

[Gene Hawkins]

Most of the sign sheeting made in the United States is what's called microprismatic sheeting. Essentially, if you look at a bicycle reflector, it looks like a series of ridges inside, and it is a similar structure in microprismatic sheeting, just really, really, really small.

[Zachary Crockett]

Now, not every sign on the freeway is green. Some of them are brown. Those are typically used for tourist attractions or recreation points like state parks. And every now and then, you'll also see a blue sign full of corporate logos. Those are called service signs, and their purpose is to tell you what kinds of services and businesses are coming up. Say, a Chevron gas station in 2 miles or an Arby's at the next exit. These are actually ads. And businesses pay for the real estate.

[Gene Hawkins]

In most states, they contract that with a business who goes out and collects money from those businesses that want to put a logo. And sometimes they have to do a lottery. Sometimes it's a bidding process.

[Zachary Crockett]

To qualify, a business usually has to fall into one of a number of categories. Gas, lodging, food, camping, attraction, or pharmacy. And the fees vary from state to state. In Arizona, a placement can range from $1,100 in a less populated area to more than $6,000 in a busier urban location. In other states, like North Carolina, it might only be a few hundred bucks. For state transportation departments, service signs can bring in millions of dollars in revenue. But most highway signs aren't lucrative for the public entities responsible for them. Making them is an intensive and costly endeavor. There are dozens of companies that make the smaller ones, like stop signs or speed limit signs. But few manufacturers are capable of producing the enormous green highway guide signs. When a state transportation department needs a new one, the job goes to someone like Renee Roach.

[Renee Roach]

I work for the North Carolina department of Transportation. I am the state signing and delineation engineer.

[Zachary Crockett]

Roach has a big job to go along with that big title.

[Renee Roach]

We maintain over 80,000 miles in North Carolina. Any signs, we lay out exactly where that they need to go. What do they need to say? Destinations, route markers, and things like that. Any of the Pavement markings that are there on the road. We also place the size, the color, the location of those.

[Zachary Crockett]

Most highway signs have a sticker on the back with the dates that it was manufactured and installed. Roach knows exactly how long every sign has been on the highway and when it probably needs to be replaced. A good sign might last anywhere from 12 to 20 years before the natural elements start to degrade it. But sometimes replacements happen far sooner.

[Renee Roach]

There is vandalism. You'd be surprised at how much vandalism they may get hit or destroyed.

[Zachary Crockett]

Whenever Roach needs a new highway sign, she turns to a trusted supplier.

[Renee Roach]

The vast majority of our signs are coming through Bunn in North Carolina.

[Zachary Crockett]

Nearly every highway sign in the state comes from the sign plant in the small town of Bunny. That's why we took a trip out there to see the manufacturing process for ourselves. Is this whole thing we're looking at here one sign?

[Lee Blackman]

Yes, it is. It's pretty awesome. When we get out on the yard, I'll show you some really big signs.

[Zachary Crockett]

As a general manager who oversees the plant, Lee Blackman is in charge of running day to day operations. I talked to him on the factory floor over the sounds of welding torches and miter saws.

[Lee Blackman]

Our plant is actually divided into two different halves. This is what we call the project end, where we manufacture mostly your big overhead signs that you see there. The other end is what we call the maintenance sign of the plant. That's where your smaller signs, let's say your 30, 36 inch stop signs that you'd see in a rural setting. Your standard speed limit signs are back there.

[Zachary Crockett]

The process for making a highway sign is begins with a detailed blueprint sent over by Renee Roach at the North Carolina Department of Transportation that's got the.

[Lee Blackman]

Exact specifications that DOT wants for this sign. The type of sheeting, the color of sheeting, the overlays. So this routing sheet is going to follow this sign all through the process.

[Zachary Crockett]

The first step of the fabrication process is selecting the right kind of aluminum for the job.

[Lee Blackman]

We use four different gauges or thicknesses of the metal. Our largest sheet is 48 by 144, which is 4 foot wide, 12 foot long.

[Zachary Crockett]

The workers haul these huge sheets over to the shearing department where they're cut to size. Sometimes signs are so big that they have to be split up into as many as 14 different panels.

[Lee Blackman]

When the contractor gets it out on the job site, they don't put it together like a puzzle.

[Zachary Crockett]

The sheared metal is sanded down to get rid of any blemishes. Or rough patches. Then it's coated with green reflective sheeting.

[Lee Blackman]

There's no paint on the side. It's all sheeting, and it's all translucent ink. This piece of equipment is called a squeeze roll applicator. The machine is set to a specific pressure and that will directly apply the sheeting to the piece of metal.

[Zachary Crockett]

Then comes one of the more technical parts of the job, Putting the letters on the sign. For large highway signs, each letter is printed individually and placed by hand according to very strict measurements.

[Lee Blackman]

What he's doing now is he's pasting out the horizontal measurements for the line of copy. He knows how far from the bottom these letters are going to be, how far from the top, and he's setting all that up. He's going to hand lay every one of these letters individually. It tells you the exact distance from one letter to the next from the edge of the sign coming up to the first letter.

[Zachary Crockett]

So you know everything down to the spacing of the font.

[Lee Blackman]

You know the spacing, the different size fonts, and that determines too, you know, bigger sign, bigger font, smaller sign, smaller font. These letters can only be off an eighth of an inch.

[Christopher Barnes]

It's not a whole lot of leeway.

[Lee Blackman]

It's not a whole lot of leeway.

[Zachary Crockett]

From start to finish, it can take around 12 hours to finish a single large highway guide sign. Once the sign is done, it's taken out into the storage yard there. Racks upon racks of enormous highway signs are lined up to get transported all over the state of North Carolina.

[Lee Blackman]

These signs right here are ready to go. Whether it's going to a specific project on a specific road, or whether it's what we call a division where it's going to go to a specific DOT division.

[Zachary Crockett]

North Carolina's Department of Transportation pays around $42 per square foot for the sign itself. Depending on the size, that could run anywhere from $1,400 for an exit sign up to $8,500 for a large guide sign. Then there's installation. If the sign is ground mounted, labor and support beams might run an additional $18,000. If the sign has to hang over the road, either on a cantilever or a structure that spans the entire highway. That cost could be as high as $200,000. But there's a catch that saves the state a ton of money. The bunn sign plant is located inside a prison that's staffed by incarcerated individuals, and that allows Rene Roach to get a good deal on signs.

[Renee Roach]

They can generate a lot of those signs really quickly for a fairly inexpensive price.

[Zachary Crockett]

This isn't unique to North Carolina. Most states across America use prison labor to make stuff. Not necessarily highway signs, but a variety of products all around us.

[Stephen Dubner]

Coming up after the break, Zachary Crockett takes a look at prison labor as a whole.

[Laura Appleman]

In society, we are not incredibly sympathetic towards prisoners having to do work. I think if you asked the average American, they would be like, good, but if you explained exactly how it worked, they would be a little more unsettled.

[Stephen Dubner]

That's coming up. I'm Stephen Dubner and you are listening to a bonus episode of the Economics of Everyday Things. We'll be right back.

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[Zachary Crockett]

Guarantees regular monthly rate plan price of.

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[Zachary Crockett]

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[Zachary Crockett]

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[Stephen Dubner]

Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by Progressive, where drivers who save by switching save nearly $750 on average. Plus auto customers qualify for an average of 7 discounts. Get a quote [e-mail] to see if you could save Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates national average 12 month savings of $744 by new customers surveyed who saved with Progressive between June 2022 and May 2023. Potential savings will vary. Discounts not available in all states and situations. We are back with this special episode from the Economics of Everyday Things. Here's Zachary Crockett.

[Zachary Crockett]

Like most working people, Christopher Barnes has a daily routine.

[Brian Scott]

Get my thoughts together, get down and then get my hygiene together.

[Zachary Crockett]

He brushes his teeth, washes his face and at around 7 in the morning, he makes the short commute to his workplace.

[Brian Scott]

I work at EG Sheeting. I sheet the metal and trim it and get it ready for screening. I've been in that department the whole time I've been down here.

[Zachary Crockett]

Barnes and his colleagues make highway signs.

[Brian Scott]

My family, they be like, what you doing the sign playing? And I tell them I make the signs in the streets. It's like, wow, I thought somebody else did that.

[Zachary Crockett]

This isn't just any sign plant. It's located inside Franklin Correctional Center, a medium security prison in Bunn, North Carolina. And Barnes is serving a life sentence for first degree murder. He's one of around 800,000 incarcerated people with jobs in America's prison system. They grow crops, repair roads, fight wildfires, and manufacture a surprising number of the products we encounter in daily life. From office furniture to reading glasses. It's estimated that more than $11 billion worth of goods and services every year can be traced back to workers who are mostly paid pennies per hour for their labor, or even nothing at all. We wanted to learn more about how prison labor became a central part of the economy. And we found out that the story goes back to the founding of our country. Around the world, work has long been used as a form of punishment. The US Colonies under British rule were no exception. Britain shipped over criminals and sold them to farms in Virginia and Maryland. They worked in the fields alongside enslaved people, and together their labor sustained our early agrarian economy. As America's justice system evolved, we began to send convicts to prisons.

[Laura Appleman]

You don't really see the first prison labor until the beginning of the 19th century.

[Zachary Crockett]

Laura Appleman is a professor of law at Willamette University in Oregon. She's researched the history and economics of prison labor.

[Laura Appleman]

What quickly became common is something called the industrial prison. Prisoners were essentially rented out to for profit companies for labor. They were putting together furniture, they were making clothes, making wagons, whatever was local. Originally, it was to recoup the expense of prisons. But then they realized, hey, we can make some money here.

[Zachary Crockett]

When the 13th amendment was passed after the Civil War banning slavery and other forms of unpaid labor, a notable exception was carved out.

[Laura Appleman]

The 13th Amendment outlaws slavery except when you have been convicted of a crime.

[Zachary Crockett]

Across the south, thousands of emancipated slaves were locked up for petty offenses. They were forced to grow crops on penal farms. Later, they were shackled together in chain gangs that built roads for government contractors. These practices persisted for many decades, and eventually they morphed into a larger and more institutional system.

[Laura Appleman]

Things didn't really start going into the big time until the 80s 90s, when mass incarceration really started booming. Costs skyrocketed, and prison labor is the way that government is trying to pay.

[Zachary Crockett]

For It Today, more than a million people are incarcerated in America's federal and state prisons. Housing and feeding them is very expensive. The median cost per person is around $64,000 a year. That cost falls on the state and ultimately taxpayers. The government offsets these costs by putting prisoners to work as much as possible. At the majority of prisons, you'll find them doing a lot of the internal labor. They cook the meals in the cafeteria, do laundry, clean the buildings and maintain the grounds. But they also work in government run prison factories like the sign plant at Franklin Correctional Center. Lewis Southall is the prison warden. He oversees the 300 incarcerated men who live there.

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[Zachary Crockett]

Almost all of those men have a job, whether it's sweeping floors or mowing the lawns. But according to Southall, only the best workers get to work in the sign plant.

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This is a million dollar corporation and you don't want to have somebody down here that may have anger issues or have destructive issues. You can have one offender destroy a whole sign and it may cost tens of thousands of dollars.

[Zachary Crockett]

While the sign plant is on prison grounds, it's actually run by a separate entity called Correction Enterprises. It's a part of the North Carolina Department of Adult Correction and it has 27 production facilities across the state, all almost entirely staffed by prisoners. Again, here's Lee Blackman, the plant manager, who we met earlier on the factory.

[Lee Blackman]

Floor assigned manufacturing plant. This is just one of the many plants that we have. All these plants are different industries. The other ones that I have a hand are the metal plant down in Anson county, woodworking and upholstery up at Alexander. Optical plant we have over in Nash. The other general managers have a wide variety of plants that they look after, whether it be janitorial, laundries, sewing.

[Zachary Crockett]

Correction Enterprises uses prison labor to make dozens of products employed prisoners. So the linens used in prison beds, they process canned peas and beef patties for prison cafeterias. They manufacture air fresheners, hand soap, motor oil, prescription glasses, picnic tables and license plates. Last year, Correction Enterprises sold $121 million worth of goods. Almost all of those sales were to government agencies in the state of North Carolina, many of which are required to shop through the company.

[Lee Blackman]

We also do a lot of work for any tax supported entity within the state of North Carolina.

[Zachary Crockett]

By using prison labor, Correction Enterprises is able to offer the government prices that are well below market rate. At a typical business, labor accounts for around 25 to 35% of the cost to produce goods. At correction enterprises, it's only around 2.5%. That's less than $3 million in labor costs on $121 million in sales. Blackmon says the benefits of those savings trickle down.

[Lee Blackman]

If you pay taxes, and I'm a taxpayer in the state of North Carolina, I want everybody to be as frugal with my tax dollars as they can be.

[Zachary Crockett]

But that frugality is only possible because prisoners aren't protected by most employment laws. Again, here's law professor Laura Appleman.

[Laura Appleman]

Prison labor is classified as non market work, so you don't have to pay them anything near the minimum wage.

[Zachary Crockett]

For incarcerated workers, pay depends on the type of job they have and where they work. Most jobs pay somewhere between 13 cents and 52 cents an hour. In some states, like Kansas, prisoners are paid around 5 cents an hour. And in others, like Alabama and Mississippi, prison jobs don't pay at all.

[Laura Appleman]

All states are in on this. It's a great source of very low cost labor.

[Zachary Crockett]

Almost every state in America has its own version of correction enterprises, and prisoners often do much riskier work than building furniture and spacing out letters on highway signs. Some prison jobs are part of work release programs that send incarcerated men and women to the outside world. At the height of the pandemic, prisoners transported dead bodies to morgues and disinfected medical supplies. After a hurricane or an oil spill, they're dispatched to clean up the mess. And when wildfires break out, they're airlifted into the heart of the forest. Federal prisons have their own system for taking advantage of cheap labor. The government owned Federal prison Industries, or FPI, has more than 60 work facilities across the country. It manufactures around 300 products. Boots, jumpsuits, tools, medical supplies, body armor, even electronic components for guided missiles, which it sells to the Department of Defense. But prisoners don't just do work for the government. Sometimes the state leases out their labor to companies in the private sector.

[Laura Appleman]

The companies really want to keep it quiet, but I think they're thrilled because it's so much cheaper. And the state government is thrilled because they make some money.

[Zachary Crockett]

Prisoners have sewed underwear for Victoria's Secret, worked in call centers for cell phone companies, and made cheese that was sold in Whole Foods.

[Laura Appleman]

46 states run agricultural programs within their prison systems. They raise a lot of food, and some of it's used for the prison itself, and some of it is sold on the open market.

[Zachary Crockett]

An investigation by the Associated Press found that food produced on penal farms ends up in popular products like Frosted Flakes cereal, Gold Medal Flour, and Ballpark hot dogs. Companies don't just save money on labor costs, they often earn tax credits for hiring work release prisoners. All of this makes prison labor a great deal for taxpayers, governments and private businesses. And the idea is that prisoners gain key skills.

[Stephen Dubner]

Coming up after the break, not all prison jobs teach key skills.

[Christopher Barnes]

I can remember being given some of the most tedious jobs just to keep me busy.

[Stephen Dubner]

I'm Stephen Dubner. This is Freakonomics Radio, and you are listening to a special episode of the Economics of Everyday Things with Zachary Crockett. Freakonomics Radio is sponsored by NerdWallet. When it comes to finding the best financial product, have you ever wished someone would do the heavy lifting for you with NerdWallet's 2025 Best of Awards? That wish has come true. The nerds already did the work for you, reviewing over 1100 financial products like credit cards, savings accounts, and more to bring you only the best of the best. Check out the 2025 Best of Awards today at NerdWallet.com awards.

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To me, Barney was the same as Cheetos.

[Renee Roach]

It just was a thing where people just love to hate Barney.

[Laura Appleman]

It made me wonder how much was.

[Zachary Crockett]

Actually about Barney at all and how much of that hate was about messages of love and kindness to other people.

[Stephen Dubner]

Generation Barney, a podcast about the media we loved as kids and how it shapes us.

[Zachary Crockett]

Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Brian Scott served 20 years in prison for a sex crime before being released in 2021. For most of that time, he was at the Nash Correctional Institution in North Carolina and he was working at a printing facility run by Correction Enterprises.

[Christopher Barnes]

We did everything from what they call inmate stationery, which is the paper that they gave us to write on to, to, you know, we did a brochure that detailed all of the wineries across the entire state. It was always something different.

[Zachary Crockett]

I read on the site that they even did report cards there for high schools and colleges?

[Christopher Barnes]

Yes, and the temporary tags that you get when you purchase a new vehicle.

[Zachary Crockett]

The printing facility was staffed by around 130 prisoners. And the day to day work was similar to what employees at any other printing facility would do. Except in exchange for his labor, Scott was only paid 26 cents an hour.

[Christopher Barnes]

We actually started at 13 cents, and then there was a raise that you got pretty soon to 20 cents. And then, you know, the 26 cents was when you were actually operating a machine or a computer. The crazy thing is it was actually one of the higher paying jobs. There were many people working back in the dorms, pushing brooms or whatever, and they were making, you know, anywhere from 40 cents a day to maybe a dollar a day at the most.

[Zachary Crockett]

Every Sunday. Scott's weekly earnings, around $14 were transferred into a trust fund controlled by the prison. And he says getting full pay wasn't guaranteed.

[Christopher Barnes]

There were some individuals who would have some of their pay taken out because they had received a lot of write ups or they had some court appointed fees. A write up was $10, but when you're only making $15 and they take $10, it hurts.

[Zachary Crockett]

Most incarcerated people use their money to buy stuff at the commissary or canteen. A store inside the prison.

[Christopher Barnes]

Ramen noodle soup was maybe 25 cents. Coca Cola was probably, I don't know, a dollar and a half. When you're considering that you're making $14 a week, you know, $1.50 to spend on a Coke is a lot of money. A lot of people couldn't afford that sort of thing.

[Zachary Crockett]

Scott says many people with prison jobs took on side hustles to supplement their income.

[Christopher Barnes]

I don't know how many green peppers I bought from guys who worked in the chow hall. That was the way that they tried to compensate for the pennies that they were being paid. We had people who would draw a picture of your child or your spouse, and you would pay them a fee for that.

[Zachary Crockett]

Scott had an operation making incense sticks in his cell. He'd sell them for one postage stamp, which was a form of currency behind bars.

[Christopher Barnes]

The process was you would get the stick off of a broom. You would take one little square of toilet paper, which the state provided, you would wrap it around the stick, you would get it damp, and then you would roll it in the sage that had to come out of the chow hall. They would sell little bottles of oil in the canteen, and I would dab it on the whole stick, let it dry, and there you go. You've got an incense stick.

[Zachary Crockett]

Aside from the pay, Scott says his time at the printing plant was a tolerable experience. But toward the end of his sentence, he was transferred to another correction enterprises facility where he refurbished traffic signs. And that was a different story.

[Christopher Barnes]

It really was a horrible place. Nobody liked being there. It was off site. So you got bused to this location, bused back in, and every day when you came back, you had to go through a full strip search because the labor is so cheap, they would have more people than they actually needed. I can remember being given some of the most tedious jobs just to keep me busy. There was a building that we had to pressure wash during the winter. There were picnic tables outside that we had to chip all the paint off of.

[Zachary Crockett]

The people who run prison labor programs often say that working at their facilities is a choice and that if a prisoner doesn't like a certain job, they're free to find other work inside the prison. But this freedom often comes with a catch. The New York Times recently reported that prisoners in an Alabama facility who refuse to take on work release jobs often face disciplinary action. Again, here's law professor Laura Appleman.

[Laura Appleman]

Technically, it's not forced labor, although depends how you define forced. It's not the chain gang, it's not convict leasing. But the pressures are different. If you absolutely refuse to do anything, your privileges are going to be taken away. And of course, when you're incarcerated, privileges sort of make life bearable.

[Zachary Crockett]

Appleman also says that because prisoners aren't considered employees, they aren't covered by employment protections, things like workplace safety regulations and a workers comp in case of injury. But some incarcerated workers believe that prison labor will pay off for them down the line. Work programs are often positioned as a solution to recidivism the tendency of convicted criminals to reoffend. The idea is that the skills you learn on the inside will help you land on your feet once you're out. Leigh Blackman of Correction Enterprises made that point during a walkthrough of the sign plant in North Carolina.

[Lee Blackman]

We can take these men and we teach them. And once they start doing the job, they're figuring out, hey, I can do this. They start believing in themselves. They got the confidence. They know they can do that job, and they can walk into a prospective employer and say, let me show you what I can do.

[Zachary Crockett]

The evidence that prison labor helps incarcerated people find jobs once they're back out in the real world is mixed. Many companies won't even consider hiring people with felony convictions. And more than 60% of people who are released from prison are unemployed a year later. But it does work out for some people, including Brian Scott. After he was released in 2021, he quickly found a civilian job in the printing industry.

[Christopher Barnes]

Correction Enterprises connected me with the printing company in Burlington that had expressed an interest in hiring people with criminal records. I think my starting pay was $15 an hour. That first paycheck. It was more money than I would make in almost an entire year working for Correction Enterprises.

[Zachary Crockett]

Christopher Barnes, the incarcerated worker at the sign plant in Bunn, North Carolina, will never see that kind of paycheck. He's in prison for life with no possibility of parole. For him, the benefit of working a job in prison isn't the pay, the chance to learn new skills, or the promise of a brighter future. It's the brief moment of respite he gets from the cell block each morning before the machines fire up and the highway signs are cut to size.

[Brian Scott]

Quiet. Quietness goes a long way.

[Stephen Dubner]

Hey there, it's Stephen Dubner again, and I hope you enjoyed this special episode of the Economics of Everyday Things with Zachary Crockett. I hope you liked it enough to follow the show on your podcast app. We will be back very soon with a new episode of Freakonomics Radio, although for the new year we are switching our regular publication schedule from Wednesday night Eastern time to early Friday morning. So if you are an early downloader, which I know you are, and you aren't seeing the episode on Wednesday night, do not freak out. We'll be there Friday morning. Until then, take care of yourself and if you can, someone else too. Freakonomics Radio and the Economics of Everyday Things are produced by Stitcher and Renbud Radio. This this episode was produced by Zachary Crockett and Sarah Lilly, with help from Daniel Moritz Rabson. It was mixed by Jeremy Johnston. The Freakonomics Radio Network staff also includes Alina Coleman, Augusta Chapman, Dalvin Abuaji, Eleanor Osborne, Ellen Frankman, Elsa Hernandez, Gabriel Roth, Greg Rippon, Jasmine Klinger, Jason Gambrell, John Schnarz, Lyric Bowditch, Morgan Levy, Neal Carruth, Teo Jacobs, and Zach Lipinski. Our theme song is Mr. Fortune by the Hitchhikers. Our composer is Luis Guerra. As always, thank you for listening.

[Christopher Barnes]

I guarantee you there are stamps floating around the system that were purchased 25 years ago.

[Zachary Crockett]

The Freakonomics Radio Network the Hidden side of Everything Stitcher.