Incarcerated people grow crops, fight wildfires, and manufacture everything from prescription glasses to highway signs — often for pennies an hour. Zachary Crockett takes the next exit, in this special episode of The Economics of Everyday Things. SOURCES:Laura Appleman, professor of law at Willamette University.Christopher Barnes, inmate at the Franklin Correctional Center.Lee Blackman, general manager at Correction Enterprises.Gene Hawkins, senior principal engineer at Kittelson and professor emeritus of civil engineering at Texas A&M University.Renee Roach, state signing and delineation engineer for the North Carolina Department of Transportation.Brian Scott, ex-inmate, former worker at the Correction Enterprises printing plant.Louis Southall, warden of Franklin Correctional Center. RESOURCES:“Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices for Streets and Highways, 11th Edition,” by the U.S. Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration (2023).“Prisoners in the U.S. Are Part of a Hidden Workforce Linked to Hundreds of Popular Food Brands,” by Robin McDowell and Margie Mason (AP News, 2024).“Ex-Prisoners Face Headwinds as Job Seekers, Even as Openings Abound,” by Talmon Joseph Smith (The New York Times, 2023).“Bloody Lucre: Carceral Labor and Prison Profit,” by Laura Appleman (Wisconsin Law Review, 2022).“The Road to Clarity,” by Joshua Yaffa (The New York Times Magazine, 2007).Correction Enterprises. EXTRAS:“Do People Pay Attention to Signs?” by No Stupid Questions (2022).The Economics of Everyday Things.
Full Episode
Hey there, it's Stephen Dovner. And today we've got a bonus episode for you. It is an episode of another show in our network. It's called The Economics of Everyday Things, which is hosted by Zachary Crockett. In the past, Zachary and his team have made episodes about Michelin stars, snake venom, prosthetic limbs. Today, they bring us their reporting on highway signs and prison labor.
If you like this episode, be sure to follow the show on your podcast app. Again, it's called The Economics of Everyday Things. And let us know what you think. Our email is radio at Freakonomics.com. OK, here is Zachary Crockett.
The town of Bunn, North Carolina, is easy to miss. It occupies a total area of just half a square mile, and it's home to fewer than 330 people. Most of the surrounding land is used to grow tobacco and soybeans. But off the main road, behind a series of chain-link fences and secure gates, is the state's primary manufacturer of highway signs.
Inside the plant, workers are busy shearing giant aluminum panels, cutting sheets of green adhesive, and measuring out the spacing between letters. And outside in the shipping yard, the plant's general manager, Lee Blackman, is admiring a row of completed products.
This sign right here is 12 foot tall. This is going somewhere on Interstate 95 in North Carolina.
This facility makes all kinds of road signs. Stop signs, yield signs, construction signs. But its biggest products, both by size and revenue, are those huge green signs that loom over you on the highway.
That's going to give you information about what road you're on right now, the intersections that are coming up, what is the next town coming up, the exit and so forth.
Signs like this are all over American highways and freeways. There are literally millions of them. And they're so familiar that many of us don't stop to think about where they come from or why they look the way they do. Behind every highway sign, there's a long and winding road of economic decision-making.
We want to make sure that we get a good quality product because we want it out there for 20 years. We've got to be good stewards of the taxpayers' money.
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