While countless Americans shelter in their houses, America’s detainees are at work. In a minimum of 20 states, from Florida to Michigan to Texas to California, incarcerated workers are making hand sanitizer, face masks, and protective gowns at jail manufacturing centers. In Indiana, they’re making plastic face guards. In Oregon, they’re doing medical facilities’ laundry. If they are paid at all, a lot of employees make in between $0.14 and $1.50 per hour, and no laws or FEMA guidelines need those rates increase in times of emergency situation. That said, Covid-19 has produced dubious windfalls for a couple of. New York City has supposedly offered incarcerated workers tasks making $6 per hour, a towering sum by prison requirements. All they had to do was dig mass graves.
Going to operate in prison during a pandemic presents all the exact same health risks that going to work in the outside world does, and then loads dozens more potential problems on top of them. Social distancing is hard in prison offices, and incarcerated people are unable to self-quarantine to prevent Covid-19 when they’re off the job. They are likewise disproportionately likely to suffer from preexisting conditions that increase their risk, and might deal with punitive procedures like holding cell if they do contract the infection. In some states, going to work is explicitly necessary, and, for many incarcerated workers, it’s a financial requirement either way.
In the very best case scenario, work done in jail functions as task training that will
