More than 150 of Allegheny County’s 1,500 prisoners work at institutional jobs. They wash dishes, cook, sort laundry, serve food, clean housing units, work in warehouses and perform various other jobs that, one way or the other, must be done. Inmate laborers generally work eight hours a day, seven days a week. They are, in effect, county employees — with one difference: They don’t get paid.
Paying inmate workers would enable them to support their kids and build a modest savings account to help them get on their feet after they leave, such as a nest egg for an apartment security deposit. The extra money could also help prisoners pay for phone calls or extra food or toiletries at the jail commissary. Now, the families of prisoners, most of whom are poor, often pick up those costs.
For prisoners with dependents, helping to support their families would give them an opportunity to take responsibility and start reintegrating into the community, two principles of restorative justice. Family support is an important ingredient for a successful re-entry after incarceration.
Allegheny County isn’t alone. County jails nationwide generally do not pay inmate workers. By contrast, most state prisons in the United States pay prisoner workers — on average, 13 cents to 52 cents an hour. Pennsylvania state prisons pay 23 cents to 50 cents per hour for most prisoner work assignments.
Instead of money, Allegheny County and other jails provide incentives for work, such as additional food, extended recreation time and, prior to COVID-19, one contact visit per month. Prisoners with work assignments are also out of their cells for the duration of their workday.
Bethany Hallam, a member of the Allegheny County Council and Jail Oversight Board, is proposing that the county pay prisoner workers the state and federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour. She plans to ask the Jail Oversight Board next month to authorize the pay plan. If it does, Allegheny County Jail would become, likely, the first county jail in the nation to pay a federal or state minimum wage to prisoner workers.
Members of the Jail Oversight Board ought to approve some compensation for prisoner workers — whether it’s the state minimum wage or less. Whatever prisoners are paid, they will continue to save Allegheny County money. If prisoners didn’t do those jobs, county employees would have to do them — at a considerably higher cost to the county and taxpayers.
Owing to the labor dispute, Hallam declined to talk to the Post-Gazette about the plan, but in previous public statements she said the county would distribute the money earned by prisoners as dictated by state law. For prisoners with dependents, three-fourths of the money earned would go to dependents; the prisoner would get the rest of the money in a newly created savings account. If the prisoner does not have dependents, he or she would get all of the money — some of it upon release and the rest within six months.
Legally, the rights of county jail prisoners to wages for labor should equal those of state prisoners — or even supersede them. Prison inmates have been convicted of a crime. Most county jail inmates are waiting for their cases to be tried or adjudicated. Because they haven’t yet been convicted — and maybe never will be — they are legally innocent.
Working without compensation appears to violate the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1865 to end slavery. The amendment prohibits involuntary servitude, “except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted.” Even so, courts have generally ruled that labor protections, including minimum wage laws, don’t apply to the incarcerated, even during pretrial detention.
Court rulings notwithstanding, not paying people for their work raises serious moral questions, even if the work is, strictly speaking, voluntary. Free choice has far less meaning if the alternative is languishing in a cell all day or not getting enough to eat.
Most jobs in county jails don’t teach work skills relevant to the local labor market. Wages are their only benefit. If they’re high enough, they can contribute to workers’ stability and success after they leave the jail.
In setting a reasonable wage for county jail prisoners, Allegheny County would lead the nation and set a humane and practical example for other counties in Pennsylvania and around the country.
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