Categories: News

Russell Stover has begun using prison labor to make candy in Kansas

A Russell Stover candy factory in Kansas has begun hiring incarcerated workers through a work release program, Eoin Higgins reports in his newsletter, The Flashpoint. About 150 women are bussed in from the Topeka Correctional Facility and paid $14 an hour, but the prison keeps some of their wages for room and board, taxes, transportation, and other expenses. When all is said and done, they take home less than $6 per hour. These deductions are high, but elsewhere in the country, they’re even higher: In our May series on prison labor and the food industry, we reported that incarcerated workers in the Idaho potato industry take home less than $2 per hour.

Related Post
The Counter
Share
Published by
The Counter

Recent Posts

Grist acquires The Counter and launches food and agriculture vertical

Grist, an award-winning, nonprofit media organization dedicated to highlighting climate solutions and uncovering environmental injustices,…

6 months ago

Is California giving its methane digesters too much credit?

Every year, California dairy farms emit hundreds of thousands of tons of the potent greenhouse…

2 years ago

Your car is killing coho salmon

Highway 7 runs north-south through western Washington, carving its way through a landscape sparsely dotted…

2 years ago

The pandemic has transformed America’s dining landscape into an oligopoly dominated by chains 

One of the greatest pleasures I had as a child growing up in the Chicago…

2 years ago

California is moving toward food assistance for all populations—including undocumented immigrants

Undocumented immigrants experience food insecurity at much higher rates than other populations, yet they are…

2 years ago

Babka, borscht … and pumpkin spice? Two writers talk about Jewish identity through contemporary cookbooks.

Writer Charlotte Druckman and editor Rebecca Flint Marx are both Jewish journalists living in New…

3 years ago