With the ongoing spread of COVID-19, or the coronavirus, items such as face masks and hand sanitizers are in high demand and have been out of stock in many stores. Hand sanitizer has also seen an increase in price due to this demand. In response, New York governor Andrew Cuomo recently announced that the state will be producing its own hand sanitizer to be distributed to communities affected by the virus, noting that production of the hand sanitizer will only cost $6 per gallon. This low production cost, however, is not necessarily a positive nor should it be a point of pride: the primary reason why the hand sanitizer is so cheap to produce is that the state is using prison labor.
These inmates whose labor will be used to produce this hand sanitizer will be paid extremely low wages for their work. Prison wages average at 65 cents per hour (wages start at 16 cents per hour) and only reach a maximum of $1.30 per hour. In comparison, minimum wage in New York ranges from $11.80 to $15. These inmates are hardly paid at all, let alone a fair or living wage. Their labor will help fight the spread of the coronavirus, and yet they are paid less than a dollar per hour for their work.
Inmates are also not allowed to use or possess hand sanitizer due to its high alcohol content, meaning that those who work to manufacture the hand sanitizer are not even able to use it themselves. Inmates also face a high risk of disease and are certainly at risk for an outbreak of the coronavirus, considering that they live in close quarters and often crowded conditions. Inmates also do not receive proper health care, and prisons often have inadequate living conditions to protect against such an outbreak: shortages on soap as well as broken sinks are not uncommon, and inmates will not even have access to hand sanitizer in order to help prevent spreading any disease.
The use of prison labor in producing New York's new hand sanitizers only brings more attention to the already-existing issue of prison labor and conditions. Critics of this use of prison labor have pointed to the extremely low wages to compare prison labor to slavery: mass incarceration and prison labor has often been equated to a modern form of slavery. This comparison becomes especially relevant considering how people of color, particularly African Americans, make up a disproportionate percentage of prison populations in the United States. In New York (as of 2010), African Americans make up about 16-18% of the state population but about 53% of the prison and jail population.
There are certainly positives to the state's production of hand sanitizer. Communities that need hand sanitizers to prevent spreading disease will be able to get them, and these hand sanitizers will hopefully help bring down some of the prices of hand sanitizers being sold by other retailers. However, the use of prison labor must still be acknowledged. The coronavirus is a very urgent issue that needs to be addressed, but that does not mean we should ignore the unfair treatment of inmates.
