I made $1.75 a day in prison and I never felt exploited.

I worked for almost five years in the kitchen and food-preparation units of the maximum-security York Correctional Institution in Niantic, Conn., loading 50-pound bags of texturized vegetable protein into 200-gallon kettles. Because a kitchen has dangers—blades, scalding surfaces—there were approximately five inmates per supervisor, a much different ratio than in our housing units where two guards watched up to 98 prisoners.

Within...