HOUSTON, Dec. 23 (Xinhua) -- Over 250 million U.S. dollars have been generated since 2000 through wage garnishments from prisoners leased to private companies in Alabama, a southern U.S. state where the prison system is among "the most violent, overcrowded and unruly" in the United States, the AP reported on Saturday.

According to a two-year investigation by the AP, "no state has a longer, more profit-driven history of contracting prisoners out to private companies than Alabama," which has a convict leasing history spanning more than 150 years.

Since 2018, over 10,000 inmates have logged 17 million work hours outside Alabama's prison walls in entities like city and county governments, and businesses. Burger King and Walmart are among the over 500 businesses to lease incarcerated workers, including major car-part manufacturers, meat-processing plants, and distribution centers for large retailers, said the report.

Though the prisoners make at least 7.25 dollars an hour, the state siphons 40 percent off all wages and levies fees, including 5 dollars a day for rides to their jobs and 15 dollars a month for laundry, according to the investigation.

If they refuse, the report said, they risk punishment, including being denied family visits or transferred to high-security prisons. Refusing to work can also jeopardize their chances of early release.

However, such free labor can offer a reprieve from the "excessive violence" inside the prison, said the report. In 2023 and the first half of 2024, an inmate in Alabama died nearly every day behind bars, a rate five times higher than the national average.

"It is a symptom of a completely, utterly broken system," said Chris England, an Alabama lawmaker pushing for criminal justice reform. ■