#FixThe13thNY Fact Sheet: Legal Slavery in Prisons and Reentry for Incarcerated Individuals
Ending legal slavery and providing a minimum wage are prerequisites to our society’s collective aim of successful reentry for incarcerated people.
The #FixThe13thNY campaign works to abolish forced labor in prisons and raise prison wages in New York state, eliminating human exploitation and ending legalized slavery of incarcerated people. Ending legal slavery and providing a minimum wage are prerequisites to our society’s collective aim of successful reentry for incarcerated people.
Pay and Labor in Prisons:
- In New York State, incarcerated people are paid far below the minimum wage. On average, detainees in New York State prisons earn approximately $0.65 an hour, with some earning as little as $0.16 an hour. None of these wages are sufficient for incarcerated individuals to support themselves within the correctional system economy.
- According to the New York City Comptroller in“Fees, Fines and Fairness Report (2018),” the City’s Department of Correction (DOC) paid $5.9 million in wages to incarcerated individuals, the equivalent of about $660 per person per year.
The Necessity:
- Housing: In New York City, more than 54 percent of people released from prison moved straight into the city’s shelter system in 2017, according to a 2018 Coalition for the Homeless report.
- Jobs: According to Prison Policy, over 30 percent of formerly incarcerated people released from prison within two years were still unemployed in America.
- Food: According to NYC Center for Innovation through Data Intelligence, 68.6 percent of youth ages 13–18 relied on SNAP benefits six years after discharge.
Why Incarcerated People Deserve a Minimum Wage:
- Raising wages will ensure incarcerated people have enough funds to meet the necessities for their economic future, ultimately making their re-entry into their community more successful and lowering the risk of recidivism.
- There is an insufficient safety net to support the incarcerated people’s transition back to the community—even for basics like food, sanitary items, or transportation—thereby diminishing the chances of success, particularly in the first 72 hours. This support early on in reentry is the most crucial.
- According to the Marshall Project, “Many formerly incarcerated people say the gate money1 isn’t enough to meet the demands of their lives in the days following their release. Many say they are forced to trade between eating or buying practical items.”
Learn more about the #FixThe13thNY campaign and how you can get involved! Supporting common sense reform to prison labor helps us all because it dramatically improves the chances of successful reentry for formerly incarcerated people. Join the campaign!
How to Get Involved with the #Fixthe13thNY campaign:
• Learn more about the campaign at thenext100.org/project/fixthe13thNY
• Follow us on Instagram at @Fixthe13thNY
• Follow us on Twitter at @FixThe13thNY
• Email us at [email protected]