Nora worked the fields outside Texas prisons for nearly three years. But she didn’t learn much about tending crops. There weren’t any growing in the empty fields where the women were sent to clear debris and weeds at the edge of the prison property 30 miles west of Waco.

“It was more of taking the workers out and cleaning an area where they work crops — a punishment of sorts,” said Nora, who spoke on the condition that her last name be withheld because she fears retribution. “Not one time do I remember them planting crops.”

Across the country, prisoners like Nora harvest cotton, fight fires, fix school buses and even make gavels for judges. According to state and federal prison policies, if they refuse to work they can lose privileges, get sent to solitary confinement or be denied parole. On average, they earn less than a dollar an hour. In five states, they typically make no money at all.

Despite paying minuscule wages, prison labor programs often lose money. Earlier this year, a Texas audit found that 46% of the prison system’s agricultural products cost more to grow than they are worth, and the state could have saved $17 million over five years by simply buying canned foods and certain crops — including cotton — instead of relying on prisoners to produce them.

Wanda Bertram, a spokesperson for Prison Policy Initiative, a research and advocacy nonprofit group, said it was “not uncommon” for prison labor programs to operate in the red.

“There are many examples of prison labor not being profitable, but most people don’t know that,” she said, pointing to the unusual overhead costs and lack of flexibility as two reasons correctional industries aren’t always cost-effective.

Read the full article about prison labor programs by Keri Blakinger at The Marshall Project.