Incarcerated people grow crops, fight wildfires, and manufacture everything from motor oil to prescription glasses — often for pennies per hour. Zachary Crockett reports from North Carolina.

SOURCES:

• Laura Appleman, professor of law at Willamette University.
• Christopher Barnes, inmate at the Franklin Correctional Center.
• Lee Blackman, general manager at Correction Enterprises.
• Brian Scott, ex-inmate, former worker at the Correction Enterprises printing plant.
• Louis Southall, warden of Franklin Correctional Center.

RESOURCES:

• "Prisoners in the U.S. Are Part of a Hidden Workforce Linked to Hundreds of Popular Food Brands," by Robin McDowell and Margie Mason (AP News, 2024).
• "Ex-Prisoners Face Headwinds as Job Seekers, Even as Openings Abound," by Talmon Joseph Smith (The New York Times, 2023).
• "Captive Labor: Exploitation of Incarcerated Workers," by the American Civil Liberties Union and the University of Chicago Law School Global Human Rights Clinic (2022).
• "Bloody Lucre: Carceral Labor and Prison Profit," by Laura Appleman (Wisconsin Law Review, 2022).
• "Prison Labor Is on the Frontlines of the COVID-19 Pandemic," by Eliyahu Kamisher (The Appeal, 2020).
• Correction Enterprises.

EXTRAS:

• "Can Data Keep People Out of Prison?" by People I (Mostly) Admire (2023).

It takes millions of giant green placards to make America navigable. Where do they come from — and who pays the bill? Zachary Crockett takes the exit.

• SOURCES:
  • Lee Blackman, general manager at Correction Enterprises.
  • Gene Hawkins, senior principal engineer at Kittelson and professor emeritus of civil engineering at Texas A&M University.
  • Renee Roach, state signing and delineation engineer for the North Carolina Department of Transportation.

• RESOURCES:
  • "Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices for Streets and Highways, 11th Edition," by the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration (2023).
  • "Who Picks the Businesses on Highway Exit Signs?" by Janet Nguyen (Marketplace, 2022).
  • "The Road to Clarity," by Joshua Yaffa (The New York Times Magazine, 2007).

• EXTRAS:
  • "Do People Pay Attention to Signs?" by No Stupid Questions (2022).

When a zoo needs an elephant, or finds itself with three surplus penguins, it doesn’t buy or sell the animals — it asks around. Zachary Crockett rattles the cages.

• SOURCES:
  • Hollie Colahan, deputy director of the Birmingham Zoo and chair of the AZA's Animal Population Management Committee.
  • Dwight Lawson, executive director and C.E.O. of the Oklahoma City Zoo.

• RESOURCES:
  • "Oklahoma City Zoo Announces Near-Total Redesign in 2024 Master Plan," by Sam Royka (The Oklahoman, 2024).
  • "Panda Diplomacy: What China’s Decision to Send Bears to the US Reveals About Its Economy," by Chee Meng Tan (The Conversation, 2024).
  • "Oklahoma City Zoological Trust Financial Statements," (2023).
  • "Modern Zoos Are Not Worth the Moral Cost," by Emma Marris (The New York Times, 2021).
  • "The Tiger King of the 19th Century," by Betsy Golden Kellem (Slate, 2020).
  • Animal Population Management Committee of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums.