Penal slavery in the United States is the legally sanctioned practice of compelling incarcerated people to work, usually for pennies an hour or nothing at all, under a constitutional carve-out that most Americans do not know exists. The Thirteenth Amendment abolished slavery and involuntary servitude with one exception: punishment for a crime. Federal law builds directly on that exception, declaring in 18 U.S.C. § 4121 that “convicted inmates confined in Federal prisons, jails, and other detention facilities shall work.”1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. United States Code Title 18 Section 4121 Eight states have now amended their own constitutions to remove the punishment exception, and in February 2026 a Colorado court became the first to give one of those amendments real legal force.
The Constitutional Exception That Permits It
The Thirteenth Amendment, ratified in 1865, reads: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”2Congress.gov. U.S. Constitution – Thirteenth Amendment The first clause ended chattel slavery. The second preserved a space where the government could keep compelling labor from people convicted of crimes.
Federal courts have enforced that space for more than a century and a half. In 1963, the Ninth Circuit held in Draper v. Rhay that “there is no federally protected right of a state prisoner not to work while imprisoned after conviction.”3Justia Law. Draper v. Rhay, 315 F.2d 193 The Fifth Circuit in Mikeska v. Collins went further, ruling that paying prisoners is not constitutionally required but exists “by grace of the state,” and that convicted individuals “may not claim the protection of the thirteenth amendment.”4CaseMine. Mikeska v. Collins Two principles follow: the government can force incarcerated people to work, and it owes them nothing for the work.
The clause did not sit dormant after ratification. Southern states exploited it through convict leasing, renting incarcerated people to private companies for plantation agriculture, railroad construction, and mining, with formerly enslaved people and their descendants disproportionately swept into the system through vagrancy and petty-offense statutes. Tennessee abolished leasing in 1896. Alabama was the last to end the practice, in 1928. The administrative structure changed over the next century; the constitutional foundation did not.
How Federal and State Law Turn Permission Into a Requirement
Federal statute is explicit. 18 U.S.C. § 4121 makes work mandatory for sentenced federal inmates, with exceptions only for security concerns, medical disability, disciplinary restrictions, or enrollment in literacy and rehabilitation programs.1Office of the Law Revision Counsel. United States Code Title 18 Section 4121 The Bureau of Prisons enforces that mandate through a program statement requiring every sentenced inmate who is “physically and mentally able” to accept a work assignment.5Federal Bureau of Prisons. Inmate Work and Performance Pay Program Statement
The industrial arm of the federal system is Federal Prison Industries, which operates as UNICOR. The statute creating it directs its board to “provide employment for the greatest number of those inmates…who are eligible to work as is reasonably possible.”6Office of the Law Revision Counsel. United States Code Title 18 Section 4122 At the end of fiscal year 2025, UNICOR employed 10,494 federal inmates and generated $464.9 million in sales.7Office of the Inspector General. Audit of the Federal Prison Industries, Inc. Annual Financial Statements Its workers produce clothing and textiles, build office furniture, grind eyeglass lenses, repair fleet vehicles, and provide data entry and customer service for government agencies.8Federal Bureau of Prisons. UNICOR
Most assignments are far more routine. Internal facility maintenance absorbs the largest share of prison labor: laundry operations processing thousands of pounds of linens, institutional kitchens, housing-unit cleaning, and grounds work. Public works programs place lower-security workers on road crews, brush clearance in fire-prone areas, and disaster cleanup. Private-sector partnerships operate under the Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program, which lets private companies employ incarcerated workers under regulated conditions.9Bureau of Justice Assistance. Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program (PIECP) Overview
State prison systems follow the same pattern through their own statutes. Most require incarcerated people to work unless excused for medical or security reasons. The punishment clause means no state has to justify these mandates under employment law; the work requirement is treated as part of the sentence itself.
What the Work Pays
Courts have consistently held that incarcerated workers are not employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act. The federal minimum wage does not apply. There is no definitive Supreme Court ruling and lower courts have taken conflicting approaches, but the practical outcome is the same across the country: pay is far below market, and often zero.
Regular non-industry jobs in federal prisons pay between $0.12 and $0.40 per hour. State wages vary widely. Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, and Texas pay nothing for standard institutional work. A handful of states set rates above $1.00 per hour at the high end. Some states pay on a daily or monthly basis rather than hourly, which can obscure how little the work compensates per hour worked. Other positions pay no money at all, substituting earned time credits that shorten a sentence by a set number of days per month of work.
Workers in the Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program can earn higher gross wages, sometimes at the regional market rate, but mandatory deductions for taxes, room and board, family support, and victim compensation can consume up to 80% of gross pay in total.10Bureau of Justice Assistance. PIECP Compliance Guide Even in the programs built to approximate real employment, take-home pay is a small fraction of what the work generates.
What Happens If You Refuse
Work refusal is treated as a disciplinary offense. The Bureau of Prisons program statement states that “disciplinary action may be taken against an inmate who refuses to work, who otherwise evades attendance and performance standards in assigned activities, or who encourages others to do so.”5Federal Bureau of Prisons. Inmate Work and Performance Pay Program Statement Sanctions can include placement in solitary confinement, loss of commissary and communication privileges, removal from programming, and negative marks in records used at parole and clemency proceedings.
The most consequential penalty is loss of good conduct time. Federal inmates earn credit toward early release for complying with institutional rules, and the Bureau of Prisons can revoke credited good time for “good cause,” which includes work stoppage. A single refusal can translate into additional months behind bars.
Safety and Injury Protections
Incarcerated workers face a significant gap in safety protections. The Occupational Safety and Health Act defines “employer” in a way that excludes states and their political subdivisions, so OSHA has no jurisdiction over state correctional facilities or the people working inside them, paid or unpaid.11Occupational Safety and Health Administration. OSHA Does Not Have Jurisdiction Over State Employees or Inmates The federal Bureau of Prisons fills part of that gap with an internal occupational safety policy that references OSHA standards and requires inmate safety training and hazard reporting.12Federal Bureau of Prisons. National Occupational Safety and Health Policy Compliance is self-policed. No external regulator inspects federal prison workplaces the way OSHA inspects a private factory.
Injury compensation bears little resemblance to what an outside worker receives. Most states exclude incarcerated workers from workers’ compensation entirely. At the federal level, 18 U.S.C. § 4126 authorizes Federal Prison Industries to pay compensation for injuries sustained in prison work, capped at the rates provided under the Federal Employees’ Compensation Act.13Office of the Law Revision Counsel. United States Code Title 18 Section 4126 Bureau of Prisons policy separates lost-time wages, paid while incarcerated for injuries causing more than three consecutive missed work days, from inmate accident compensation, which covers permanent impairment and is only payable after release.12Federal Bureau of Prisons. National Occupational Safety and Health Policy At least 15% of any compensation must be reserved to help with reentry costs.
State Constitutional Reforms and the Colorado Ruling
Between 2018 and 2024, voters in eight states approved ballot measures removing the punishment exception from their state constitutions. Colorado led in 2018, followed by Nebraska and Utah. Alabama, Oregon, Tennessee, and Vermont passed amendments in 2022. Nevada followed in 2024. Louisiana voters rejected a comparable measure. These amendments impose a stricter standard than the federal Thirteenth Amendment, prohibiting involuntary servitude regardless of conviction status.
Whether the amendments change anything in practice remained an open question for years. After Colorado’s 2018 vote, the state’s Department of Corrections continued operating its mandatory work programs under the same disciplinary framework. A class action lawsuit challenged the department’s use of isolation and segregation to punish prisoners who refused to work. In February 2026, Denver District Court Judge Sarah Wallace found that the state had violated its own constitution, ruling that the department’s “unconstitutional coercive policies” included threatening and using segregation, restricted housing, and isolation for more than 22 hours a day as punishment for failure to work. The court ordered the state to stop these practices.
The ruling is the first judicial enforcement of a post-amendment challenge. It demonstrates that the language of these amendments can carry real legal force when tested, but similar challenges in Alabama, Oregon, Tennessee, and the other reform states have not yet reached a courtroom decision. Whether the Colorado outcome becomes a template or an outlier will depend on how courts in those states read their own new constitutional language in the years ahead.