When Kathy Ford stopped in at the Maine state prison showroom while on vacation from Pennsylvania with her friends, she didn’t expect to be interacting with prisoners.

“I thought he was joking,” she said of one of the shop’s workers. “I’ve never been in a place that had prisoners working.”

Sitting behind the counter wearing a striped grey polo shirt and sipping coffee as he welcomes customers, Anthony would fit in working at any other shop along US Route 1, Maine’s well-trodden coastal tourist trail. The door to the street is open, with seemingly little to stop anybody from walking out.

The Maine state prison showroom in Thomaston, Maine, features goods produced by inmates at the Maine state prison. Photograph: Josh Wood/The Guardian

But Anthony is a prisoner entering his 30th year of incarceration, a man who can recite the remaining length of his sentence down to the day.

“This is nothing like prison,” he said. “This is freedom really.”

Prison labour is pervasive in the United States, with hundreds of thousands of inmates working every year. Many work low-wage jobs inside prison walls that keep operating costs down: cleaning, cooking and doing laundry. But inmates do many other jobs too. Some work in call centres. Some fight wildfires. Others manufacture everything from clothes and eyeglasses to license plates and food. Some have even manufactured lingerie.

But while prison labour is often unnoticed and forgotten, that is not the case in Maine.

In Maine, many of the goods produced by inmates at the Maine state prison end up on sale at the showroom. Here, shoppers can buy cutting boards, furniture, tourist knick-knacks, doll houses and other wooden items, all stamped “Hand Crafted at the Maine State Prison.”

The prices seem pretty good for hand-made woodwork – and the quality seems high too. But while that may be attractive to some, it is the mystique, taboo and implied danger of prison labor that draws many in – often in ways that some might deem tasteless.

Outside the front door, a photo cutout depicting a squat inmate wearing a striped black and white prison jumpsuit invites visitors to pose.

A birdhouse for sale at the Maine state prison showroom is designed to mimic a jailhouse. Photograph: Josh Wood/The Guardian

Inside, birdhouses designed to mimic jails with barred windows sell for $17.95. A glass display case above the kitchenware shows off crude shanks and other prisoner contraband confiscated from inmates. In the toys section, a wooden figure named Spencer the Sales Potato is kept in a small wooden cell. When he “escapes” shoppers have the chance to find the fugitive and lock him up again to receive a discount.

T-shirts and other items like model lobster boats are stamped with “Shawshank” – a reference to the fictional prison in the 1994 film The Shawshank Redemption, which was inspired by the old Maine state prison that was shuttered in 2002.

One shopper who came in on a recent Friday afternoon inquired whether any of the items had been made by “really bad” guys. The inmates working assured her some were.

“The majority of people who come to the showroom, they know what we’re about,” said Ken Lindsey, manager of Maine Prison Industries, when asked about the prisoner cutout at the entrance. “People get a kick out of these things, so we try to keep the customer happy.”

Prisoners working at the showroom did not seem to mind.

A model lobster boat bears the name Shawshank. Photograph: Josh Wood/The Guardian

“Doesn’t bother me any,” said Anthony.

“No, not a bit,” chimed in David, a 36-year-old inmate serving time for manufacturing narcotics. “We all did time at the prison. We know that it’s not like that.”

While playing up the danger of prison might be off-putting to some, the money generated at the showroom goes back into the woodworking shop at the prison. Some inmates working at the showroom have served lengthy sentences for serious crimes, but are now minimum security prisoners. While most of the men making crafts for the Maine state prison showroom will be released one day, some are serving life sentences.

For those getting out, the expansive woodworking shop at the Maine state prison offers a chance to build skills and experience – and break up the monotony of prison life.

“Other than sports, it’s the only thing I’m really good at,” said Phillip, 34, who is serving an 18-year sentence for an arson charge, as he worked on a bookcase that will go to a state agency.

He is currently working between 30 and 35 hours a week and says he is happy to do so.

“Here I can basically get lost in my work and forget that I’m in prison for a little while,” he said. “It just helps make the time go by so much quicker, staying busy and motivated and trying to take pride in what I do.”

‘Prison is a negative environment,’ said Ken Lindsey, the prison industries manager. ‘But we try to make it a positive one in here as much as we can.’ Photograph: Josh Wood/The Guardian

“Prison is a negative environment,” said Lindsey, the prison industries manager. “But we try to make it a positive one in here as much as we can.”

Prison labour is inherently controversial, especially in the age of private for-profit prisons. Its fiercest critics equate it to slave labour – and indeed, in some places workers receive no compensation. In 2015, the luxury grocer Whole Foods made a splash by announcing that it would no longer sell goat cheese and tilapia produced by inmates in Colorado. And last year saw a nationwide prison labour strike protesting about the treatment of inmates.

But prison labour remains a complex issue. Spots are often coveted. In places like Maine, working offers a level of freedom rare for prisoners.

“Most prisoners want to work – and jobs can be very positive for prisoners,” said David Fathi, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Prison Project. “But given the vast power inequality between prisoners and their employers, there is also a very real potential for exploitation.”

Joseph Jackson, 53, was incarcerated in Maine from 1995 to 2013 and now leads the Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition. With Maine’s department of corrections placing 10% of inmate wages into a savings account that they have access to when released, Jackson says the labour program helps inmates when their sentences end.

“It is something that is definitely helpful when we’re talking about re-entry, because one of the barriers to re-entry is actually resources,” he said.

Handcrafted yo-yos bear the Maine State Prison Showroom label. Photograph: Josh Wood/The Guardian

However, he said high costs associated with being in prison – like commissary spending on basic necessities and high charges for phone calls – mean dollars earned behind bars do not go as far as they do in the free world.

But to him, shopping at the prison showroom is ethical.

“What you’re supporting is you’re supporting prisoner re-entry,” he said.

Back at the showroom, Anthony appeared to be grateful for the opportunities working has given him.

“It’s nice to have normal conversations,” he said. “It’s not prison speak. It’s conversations. It’s about ‘I’m buying this for my grandson or granddaughter’. It’s just normal everyday talk that you would engage in.”

During an afternoon lull, David wandered outside to smoke a cigarette. The sun was out and a breeze was blowing. Wearing a grey T-shirt, there was nothing to set him apart from the general public, except how he greeted shoppers arriving in the showroom.

“If you’re going to be incarcerated, Maine’s the place to do it,” he said.