It wouldn’t be like paying prisoners literal pennies is a way of getting around the law that made convict leasing illegal.
Now the prisoners can get paid some wages in return for labor, in a mostly voluntary labor system.
Unlike the CCP, every inmate had a trial and was found guilty of some crime, and is now repaying their debt to society - as it were.
What did the million Muslims in the article get convicted of in China? Being Muslims? What about the Uyghurs? So now they are slaves for the rest of their lives...