Corcraft workers statewide earn between 16 and 65 cents per hour manufacturing a range of products that are then purchased by New York schools, police departments, transit authorities, and other government entities. At Auburn Correctional Facility, incarcerated workers produce all license plates for the state’s Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). A bit further east at Greene Correctional Facility, they operate the DMV’s telephone call center. People incarcerated at Wallkill Correctional Facility manufacture prescription eyewear for New York Medicaid recipients, and at Fishkill, incarcerated people are tasked with the hazardous job of asbestos abatement.

While past stories on prison labor have focused on major retailers like Victoria’s Secret or Walmart for employing the use of cheap or free labor from incarcerated workers, private contractors actually comprise only a small portion of those who take advantage. Nationwide, less than 1% of incarcerated people are employed by private companies as a part of a federal work program. About 6%, however, are employed by state correctional industries like Corcraft.

In New York, Corcraft enjoys the status of “preferred source” under state law, meaning the company is exempt from any competitive bidding process and that government entities are required to purchase its products. While Corcraft earned over $50 million in revenue in 2019 from the sale of its products, New York’s incarcerated workers don’t earn anything close to a living wage and take home less than $2,000 a year for their work, flying in the face of Corcraft’s own stated goal to “prepare offenders for release.”

Since the first confirmed case of coronavirus in New York was reported on Mar. 1, the virus and anxiety around it has spread at a staggering speed. By Mar. 9, the day of Cuomo’s announcement about New York State Clean, the state had reported 142 cases.

In the hours following the governor’s press briefing, organizers from the Release Aging People from Prison Campaign, VOCAL-NY, Citizen Action of NY, Parole Preparation Project, and the Campaign for Alternatives to Isolated Confinement Campaign released a statement condemning Cuomo’s announcement of a plan to use the labor of incarcerated New Yorkers while also rolling back key criminal justice reforms and failing to grant clemency to petitioners throughout the state.

“We demand Governor Cuomo use his clemency power to release incarcerated New Yorkers who are particularly vulnerable to the coronavirus, including older people, pregnant women, people with serious illnesses and compromised immune systems,'' the groups said in a statement. “We also call on the governor to ensure that people in prison are compensated with a living wage.”

The incarcerated laborers working from Great Meadows to produce thousands of gallons of hand sanitizer will be preventing the spread of a deadly illness, but will remain vulnerable themselves. An incarcerated person at the Great Meadows facility would have to work more than 18 hours just to buy a single gallon of New York State Clean that they manufactured—if they were allowed to. DOCCS regulations prohibit incarcerated New Yorkers from being in possession of any products with alcohol as an ingredient, including hand sanitizer.

Twitter . Tamar Sarai Davis is Prism’s criminal justice staff reporter. Follow her on