Prisoner Labor

If the prison systems GAO visited had to pay the minimum wage to their inmate workers, they would have to pay hundreds of millions of dollars more each year for the same number of hours worked. These prison systems generally considered minimum wage for inmates unaffordable, even if substantial user fees--charges for room and board--were imposed on the inmates. Prison officials consistently said that large-scale cutbacks in inmate labor were a likely and, in their view, dangerous consequence of having to pay minimum wage. They believed that less inmate work means more idle time and increased the potential for violence and misconduct. On the other hand, some groups took a more favorable view of minimum wage for inmates, believing that prison work experiences should be more like those in the general public. Minimum or prevailing wages are part of the "factories with fences" concept that many criminal justice, private industry, and other officials supported in the 1980s. This concept calls for (1) greater use of prison industries, particularly those run by the private sector, and (2) operating the industries under normal business and pay practices.

GAO found that: (1) inmates are not paid or are paid at rates that are substantially less than the federal minimum wage; (2) prison systems would have a substantial increase in costs if they were required to pay inmate workers the minimum wage; (3) the prisons' existing payrolls do not include the cost of employer-paid benefits that inmates may be entitled to if considered to be employees; (4) inmate wages do not include potential charges such as user fees and taxes; (5) prison systems generally believed that paying the minimum wage would adversely affect prison work, job training programs, and prison security; (6) all prison systems stated that there would be increased inmate idle time and more inmate rule infractions or security problems if minimum wages had to be paid; and (7) some organizations generally favored improving inmate work programs and inmate pay through greater use of prison industry programs, and believed that prison industries gain an unfair competitive advantage by not paying inmates minimum wages.