Do prisoners cost money or make money for the government?
I'm confused about something. On the one hand, we hear that it costs something like $40,000 per year to keep someone in prison. On the other hand, we hear that prisoners are forced to work for pennies (Iiterally like 10 cents per hour or something). So which is it? Is the government locking people up for stupid stuff like possession of marijuana and wasting $40,000/year of taxpayers' money, or is government actually making a huge profit off of prisoner slave labor? It must be the latter case, right?