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03-20-2004, 09:10 AM
Officials: Prison labor threatens jobs
Gannett News Sevice
March 20, 2004
PETERSBURG, Va. — When someone is serving 15 years in prison and living in a cell the size of a walk-in closet, time can crawl by.
But Keith Graves, busy at a print shop at the Petersburg, Va., federal penitentiary on a chilly, overcast day, said the job helps his prison stint go smoothly. Plus, he can send money to his 8-year-old girl, LaKeisha.
“It’s helped me support my daughter,” said Graves, 37, who is in prison on federal drug charges and won’t be released until 2011. “I can send her extra stuff for Christmas.”
Along with the outcry over U.S. jobs being “outsourced” or moved overseas, some lawmakers also complain that prison industries are a threat to American workers.
Supporters say the prison industries program — a government corporation that uses the trade name Unicor — teaches inmates job skills and keeps them active so they do not fight with corrections officers and other inmates. Despite these benefits, Congress this year could pass a bill that would put many prisoners like Graves out of work.
Most federal agencies by law must buy the office furniture, car parts, textiles and other products that prisoners make. Prison industries also have another leg up over private firms because they pay inmates, at most, about a dollar an hour, well below the $5.15 per hour minimum wage, critics said.
Rep. Peter Hoekstra introduced legislation that would break Unicor’s federal monopoly by making it compete with private companies to win government contracts.
The Michigan Republican’s bill is on a roll. It quickly got 165 Republican and Democratic sponsors. Labor unions and corporations usually on opposite ends of the political spectrum have joined forces to support it.
Hoekstra’s bill passed the House 350-65 in November, and it could come up for a Senate vote this year.
The federal prison industry program rose during the Great Depression. Unemployment was rampant, so laws were passed to keep prison-made goods off the market. Inmates soon became so idle that some prison wardens assigned them mindless tasks such as straightening salt shakers.
Congress created the federal prison industry in 1935 to get prisoners busy again and give them job training they can use after release. But Unicor does more than rehabilitate — some of the money prisoners earn pays court fines, compensates crime victims and covers child support.
In the past two decades, lawmakers who believe cheap prison labor threatens private jobs have attacked Unicor. Two years ago, Congress passed a law that exempted the Pentagon from automatically buying prison products.
As a result, more than 2,000 prisoners lost jobs, said Philip Glover, president of the American Federation of Government Employees’ National Council of Prison locals.
Idle prisoners are a security threat because they are prone to boredom, frustration and battling each other or prison staff, he said. And prison staff are having a harder time keeping inmates busy because the federal prison population has mushroomed in the past 20 years, thanks partly to tougher, mandatory drug sentences.
The 104 federal prisons across the country now house 175,000 inmates, up from 44 prisons with 24,000 prisoners in 1980, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. About 20,000 inmates worked in prison industries last year.
Prisoners who get jobs or vocational training are also less likely to commit additional crimes both inside and outside of prison, said Laura Whitworth, a California executive and personal coach who also counsels prison inmates.
“If they cut (federal prison industries), they actually create a petri dish for greater dissemination of misinformation and violence,” Whitworth said.
©The Lafayette Daily Advertiser
March 20, 2004
On the web at:
http://www.theadvertiser.com/business/html/2223C039-66E1-4222-8BA1-DACA4EF81E5A.shtml
http://cgi.newsweaver.net/cgi-bin/linkweaver/print.pl?url=http://www.theadvertiser.com/business/html/2223C039-66E1-4222-8BA1-DACA4EF81E5A.shtml
Gannett News Sevice
March 20, 2004
PETERSBURG, Va. — When someone is serving 15 years in prison and living in a cell the size of a walk-in closet, time can crawl by.
But Keith Graves, busy at a print shop at the Petersburg, Va., federal penitentiary on a chilly, overcast day, said the job helps his prison stint go smoothly. Plus, he can send money to his 8-year-old girl, LaKeisha.
“It’s helped me support my daughter,” said Graves, 37, who is in prison on federal drug charges and won’t be released until 2011. “I can send her extra stuff for Christmas.”
Along with the outcry over U.S. jobs being “outsourced” or moved overseas, some lawmakers also complain that prison industries are a threat to American workers.
Supporters say the prison industries program — a government corporation that uses the trade name Unicor — teaches inmates job skills and keeps them active so they do not fight with corrections officers and other inmates. Despite these benefits, Congress this year could pass a bill that would put many prisoners like Graves out of work.
Most federal agencies by law must buy the office furniture, car parts, textiles and other products that prisoners make. Prison industries also have another leg up over private firms because they pay inmates, at most, about a dollar an hour, well below the $5.15 per hour minimum wage, critics said.
Rep. Peter Hoekstra introduced legislation that would break Unicor’s federal monopoly by making it compete with private companies to win government contracts.
The Michigan Republican’s bill is on a roll. It quickly got 165 Republican and Democratic sponsors. Labor unions and corporations usually on opposite ends of the political spectrum have joined forces to support it.
Hoekstra’s bill passed the House 350-65 in November, and it could come up for a Senate vote this year.
The federal prison industry program rose during the Great Depression. Unemployment was rampant, so laws were passed to keep prison-made goods off the market. Inmates soon became so idle that some prison wardens assigned them mindless tasks such as straightening salt shakers.
Congress created the federal prison industry in 1935 to get prisoners busy again and give them job training they can use after release. But Unicor does more than rehabilitate — some of the money prisoners earn pays court fines, compensates crime victims and covers child support.
In the past two decades, lawmakers who believe cheap prison labor threatens private jobs have attacked Unicor. Two years ago, Congress passed a law that exempted the Pentagon from automatically buying prison products.
As a result, more than 2,000 prisoners lost jobs, said Philip Glover, president of the American Federation of Government Employees’ National Council of Prison locals.
Idle prisoners are a security threat because they are prone to boredom, frustration and battling each other or prison staff, he said. And prison staff are having a harder time keeping inmates busy because the federal prison population has mushroomed in the past 20 years, thanks partly to tougher, mandatory drug sentences.
The 104 federal prisons across the country now house 175,000 inmates, up from 44 prisons with 24,000 prisoners in 1980, according to the Federal Bureau of Prisons. About 20,000 inmates worked in prison industries last year.
Prisoners who get jobs or vocational training are also less likely to commit additional crimes both inside and outside of prison, said Laura Whitworth, a California executive and personal coach who also counsels prison inmates.
“If they cut (federal prison industries), they actually create a petri dish for greater dissemination of misinformation and violence,” Whitworth said.
©The Lafayette Daily Advertiser
March 20, 2004
On the web at:
http://www.theadvertiser.com/business/html/2223C039-66E1-4222-8BA1-DACA4EF81E5A.shtml
http://cgi.newsweaver.net/cgi-bin/linkweaver/print.pl?url=http://www.theadvertiser.com/business/html/2223C039-66E1-4222-8BA1-DACA4EF81E5A.shtml