‘Meaningful’ Employment Helps Them Earn Money, Learn Skills : Arizona Prison Jobs Train Inmates for Freedom

PHOENIX â€”  Little did the woman calling from Texas know she was speaking to a prisoner in Arizona.

But 23-year-old Marcea, who is serving seven years for armed robbery, was polite and efficient as she swiftly booked a reservation for the caller at a Best Western International motel.

It was the sort of transaction that occurs nearly 2,000 times a day here under one of the nation’s most extraordinary prison industries programs. Thirty inmates of the Arizona Center for Women hold regular jobs with Best Western, booking $17 million a year in room sales and learning job skills that lead to steady employment when they go free.

The 30 women are among 1,100 Arizona inmates--including some who own and operate their own businesses behind bars--involved in what is widely regarded as one of the nation’s most advanced prison-industry efforts.

‘Provides a Reference’

“Eventually, I’m going to be released and this will provide a reference and recommendation for me,� says Marcea, whose daughter, now 2, was 3 weeks old when her mother was sentenced. Thirty percent of Marcea’s $4.50-an-hour wage goes to her daughter’s support. “It helps me care for my daughter and makes me self-sufficient.� she said. “I’ve saved $3,000 in 18 months. . . .

“This is what I want my life to be from now on.�

As prison systems seek more and better jobs for the swelling ranks of inmates, Arizona’s effort to provide inmates with “free world� work skills is attracting increasing attention nationwide.

“Arizona and Best Western are probably one of the most successful programs I know of,� says James C. Johnson, president of the Correctional Industries Assn.

‘Meaningful’ Employment

Such opportunities are the result of a 1981 state law mandating “meaningful� employment for inmates.

“‘Meaningful’ was defined as using or acquiring skills that are marketable on release,� said Tom Lescault, director of the state’s prison industries umbrella, ARCOR Enterprises. In two years, Lescault has changed ARCOR from a traditional, money-losing prison industry effort run by corrections department officials into a profitable venture managed by former business people.

“The only way to make this work,� Lescault said, “was to run it like a business and treat the inmate as an employee.�

So even the ARCOR-managed license-plate manufacturing operation makes a profit.

The Arizona legislation also took another important step; it broke one of most significant roadblocks to greater use of prison-made products, the prohibition on selling inmate-made goods to the public or hiring inmates out to private industry.

“We are one of the few states allowed to sell to the general public,� Lescault added, citing the ARCOR mattresses on sale among other brands of mattresses at a nearby store. “In fact, we could conceivably open a retail store, if we wanted to. And we can go into joint ventures with the private sector (like Best Western).�

All told, ARCOR encompasses:

--Eleven industrial programs that manufacture such things as license plates, signs, mattresses, office furniture and rocking horses.

--Five joint ventures employing 97 inmates in private businesses, including Best Western; National Switchboard, a telephone response company; a doll-making company and manufacturing and assembly. Another 20 such ventures are under discussion.

--Four agricultural operations.

--And 150 inmates working in inmate-owned businesses, which pay rent for their prison space.

Land Set Aside

The state has set aside a 40-acre tract of land at each of two new prisons for use by private companies willing to utilize inmate labor.

“Our position,� Lescault said, “is we should afford the offender the opportunity to be better upon leaving than when he arrived.�

Some inmates earn minimum wage; Best Western pays salaries identical to those of its main reservations center here--$4.21 an hour to start. (One inmate has even been named “Employee of the Quarter.�)

In some cases, the state is providing prisoners with more than skills; small but increasing numbers of inmates are simply being retained by their employers--and even promoted--upon their release from prison.

‘Going Downtown’

“I’m going downtown with Best Western,� said 45-year-old Cale Morgano, describing the trip from her prison quarters to Best Western’s main reservation center. Morgano will finish a five-year term for attempted theft at the end of this month. She makes $902 a month, of which 30% goes to the state toward room and board. In addition, she pays income taxes--and she has saved $5,400 for her new start in life.

“I’ve got money to get a start, get an apartment. Ninety percent of the women in here hit the streets with $50 (from the state) in their pocket.

“I have a roommate hittin’ the streets this week with $50. She’s had eight years of dead time. She doesn’t know how she’s going to make it.�

The Arizona approach has thus far won high marks from the industries employing inmates, and even some support from organized labor, which has traditionally opposed the wider use of inmate labor at the expense of non-inmates.

“Those jobs were unfilled prior to (the inmates), and we still have jobs open,� said Lewis Levy, chairman of Central Management Corp., which uses 13 inmates at The National Switchboard here, one of the nation’s five largest area code 800 telephone response companies. “And all of them are guaranteed jobs when they get out of prison. We’ve been so happy, we’ve promoted some.�

“I don’t mind at all,� Tom Donnelly, international representative for the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, and labor’s representative on ARCOR’s board of directors, said of the Best Western type programs. “That’s a good thing.�

Agents Work ‘On Call’

“It’s so successful, and we’re so proud,� said Wendy Black, director of corporate communications for Best Western, which began using inmate labor in August, 1981. The company turned to inmates because of a chronic inability to hire reservations agents willing to work “on call� to meet peak hours, days and seasons.

The company installed reservations terminals and telephones at the Arizona Center for Women, itself an old Travelodge motel at 32nd Street and Van Buren.

A total of 134 inmates have been hired, 28 have continued working at Best Western after release, and 11 still work there. Two have been promoted out of reservations.

“They are among our best employees,� Black said.

“I just want to keep advancing in the company,� said Fran Baker, 54, who began with Best Western while doing four years on a drug sales charge. She has been promoted three times. “They like to promote within, and the only record they’re interested in is your work record,� she said.