Andony Corleto was no stranger to fire. As a young child, he watched his neighbor's house burn down in South Los Angeles. Then, in 1992, when he was 8 years old, came the riots following the acquittal of the cops who brutalized Rodney King. The city was enraged, and swaths of it were engulfed in flames.

So the first time he found himself battling blazes as a firefighter in the dense mountains of Northern California's Shasta-Trinity National Forest, a familiar feeling of destruction and devastation arose. But this time, he said, it was different: He felt an intimate terror.

Giant ponderosa trees, weakened by the flames, kept randomly crashing, sending fire crews to take cover under neighboring trees.

"I had to fight my fears and gather my courage to think properly," he said. "I thought I might perish at any moment."

Corleto's path to firefighting was unusual — it was not the career aspiration of a free man. Rather, he was among hundreds of people incarcerated in California who served as firefighters to tackle blazes in some of the most catastrophic wildfires in the state's history. There are currently nearly 2,000 inmate firefighters in California, according to the state's Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, or CDCR.

In a recent interview with Law360, Corleto, who served time for a felony and is now free, said he volunteered to become a firefighter, but called the decision a "battle" within himself.

"You feel like you may be a little bit exploited in this work, because they're asking you to go put your life on the line to fight fires and to a dangerous situation," he said. "But then another part of you in prison wants to do something meaningful with yourself and with your time incarcerated."

Prisoner firefighting has drawn public attention in recent years, especially as wildfires have grown in scale and frequency. The program has often been held up as a model of redemption, a story of rehabilitation through service.

But it also brought to the fore the often overlooked reality of prison labor, a form of punishment that delivers economic gain to the state and has deep roots in American slavery. Across the U.S., nearly 800,000 incarcerated people work inside — and sometimes outside — prison walls, often for just pennies an hour, performing tasks from janitorial work to manufacturing to firefighting.

Behind bars, working is not really voluntary. Refusal to work can lead to a prisoner being placed in solitary confinement, having visitation privileges revoked, losing parole eligibility, and being denied basic privileges and necessities, such as making phone calls home and buying clothes.

Jennifer Turner, a human rights researcher at the American Civil Liberties Union who testified in May 2024 before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee during a subcommittee hearing on prison labor, said that although incarcerated workers are doing some of the same work that free people do, there are "profound differences."

"Their employers are their jailers," Turner said. "They're under the complete control of their employers, and they've been stripped of using the most minimal protections against abuse."

In a comprehensive 2022 report produced in collaboration with the University of Chicago Law School, of which Turner is the primary author, the ACLU found that more than 76% of incarcerated workers say they have been forced to work.

The report also highlighted how incarcerated workers' labor helps maintain prisons and provides vital public services, and it called for far-reaching reforms to ensure prison labor is truly voluntary and that incarcerated workers are paid fairly, trained properly and able to gain transferable skills they can use once they are released.

At the center of this system lies a constitutional loophole. The 13th Amendment, passed to abolish slavery, includes an exception: Slavery and involuntary servitude are prohibited "except as punishment for a crime."

That single clause has enabled states to conscript incarcerated people into labor for more than 150 years, prompting legal scholars, civil rights advocates, and impacted individuals to argue that prison labor is used as a form of modern-day slavery.

An Invisible Workforce Behind Bars

Growing up in South Los Angeles, Corleto eventually became involved in criminal activity. He was sent to prison for assault with a semiautomatic weapon, a felony in California, and spent 16 years behind bars, first in maximum-, then medium- and then minimum-security facilities.

In December 2017, Corleto was sent to battle the Thomas Fire, a massive wildfire that devastated more than 280,000 acres in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties.

"They're going to race you to the foot of these flames," he said. "You're going to be sweating profusely. And you're going to be having this heavy, 60-pound pack hiking into these dangerous areas, and you're going to feel the fire against your skin. You're going to feel it against your protective gears. And, you know, it's going to test the limits of your courage."

For years, Corleto did not fit the criteria to become an incarcerated firefighter. It wasn't until California took steps in the last decade to try and move away from a purely punitive carceral system to a more rehabilitative one by enacting a series of laws — in particular Proposition 57, which changed sentencing guidelines and credit-earning for incarcerated people — that Corleto became eligible for the job.

Approved by voters in 2016, Proposition 57 expanded access to fire camps by making more offense convictions eligible for participation in the program.

Incarcerated people joining firefighting crews can significantly reduce their prison sentences. A violent offender can earn up to 50% credit for good behavior — for example, two months spent serving as a firefighter results in credit for a month of incarceration — while a nonviolent offender can get up to 66%. Corleto still served the entirety of his sentence for his offenses categorized as violent.

The pay, however, is meager, considering the dangers involved in the work. For his service, Corleto was being paid 16 cents an hour. When actively battling fires, he was paid $1.16 per hour.

"I had a conversation with myself," he said. "Could I do this back-breaking labor for the little amount that they were asking me to do it for?"

He concluded that it was worth it. After going through a strict application process — a complete review of police, court and prison records, mental and physical examinations — Corleto studied fire behavior, the topography of California terrains, and strategies for battling wildfires. Once he passed a test, he went on to serve as a wildland firefighter, knowing full well that he would not be able to land the same job once out.

"We were told that our conviction bars us from serving on any city, county or state fire crew upon being released," he said.

"No one is doing this work for the recognition," he continued. "When you finally do become a part of a fire crew, you start to build this great honor. And you start to really be proud of the work that you're doing, and you start to really care for your community."

Proposed legislation introduced in California — Assembly Bill 247 — would lift the prevailing wage for prisoners actively fighting a fire to $19 per hour, and require that wage to be updated annually. The bill overwhelmingly passed the Public Safety Committee and has been referred to the state's Committee on Appropriations. It's unclear what chances the bill has to become law, though advocates said there is bipartisan support.

In September 2020, Gov. Gavin Newsom signed into law A.B. 2147, which allows formerly incarcerated people convicted of nonviolent offenses who participated in a CDCR fire camp to have their records expunged. As a result, the law removes some of the barriers people convicted of crimes face, allowing them to seek jobs as firefighters in the community upon release. The new law went into effect Jan. 1, 2021.

But while firefighting has grabbed the attention of the public and elected officials, particularly in light of wildfires that devastated areas of Los Angeles in January, the overwhelming majority of the imprisoned workforce remains largely in the shadows, as do some of the most controversial aspects of prison labor.

Bianca Tylek, the founder and executive director of Worth Rises, a national nonprofit seeking to end the incentives the prison industry — both private and public — receives from incarcerating people and using them for labor, said the public is not aware of the pervasive nature of prison labor.

"We think, if we pay firefighters the right wages, that solves the problem," Tylek said. "But the firefighters are the tip of the iceberg of an entire workforce that is exploited."

On any given day, millions of products used by government agencies, hospitals and schools — from license plates to desks to road signs — are made by incarcerated workers.

In prisons across the country, prisoners mop hallways, sew uniforms, file papers, bake bread, recycle trash. In all states except Alaska, and in the federal prison system, they perform work that is essential to the operations of correctional facilities and state economies, yet receive little to no compensation in return.

The ACLU found in its report that roughly 80% of working prisoners perform maintenance jobs that serve the prison itself: laundry, kitchen, janitorial and groundskeeping, for instance. In these cases, prisoners often don't learn skills that transfer well into the job market after release. Experts say their prison-upkeeping function often turns into an incentive for the justice system to keep incarcerating people.

According to an ACLU analysis, Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Mississippi, South Carolina and Texas don't compensate incarcerated people for most work assignments. The average minimum hourly wage paid to workers for nonindustry jobs is 13 cents, and the average maximum hourly wage is 52 cents. The primary beneficiaries of the labor of incarcerated workers are federal, state and local governments, the ACLU found.

In addition, incarcerated workers are excluded from labor laws that apply to workers on the outside. They are not entitled to minimum wages, they don't have the right to unionize, and they are not protected against discrimination and by the rules and standards set by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

The second type of labor, accounting for about 6.5% of working prisoners, is what is known as "correctional industries," namely state-owned corporations that produce goods, services and commodities sold to other government agencies, according to the ACLU.

Andrea Armstrong, a professor at Loyola University New Orleans College of Law and leading scholar on prison labor practices, conditions of confinement, and the intersection of race and incarceration, said that the American public fails to grasp how different working behind bars is compared with free society.

"If a person working in the free world makes a mistake at the job, the worst that can happen is that they get fired," she said. "If you make a mistake at your prison job, you can lose access to your family … you lose telephone calls, you lose visitation, you can be moved into solitary confinement for an extended period of time."


"Like A Sweatshop"

Sean Kyler, who spent nearly 25 years in New York prisons for murder and has held multiple jobs while inside, has little doubt: If you have a child attending a public school in the state, it's highly probable they are sitting on a chair made by incarcerated people.

Through its manufacturing arm, the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision, or NYSDOCCS, produces a diverse array of goods including furniture, cleaning products, apparel and uniforms, which are sold to government agencies, schools and nonprofits under the brand name Corcraft.

While locked up at Clinton Correctional Facility in Dannemora, New York, Kyler spent years sewing uniforms for prison staff in the Corcraft tailor shop. Each morning, he sat at a heavy-duty industrial machine, stitching trousers and shirts for the very officers who patrolled the facility. The work was tedious, repetitive and physically taxing — and it paid just cents an hour.

"I do remember, you know, working these hours in conditions that look sort of like a sweatshop," Kyler said.

Refusing to perform work, even while sick, or not being productive enough could also lead to punishment, he said.

Kyler said that refusing a work assignment would result in a "misbehavior report," leading to a monthlong suspension from recreation and access to the prison commissary.

Things have changed slightly in the last two decades as a result of litigation and grievances filed against the prison system, but prisoners failing to report to work are still punished by severely limiting their recreational time, said Kyler, who is 54 years old and since his release in July 2019 has been a vocal advocate for ending forced labor in prisons.

Kyler said he always felt extreme pressure to get involved in work programs, in part to avoid hurting his chances for early release, and in part because working a job would allow him to spend at least part of the day outside his prison cell.

"I had to conform in order to actually have the freedom — quote, 'freedom' — within the correctional facility to take care of the things like going to the law library, being not locked in my cell 23 hours a day," he said.

New York Correction Law requires that a prisoner "​​shall be assigned a work and treatment program as soon as practicable." The law also hinges prisoners' eligibility for parole on their participation in the prison's work program.

Nicole March, a spokesperson for NYSDOCCS, flatly denied the characterization of prison work as exploitative or coerced.

"No incarcerated individual is forced against their will to work a job," she said in an email.

March said that with vocational training and employment through Corcraft, the state prison system "aims to prepare incarcerated individuals with the skills and knowledge necessary to obtain meaningful, often well-paying employment upon their reentry into the community."

Prisoners participating in Corcraft work in manufacturing, abatement of hazardous materials — including asbestos and lead — recycling and composting, and call centers through a partnership with the New York State Department of Motor Vehicles.

Correctional industries have "proven to have a beneficial impact on recidivism," March told Law360.

According to the National Correctional Industries Association, which compiles statistics on recidivism, incarcerated people working in correctional industries are less likely to return to prison than people who don't take part in professional or vocational training.

In New York, prisoners are remunerated with different pay scales, depending on the level of skill, education and responsibility required for the job. Nonindustry work pays 10 to 33 cents per hour. Corcraft employment pays 16 to 65 cents per hour. Food service is paid 25 to 45 cents per hour. Such wages do not get taxed and are deposited into prisoners' individual commissary accounts.

The last time incarcerated individuals in New York received a pay increase was in 1992. Several bills proposing wage increases for incarcerated workers have been introduced in the state legislature in recent years, but all failed to advance beyond committee.

March said NYSDOCCS' policies regarding work programs are guided by state law and best practices spelled out by the American Correctional Association.

"The department must recognize the right of every individual to receive humane treatment and to have their health and safety protected," March said.

Michele Goodwin, a legal scholar at Georgetown University Law Center, said that the COVID-19 pandemic highlighted tensions surrounding prison labor and the legal framework that permits it.

Goodwin, who has published several law journal articles focusing on reproductive rights, race and sex discrimination, and prison labor, said incarcerated workers often perform essential labor under conditions that do not meet standard workplace protections.

She said the public is largely unaware of prisoners' role in producing high-demand goods and services during the public health crisis.

"During the peak of COVID, there were individuals who were making the hand sanitation and also the masks, but were not being provided the opportunity to utilize the very products that they were making," she said. "And I think that that's a narrative that Americans don't know about."

Angola and the Lawsuit to End the "Farm Line"


The first job assignment for nearly every man who arrives at Louisiana State Penitentiary, better known as Angola, is to work the land surrounding the prison, which sits on the grounds of a former slave plantation.

Each year, thousands of men incarcerated at Angola are forced into unpaid agricultural labor, working the same soil where enslaved Black people once toiled, a work assignment known as the "Farm Line."

Prisoners are sent into the fields under the watch of armed guards and "line pushers" who prod them to be productive, harvesting crops and tending to fields without pay. For the first three years, they earn no pay. After that, wages top out at 4 cents an hour — and even that can be revoked as punishment for infractions like not working fast enough or refusing to work.

"It is really a practice that is used to kind of break you into the shape of the prison, to force you into compliance," said Kara Crutcher, a staff attorney at the Promise of Justice Initiative, a New Orleans-based nonprofit advocating for prisoners' rights. "It is inherently harmful, physically, mentally, emotionally."

Crutcher represents a group of incarcerated plaintiffs in a class action filed against the Louisiana Department of Corrections to try to end the practice of forced agricultural labor at Angola.

The case, Voice of the Experienced et al. v. LeBlanc et al., challenges Angola's Farm Line on the grounds that it violates the Eighth Amendment's ban on cruel and unusual punishment and the Americans with Disabilities Act, particularly for individuals with medical vulnerabilities to heat.

Crutcher said some inmates who are part of the putative class have passed out in the fields due to heat exhaustion, despite not being classified as medically at-risk. Basic protections that were previously nonexistent, like shade structures and mandatory water breaks, were introduced only after the lawsuit began, but the general practice has continued.

"Any changes that have been made have only happened because of this lawsuit," she said. "The relief we are asking for is to end the Farm Line, because this practice is cruel."

At a recent class certification hearing, Crutcher's team presented live testimony from incarcerated people and expert witnesses detailing the physical, psychological and historical trauma of forced field labor. Defense attorneys for the state argued that the practice is justified under Louisiana law, where individuals can be sentenced to hard labor. That phrase — "hard labor" — has become a central pillar of the state's legal defense, she said.

But Crutcher sees the phrase as a cover for abuse.

One of her clients, a man who had no formal diagnosis finding him heat-sensitive, lost consciousness twice while working in the fields.

"Is a sentence of hard labor a sentence to fainting because you are put under torturous work conditions? I don't think so," she said. "That's what we're arguing."

Though the lawsuit is still pending, it has already brought renewed scrutiny to the legacy of racial violence and economic exploitation rooted in Angola's past. And for many, it has reignited questions about the 13th Amendment's exception clause.

Crutcher said the legal team representing the Angola plaintiffs considered filing a 13th Amendment claim, but decided not to. She described the doctrine as "not super fleshed out" and underdeveloped, possibly on purpose.

"I think that that is like a pathway that folks don't want incarcerated folks to explore, because mass incarceration is productive for this country financially," she said.

The Louisiana Department of Public Safety & Corrections declined to comment on its prison labor practices and the ongoing class action.

The 13th Amendment's Exception Clause: A Constitutional Loophole for Slavery

The 13th Amendment abolished slavery in 1865, but with the carveout that became known as the exception clause. For over 150 years, that clause has enabled the forced labor of incarcerated people across the country. Legal scholars and advocates say it remains a constitutional caveat used to justify enslavement — one the courts have too often overlooked.

"What happens very quickly after the Civil War is the 13th Amendment is adopted with this exception," said Adam Davidson, a professor at University of Chicago Law School and scholar on prison labor. "But the South realizes that this is an opportunity to functionally reenslave people, and so there is a pretty rapid explosion of the number of people who are either incarcerated and forced to labor or convicted and forced to labor."

Despite some early opposition by Congress, the practice of forced labor became entrenched in the American carceral system. During Reconstruction, former slave owners invoked the exception clause to effectively reenslave Black Americans through convict leasing, a practice in which prisoners were leased to private parties for profit.

In the early 20th century, courts began deeming prison labor not as criminal punishment, but as a routine part of incarceration.

"Courts developed an Except Clause jurisprudence that slowly but surely constricted the rights of imprisoned people … with little reasoning," Davidson wrote in an article published in the Columbia Law Review in April 2023.

In the article, "Administrative Enslavement," Davidson said it was "surprising" that, despite the presence of language permitting involuntary servitude in the exception clause, almost no states — Alabama and Wisconsin are the outliers — include forced labor as a form of punishment in their criminal codes. Instead, state laws include regulations on prison labor alongside sections regulating prison administration.

Davidson argues this structural decision effectively places control over prison labor in the hands of prison bureaucrats. And as a result, this shifting legal framework effectively removed the practice of prison labor from due process scrutiny. That legacy continues today, Davidson said.

"Labor became just part of that," he said. "It's like a piece of prison administration. And courts are really reticent to sort of put their foot into prison administration and to tell prison administrators exactly how they have to run the prison."

Others scholars argue the clause has been misunderstood and misused. William Carter Jr., a professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law, said the intention of the amendment's framers was to make clear that, although slavery and involuntary servitude were abolished, people convicted of crimes could still be sentenced to hard labor.

"That is very different from saying that the status of being incarcerated allows your jailer to subject you to involuntary servitude," Carter said.

James Pope, a professor at Rutgers Law School who specializes in the intersection between constitutional law and labor, said the misinterpretation of the exception clause has allowed states to claim a right to force people to perform unpaid work, even when that is not a part of their sentence.

"Today you can be sentenced to prison for a very minor crime. And then, you may or may not be subjected to involuntary servitude, depending on the whim of administrators, what the state law is, many factors," Pope said.

Prison wardens are vested with significant power in deciding whether to subject prisoners to forced labor. Revenue generation for the state often incentivizes that dynamic, he said.

"You could learn a skill," Pope said. "But on the other hand, you're learning how to work with no rights, and maybe you're just being turned into a submissive person. I don't view that as particularly good for rehabilitation."

Eight states have recently passed constitutional amendments to ban slavery and forced labor without exception. Colorado did so in 2018, followed by Nebraska and Utah in 2020. In 2022, voters in Alabama, Oregon, Tennessee and Vermont amended their state constitutions to eliminate their version of the exception clause. Nevada was the most recent state to follow suit in 2024.

But efforts fell short, too. In November, California voters showed no appetite for repealing the exclusion clause in Article 1, Section 6 of the state constitution, which reads that "Slavery is prohibited. Involuntary servitude is prohibited except to punish crime." They rejected ballot measure Proposition 6 by a nearly 7% margin.

But even in states where involuntary servitude was officially repealed, experts say working conditions for inmates haven't materially changed, in part because the federal clause remains a structural barrier. Litigation in Alabama and Colorado to give effect to the state constitutional prohibition on forced labor is pending.

From Grassroots to Congress, a National Push for Change

While the 13th Amendment's exception clause has long withstood legal challenges, a growing movement of advocates, scholars and incarcerated people has mobilized to try to end forced prison labor in the courts, in state legislatures and on Capitol Hill.

At the grassroots level, campaigns like End the Exception have described forced prison labor as a moral failure of the American justice system and pushed for the passage of a new constitutional amendment that would replace the 13th Amendment to eliminate the prison labor exception in the U.S. Constitution.

"The fight is not against work. The fight is against slavery," said Tylek of Worth Rises, which launched the End the Exception campaign in 2021. "People in prison want to work."

But, she added, prisoners should be given "dignified opportunities to work" that include fair wages, protection from wage theft, and also protection from discrimination and the same coverage under OSHA regulations that shield workers who are not imprisoned.

In New York, 13th Forward, a coalition of advocacy groups that includes organizations like the Vera Institute of Justice, The Legal Aid Society and the New York Civil Liberties Union, is pushing for the passage of the No Slavery in New York Act, a bill that would explicitly ban involuntary servitude for incarcerated people by adding a provision in the state's civil rights statute. The coalition is also advocating for a bill that would allow incarcerated workers to earn an hourly wage that is at least half the state minimum wage.

"New York still does not pay individuals incarcerated a fair wage," Kyler said. "All of the slave labor tactics that we see across the country are still being implemented in New York even though there is no slavery clause contained in our state constitution."

At the federal level, efforts to repeal the exclusion clause have so far fallen short.

In June 2021, Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., and Rep. Nikema Williams, D-Ga., introduced an "Abolition Amendment" bill that proposes a constitutional revision to eliminate the 13th Amendment's punishment clause. The bill was reintroduced in June 2023, and advocates expect it will be filed again this year.

An aide to Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., who co-sponsored the Abolition Amendment, said he will work with Merkley to reintroduce it in the current Congress. Booker also plans in the coming months to revamp a package of bills he introduced in February 2023 that seek to change the legal framework of forced labor in U.S. prisons, the aide said.

"No person in our country should be forced to work to generate billions of dollars' worth of goods and services for the profit of corporations and governments," Booker told Law360 through an email from his office. "This practice is a vestige of slavery that most people are shocked to learn is legal under the Constitution. I believe that we can gather wide support in the Congress for the reintroduction of these bills."
In the courtroom, challenges to forced prison labor practices continue. While direct 13th Amendment challenges have failed, recent lawsuits have challenged forced labor using other legal theories, such as the Eighth Amendment's prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment — like in the Farm Line case in Louisiana — or by invoking labor law, disability rights and federal civil rights statutes.

Still, Goodwin said eliminating forced prison labor requires more than just advocating for legal reform and litigating in court. The American public and policymakers, she said, are still largely ignorant about the reality of prison labor and its roots in slavery, and often do not fully grasp the severity of exploitation incarcerated people endure, and their little visibility in the national conversation around labor.

She pointed to thousands of people who, after being released, still encounter barriers in getting employment despite having learned professional skills behind bars. That includes prisoner firefighters like Corleto who, after risking their lives extinguishing blazes while incarcerated, are still unable to find jobs as fire crew members because of statutory barriers for people with certain criminal records.

"We have a system that has forgotten about the lives that are affected by it," she said. "People really don't understand the full texture of slavery itself. They didn't really understand it at the time in which it was in legal practice in the United States, and I don't believe that they really understand it today."

--Editing by Orlando Lorenzo and Haylee Pearl. Graphics by Jason Mallory and Ben Jay.

Workers Behind Bars is a special series from Law360 exploring the push to end subminimum wages and forced labor for detained and incarcerated workers and the labor laws central to this dispute. Have a story idea for Access to Justice? Reach us at accesstojustice@law360.com.