STURTEVANT - Just because someone's gone to prison, it doesn't mean they are completely cut off from employment.

At the Racine Correctional Institution, the prisoners help prepare food, clean the cells, wash laundry and maintain the property.

They are also paid between 5 cents per hour and 42 cents per hour depending on their skill level, according to Robert Humphreys, warden at the Racine Correctional Institution.

From July 1, 2008 to June 30, 2009, the Racine Correctional Institution paid $384,000 to the institute's roughly 1,500 prisoners. That includes 5 cents per hour to prisoners who are willing to work, but for whom there are no jobs available.

The prisoners can use the money at the canteen to buy such things as food or hygiene items. But the money is not just for junk food.

"It's more beneficial than what it looks from the onset," Humphreys said.

Fifteen percent of the inmates' earnings goes into a fund for the prisoner's release. Then, when inmates are released from prison, they can use their money for housing and bus fares, Humphreys said.

Also, if a prisoner has child support or court fees, their earnings go to those expenses, Humphreys said.

The amount the state paid inmates used to be higher, said John Dipko, spokesman for the Wisconsin Department of Corrections. But it was reduced as a part of the 2003 state budget, Dipko said. Minnesota and Iowa also have similar pay programs, according to their departments of correction.

In Minnesota, for instance, prisoners are paid from 25 cents per to $2 per hour, according to Shari Burt, spokeswoman for the Minnesota Department of Corrections.

Minnesota also has a fund for prisoners' release, but the benefits go beyond that, she said.

"An idle prisoner is very dangerous," Burt said. "You don't want inmates sitting around doing nothing."

Even if inmates do spend some of their money in the canteen, Humphreys said that also financially helps the prison system financially.

For instance, prison inmates receive standard clothing, everything from underwear to socks, Humphreys said. The clothes are issued to the prisoners, and dirty clothes are exchanged for clean, Humphreys said. But that doesn't mean that each inmate receives their own pair of underwear or socks; they just receive their sizes, he said. With the money the inmates earn, they can buy their own personal undergarments and socks, which they can wash themselves. That helps save the prison money because then the prisoners are not using the garments supplied by the prison.