Highway Signs and Prison Labor
Incarcerated people grow crops, fight wildfires, and manufacture everything from prescription glasses to highway signs — often for pennies an hour. Zachary Crockett takes the next exit, in this special episode of The Economics of Everyday Things.
- SOURCES:
- Laura Appleman, professor of law at Willamette University.
- Christopher Barnes, inmate at the Franklin Correctional Center.
- Lee Blackman, general manager at Correction Enterprises.
- Gene Hawkins, senior principal engineer at Kittelson and professor emeritus of civil engineering at Texas A&M University.
- Renee Roach, state signing and delineation engineer for the North Carolina Department of Transportation.
- Brian Scott, ex-inmate, former worker at the Correction Enterprises printing plant.
- Louis Southall, warden of Franklin Correctional Center.
- RESOURCES:
- “Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices for Streets and Highways, 11th Edition,” by the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration (2023).
- “Prisoners in the U.S. Are Part of a Hidden Workforce Linked to Hundreds of Popular Food Brands,” by Robin McDowell and Margie Mason (AP News, 2024).
- “Ex-Prisoners Face Headwinds as Job Seekers, Even as Openings Abound,” by Talmon Joseph Smith (The New York Times, 2023).
- “Bloody Lucre: Carceral Labor and Prison Profit,” by Laura Appleman (Wisconsin Law Review, 2022).
- “The Road to Clarity,” by Joshua Yaffa (The New York Times Magazine, 2007).
- Correction Enterprises.
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Published on 11 months, 3 weeks ago