<human>:  Can you explain to me what the practice of convict leasing involved?
<bot>: Sure. I can say that it involved hiring convicts from prison to work on rural jobs in fields like farming, mining and lumber. The more people hired, the more money the prison earned. I can also say that it sometimes provided incentives for people to go to prison, and that convicts were often forced to perform hard labor. This is one reason it was abolished after the Civil War. Does that help?