CCi, for its part, views inmate employment as rehabilitative. Its goal, it explains on its website, is "to reduce inmate idleness and the demand for general-funded programs by working as many inmates as possible in self supporting and productive industries. To train inmates in meaningful skills, work ethics and quality standards which best enable them to secure long-term employment after release from prison." Haystack Mountain Goat Dairy concurs: "Statistics show that agricultural/animal husbandry programs have a profoundly rehabilitative impact on inmates, resulting in reduced recidivism rates."

There is little question that post-release employment is tied closely with reduced recidivism (one study found that post-release employment "the most important predictor" of successful re-entry into non-prison life). But the reason for this is not well understood. Are people who manage to find work after prison already more stable? Better connected to friends and family? Healthier? Or does having a job exert some sort of stabilizing effect?

But even if you accept that jobs can somehow facilitate re-entry, can prison work programs facilitate jobs? That's also hard to pin down. One 1988 study found that "the effect of prison industry participation on the probability of postrelease felony arrest was small and insignificant" but a later study (1997) contradicted that, finding "significant and substantive" effects. The conflicting results may be because the details of the programming—quality, rigor, types of skills taught—matter greatly, and different programs will produce different results.

Even when these programs are beneficial, the 60-cents-a-day wage is disturbing—and not just because plenty of people outside of prison would be happy to milk goats at a normal wage. The justification for such low wages seems to be that the compensation is not financial but "training" in skills such as a "work ethic," as the CCi website says. But all jobs are compensated with "training," at least when this loosely defined; that's part of having a job. It's hard to imagine that the benefit of such training wouldn't be bolstered by a little cash in a bank account, ready to be spent on rent, groceries, transit, and so on when someone leaves prison behind. That's not going to be possible on just 60 cents for a day's work.