More than 20 states are using prison labor to make hand sanitizer and masks while the coronavirus spreads through the prison system
- Several states have begun using prison labor to make up for a shortage of face masks, hand sanitizer, and medical gowns.
- The coronavirus is spreading rapidly at prisons around the country, where social distancing measures are practically impossible.
- Criminal justice advocates have argued that prisoners are vulnerable to exploitation.
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At least 20 states across the US have announced they will use prison labor to make essentials like sanitizer, medical gowns, and face masks.
While the decisions attempt to combat shortages of personal protective equipment caused by the coronavirus, some advocates have been critical of using prison labor to produce the supplies.
"The big problem with using prison labor is our dependency on it and our reluctancy to value it at what it should be," Bianca Tylek, executive director of the criminal justice nonprofit Worth Rises, told Business Insider Today.
The average wage for inmates working for the state prison industry is 33 cents per hour, according to the Prison Policy Initiative. In New York state, where incarcerated workers are bottling hand sanitizer, the prison industry pays a starting wage of 16 cents, a spokesperson for the New York State Department of Corrections and Community Supervision told Business Insider Today.
There is also growing concern around the conditions inside prisons, where precautionary measures like social distancing are nearly impossible.
"Many of us are learning to wash our hands for 20 seconds with soap. These are things that people who are in our jails and our prisons are simply unable to do because they don't have access to soap, they don't have access to hot water," Lauren-Brooke Eisen, a director at the Brennan Center for Justice told Business Insider Today.
States like New York and New Jersey have started releasing people incarcerated for parole violations in an attempt to reduce crowding behind bars. But the virus continues to spread through prisons and jails. In Chicago, the Cook County Jail has become the largest known source of infections in the continental US, with at least 524 connected cases as of April 14, according to The New York Times.
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