Laws passed during the era of the New Deal prohibited the use of prison labor with the exception of state institutions. However, lobbying by corporations eventually allowed them to use prison labor by 1979, and by 1995 businesses won exemptions from minimum wage laws which permitted them to exploit prison labor for, according to Elizabeth S. Anderson, “mere pennies an hour.” She adds that “many are forced to work in unsafe conditions without protective equipment, because workplace health and safety laws do not apply to prison workers.”[39]
Perverse Incentives. The US has the largest incarcerated population in the world almost directly because of this carve-out. Mandatory minimums, the three-strike law, overpolicing, etc. find some of their reason for existing because it allows for more legal slaves.