Prison Jobs Growing as Way to Manage Inmates

PUTNAMVILLE, Ind. —  The 20 workers assembling chairs amid the woodsy odor of hickory logs and the sweet scent of varnish in this state prison furniture shop are the lucky ones.

The rest of the 2,000 Putnamville Correctional Facility inmates don’t earn as much as $7.95 an hour producing Hoosier Hickory Historic Furniture for sale to customers seeking a rustic relic of yesteryear.

Prison industries thrived in the United States during the first quarter of this century, but were scaled back amid ethical questions over the use of inmates as labor and concerns about unfair competition with outside industries.

In recent years, however, prison industries have again come into vogue, fueled by the popular idea that inmates should work to earn their keep.

That seldom happens. Only a small percentage of the nation’s 1.3 million prison inmates work in industry programs. And many such programs cost taxpayers more money than they save.

The people who run prison industries say that’s because any potential profit is often eaten away by security and other concerns, such as rehabilitating inmates and protecting private businesses from unfair competition.

“The goal is really to create work, reduce idleness and help manage the prison,” said Pamela Jo Davis, president of Florida’s PRIDE Enterprises and board chairwoman of the Correctional Industries Assn., a national umbrella group for prison industries.

Nationwide, 76,519 federal and state prison inmates worked in prison industry programs last year, more than twice as many as in 1980, according to the association. Sales of products from prison industry programs have more than tripled since 1980, from $392 million to $1.62 billion last year.

Despite those increases, many prison industry programs aren’t meeting goals of being self-sufficient, saving money for taxpayers and employing as many inmates as possible, according to the National State Auditors Assn., which studied prison industry programs in 13 states. The group’s June 1997 audit recommended better planning, expanded inmate work opportunities and greater use of sound business practices in prison industry programs.

Other audits also have criticized a lack of business acumen in prison industry programs. A November 1997 state audit cited the Texas Department of Criminal Justice for not doing enough to ensure that its prison industries are running efficiently. An audit released the same month in New York blamed weak business sense for the $4.4-million deficit accrued by that state’s prison industry program.

Administrators of prison industries say the programs benefit the public in ways less easy to describe than a simple balance sheet. They cite conflicting goals, problems of working in the prison environment and the need to protect private businesses from unfair competition as reasons why the programs aren’t more efficient.

California’s Prison Industry Authority makes about 1,800 products from inmate clothing to chickens and runs a recycling facility for the city of Folsom.

The NSAA audit concluded the program was neither self-sufficient nor saving money for taxpayers, primarily because of heavy state subsidies for rent and capital improvements.

But a May study by the University of California, Berkeley, concluded the state’s economy would suffer by eliminating PIA because of reduced demand for raw materials and the need for buyers of many of the agency’s products to seek out-of-state suppliers. And the agency estimates that taxpayers save $15 million on the 6,900 inmates employed in industry programs.

“If they were not part of us, they’d have to be doing something else,” PIA spokesman Frank Losco said.

Employed inmates also are less likely to be disciplinary problems and may also return to prison in fewer numbers.

At Putnamville, Brad Deal supervises the shop where inmates make picnic tables. He said he’s seen the work program change young drug dealers who have never held a job into productive, honest tradesmen.

“I’ve had guys in here before that didn’t know wood came from trees,” he shouted over the whine of circular saws cutting boards.

Most prison industry programs are barred from selling their products to private buyers. Those that do must be certified and follow a strict set of regulations, including a requirement that inmates be paid wages similar to those in private industry.

That’s why the inmates who work in the Hoosier Hickory furniture shop are the elite of the 1,702 employed by PEN, earning up to $7.95 an hour, out of which they pay for room and board, taxes, restitution for victims and outstanding fines.

Even so, prison industry programs continue to draw complaints of unfair competition from private businesses.

The Coalition for Government Procurement estimates competition from prison industries has cost 2,000 jobs in the furniture industry in the past five years, Executive Director Larry Allen said.

“These are jobs that were held or could have been held by honest, taxpaying individuals, but have been given over to convicted felons,” Allen said.