Correctional Custody is actually a military prison or jail system, for really bad eggs.
The idea of work as a reformatory power maybe, but the use of penal prisoners for work? As old as galleys at the very least.
In my state they still use convicts to make plates, but they’ve switched from the old stamping mills to a digital printing process. So now it’s more of a white-collar job running the computers and mailing the plates and such. Also, we have a huge number of custom “organization” plates, which the convicts do the graphic layout on and in some cases actually do the artistic design on. I think it’s interesting that what was originally a menial punitive job has evolved into something that has real vocational value.
Bill Morrissey, the folksinger, had asong about that.
Obligatory song link #2:Nina Simone’s “Work Song”.
Some prisoners now work in call centers.
Prisons are government offices, after all. 
(j/k; I’m a bureaucrat myself).
Bumper sticker seen on an Illinois car:
“Illinois - where our ex-governors make our license plates”
Oh, also if you want some physical evidence that convicts did indeed make license plates, ours actually used to say “Prison Made” on them. Despite how it looks, this was not the Montana state motto at the time: http://licenseplatesselect.biz/vintage-1961-prison-made-montana-truck-license-plate-59-pressed-in-plate/
Here in South Dakota we have Pheasantland Industries run by the DOC.
Also, some low risk prisoners are used to help clean up after storms or groundskeeping or other tasks at the various government entities such as college campuses. When I went to the state archives, they had a prisoner working there assisting customers.
Nope. Wage laws don’t apply to prisoners. In fact, prisoners can be required to work without pay. It’s right there in the 13th Amendment:
Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.
However, there’s Federal a law that requires prisoners to be paid equal to free labor if they make products that move in interstate commerce. The Ashurst Sumners Act. Note that the law doesn’t apply to products that are never sold across state lines (which includes products made in state prisons which are sold back to the same state), or to services, or to certified wage-parity programs.
I have friends that are New York state corrections officers. Different prisons have different shops. One does metal work, another wood, another sews clothes etc… All the items are for state use only like filing cabinets or desks, not sold on the open market to undercut private buisnesses.
The metalworking shop I was told about where my friend works, said the inmates working there generally had 10 years in before they were consiered for a job there. Long enough to prove they are reliable and it’s a reward for good behaviour. They don’t want a malcontent in front of a punch press feeding in thousands of dollars of metal all day and intentionally doing it wrong and making scrap.
“Good evenin’. T’anks fer callin’ Comcast Customer Soivice. My name is Rocco. How can I help youse t’day?”
Prisoners also helped build the Ohio Statehouse: Ohio Statehouse - Wikipedia
I won’t defend it. It’s a dumb policy in my opinion. I think they’d be better off creating a certain number of real jobs that needed to be done and giving these to the number of prisoners needed to fill those jobs. They’d get pay and privileges and the other prisoners would be “unemployed”.
In my opinion, this would foster the idea that a job is something valuable that you sought out and not just something automatic that you try to evade.
I was up on Dartmoor the other day and next to the grim Victorian Prison there is indeed a big quarry as well as lots of neatly made stone walls all over the place, seems stone formed a big part of prison work in the old days.
I have always heard it was to build character.
At last, a video of prisoners busting rocks with sledgehammers:
I’m from Maryland and I know at the WCI federal prison, the prisoners make furniture for schoolrooms and the the prison sells to the state at ridiculously inflated prices since they have an exclusive contract or something.
In this thread, SSG Schwartz says (among many other interesting things) that jobs inside his military prison are valued by prisoners both for the money you can earn, and to fill the time: I work in a military prison. Ask me anything. - Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share - Straight Dope Message Board
What about Prison Blues (jeans)? According to their website they’re made in a prison, and I know they are (or were last time I went to the local army / navy store) available commercially.