Incarcerated in 1994 at the age of 19, Carlos Smith’s first job was working on an assembly line making paper folders for 20 cents per hour. His sentence was commuted in 2025. Smith fights to end these conditions. 

End Slavery in Minnesota Coalition, a prison reform advocacy group, held a rally at the state capitol to advance prison reform. The state’s constitution allows prisons to pay incarcerated workers as little as 20 cents per hour, which ESM wants to change. 

“It affects their families, their children and their neighborhood, and it affects all of us,” ESM Outreach Coordinator Carlos Smith said during a speech at the capitol. “Lawmakers want safer communities, young people want fairness, orgs want justice and this law touches all of those values.” 

A bill was introduced during the legislative session to reclassify incarcerated people as employees. Recognizing them as workers would mean they have to be paid $11.13 per hour, the state’s minimum wage. Eight states have banned forced labor in prisons, including Tennessee and Alabama. 

Smith spent more than 32 years of his life in prison. When he was released, he had $500 to his name. 

“These experiences that I had in my life, they’re very real,” Smith said. “It’s my goal, and somewhat of a, not really a goal, but obligation, to make sure that I inform the community and people that may have a different perspective about how prison goes, how it’s operated.” 

Smith left with $500. Others left with nothing. Michael David Henderson shared his experience along with other speakers before the rally kicked off in the rotunda. He became affiliated with ESM through David Boehnke, a leading organizer for the coalition.

Henderson was convicted of second-degree murder after attempting an armed robbery at a Sam’s Club in Bloomington in 2014. One eyewitness testified he saw Henderson pull the trigger, but the gun jammed and never fired a bullet. Henderson said they should have charged him with robbery, not second-degree attempted murder. He was released one month ago in April.

“How do you definitively prove that it was jammed while it was pointing at somebody’s chest?” Henderson said. “That’s all they did, was change the sequence of events.” 

After incarceration, Henderson said he refused to work because it was not worth the pay. They sent him to a Special Housing Unit, nicknamed “The Shoe,” a place where prisoners are separated from the general population. Left by themselves, prisoners usually spend 22-24 hours a day in their cells. Henderson said he was allowed three hours of free time per day, but only if he worked. 

“That’s a way to force you indirectly to capitulate to working, because now you’re desperate after six months,” Henderson said. 

Henderson said he would package up to 3,000 balloons for 30 cents per hour. He said he would grab his box from the corner while guards watched them and sit at a folding table, packaging balloons. 

Reporting from the Associated Press found several companies use prison labor to produce goods, including the Minnesota-based company Gold Medal Flour. 

“It’s operational slavery,” Henderson said. “It’s systematized. It’s in collusion with different industries that you wouldn’t think are connected on the surface, but they are most definitely in collusion.”

Henderson said he was released in April with no savings. His parole officer is helping him look for housing, but he has not yet had a permanent residence. He has also struggled to find a job. 

“I’m just blessed that I was able to come out with half of my head,” Henderson said. 

Two-thirds of the 650,000 people released from prisons each year are more likely to be rearrested within three years of release. ESM said increasing the minimum wage for incarcerated workers would improve public safety, save taxpayer dollars and make Minnesota equitable. 

Rep. Cedrick Frazier (DFL-Crystal) authored a bill to change the definition of an incarcerated worker. He said he believed the bill would get passed in the next legislative session despite this being his final term. 

“When someone is being held accountable and incarcerated, taking away their freedoms, that doesn’t mean you get to treat them less than,” Frazier said. 

Senator Clare Oumou Verbeten (DFL-Roseville) said the fight for prison reform was not over. She said the legislature moves slowly, agreeing with Frazier.  

“These movements, sometimes they take time, but we just have to keep going,” Verbeten said. “We have to keep fighting.”