Convict Labor: Kentucky Edition

Although the State prison in Frankfort has been officially closed since 1937, convict labor has been going on in Kentucky as recently as 2015.  According to an article published by prisonnews.org in July of 2015, they reported "The Daviess County Detention Center (DCDC) in Western Kentucky has a program that uses prisoners to manufacture mattresses......As the mattress-making work is considered community service, prisoners receive pay of $.63 per day for an eight-hour shift and have one day cut from their sentence for every 40 hours worked."  In some ways convict labor has improves, the inmates are compensated for their efforts which technically separates it from slavery, but that seems to be the only improvement. The inmates make $6.62 less than the $7.25 minimum wage in Kentucky, and they only recieve one day off of their sentence for every full week worked-if they are given a 40 hour week.  So yes, technically convict labor has improved, but because it was already operating from a deficit, the negatives still outway the progress.