Prison Labor. Does it Help or Hurt Us?
Within the world today there are many people that are unemployed.
Unemployment is a large issue that most people take for granted.
There are many people that live on the streets because they do not qualify
for jobs, but you should be safe knowing that all those open jobs in the
market are given to convicts. Most people do not know that certain
products that they buy were made or packaged by
criminals. A lot of companies
now a day have branches of their business in prisons. These prisoners
get paid minimum wage like most other people that start off working in
the U.S. at five dollars and fifteen cents an hour.
"In Oregon sew jeans called "Prison Blues" are sewn by the prisoners"(Erlich,1995).
"[They] are paid ranging from twenty-eight cents to eight dollars an hour,
but eighty percent of the higher wage is withheld." The criminals
do deserve that large of a percentage withheld because they were thrown
in jail for a reason and they should not be treated the same way as a regular
person. They did something to begin with wrong and why should they
still have the same rights as us if they broke the law. Justice put
them into jail for a reason and they should be treated different.
"In 1994, a local prison secretly slipped Chicago-area prisoners into a
Toys R Us to stock shelves"(Erlich,1995). Is it right to do that
and have the outside world not know that they can be endangering their
lives? Think if one out of no where decided to do something to try
to get out of jail. Maybe if they pulled a gun or just tried to run
away. Why do companies bother paying them so little when they can
help other people to earn money and support their family? "[An] Oregon
State Representative Kevin Mannix argues that corporations should cut deals
with prison systems just as Nike does with the Indonesian government"(Erlich,1995).
"Nike subcontractors there pay workers one dollar and twenty cents per
day." "We propose that (Nike) take a look at their transportation
costs and their labor costs", says Mannix. There are people that
live off welfare trying to support their family just because of these companies.
It seems that these companies have given up on people that are on welfare
and don't even give them a chance. There probably are jobs out there
that get taken away from those people and that is why there are a lot more
families on welfare. I am sure if you teach people how to package
certain kind of equipment they would do it just to earn money to support
their family. Do you want to know how some people get laid off of
work? "LTI, which assembles and repairs circuit boards for companies
such as IBM, Dell, and Texas Instruments, got a completely new factory
assembly room, built to specifications by prison labor"(Elrich,1995).
They closed down their assembly plant in Austin, laid off one hundred fifty
workers and moved everything to Lockhart, where he pays the prisoners minimum
wage(Elrich,1995). What is the purpose of doing that?
"The prison then takes about eighty percent of inmates wages for room and
board, victim restitution, and other fees." "The positive side of
moving to a prison that LTI saw was they did not have to pay workers compensation
and medical care, and also inmates don't go on vacations." Companies
now are getting more stingier and greedy than ever before.
"One product of Oregon's inmate factories are uniforms for McDonald's"(Overbeck,1996).
"[In] Tennessee inmates stitch together jeans for KMart and JCPenny, as
well as eighty dollar wooden rocking ponies for Eddie Bauer." "Prisoners
have been employed doing data entry, assembling computer circuit boards
and even taking credit card ticket orders for TWA." How do we know
that our credit card numbers are safe anymore? Think if a prisoner
took down enough personal information that they could order anything they
want from your credit card. "At Soledad near Monterey, California,
prisoners earn forty-five cents per hour making blue work shirts, which,
once deductions are taken out, adds up to sixty dollars a month of forty
hour work weeks"(Overbeck,1996). Most businesses would save money
on moving and be able to help save a few families from living on the streets.
They could help a needy family and show how good of a business they are
to help out those people that need a job. "Were talking as little
as twenty cents an hour, with no health care, pensions or any of that other
nonsense that workers on the outside want. And these guys always
show-up on time, they can't talk back and won't be joining any of those
pesky unions"(Hightower,1996). Companies are starting to get there
way with everything. They are thinking they are in a dream because
everything they want in an employee is at a prison. What is this
world coming to? It is really sad to see all these jobs go to prisoners
which were convicted of some kind of crime. Regular people can not
even get a job if they tried as hard as they can just because they don't
have the credentials. Should criminals even have the right to a job
for being punished of some kind of run in with the law? Are companies
looking for the best criminal record now instead of the cleanest record?
Is this going to influence those people that are homeless to commit a crime
so they can get a job? The companies even pay to train the criminals
how to do certain jobs, but they won't teach people that just don't have
the experience and have no criminal record. How hard is it to teach
a regular person the same thing you are teaching a prisoner?
Criminals do take jobs away from regular people, but there is a positive
side to it also. The other side of this issue is that they take some
burden off the taxpayers shoulders and help the criminals to change their
ways. Should this be a valid point to keep prison labor? "And
prison labor is proving highly competitive. From the years
1980 to 1994, while the number of federal and state prisoners increased
by two hundred twenty-one percent, the number of inmates employed in prison
industries jumped by three hundred fifty-eight percent. Prison industries
sales have skyrocketed during these years from three hundred ninety-two
million dollars to 1.31 billion dollars. And they're not just making
license plates"(Erlich,1995). "Last year, inmates [in South Carolina]
produced sixteen million dollars worth of electronic cables that were purchased
by corporations like IBM and the Canadian-based Northern Telecom Corporation"(Elliott,1996).
This of course helped many people get what they need from these companies.
This also helps the companies to meet quotas. As I stated earlier
most companies like it this way because they don't have to hear of an excuse
why they were late, like they were stuck in a traffic jam. Out of
every dollar earned forty one cents was returned to society. "Of
that forty one cents, roughly twenty cents went to pay for their own incarceration
and eleven cents went to state and federal taxes. The remaining dime
was split fairly evenly between victim compensation and support of the
convicts family"(Elliott,1996). If the percentages were changed a
bit they would have to work harder to make just as much in taxes. Have
more of it go to the incarceration and less to taxes so us as citizens
do not have to pay for their mistakes. They would have to work harder
to make as much for taxes and it would help us in the long run. After
all the criminals are starting to pay for their own crimes they commit.
Between 1979 and 1992, inmates employed in joint ventures certified by
the U.S. Department of Justice earned $28,668,450(Sexton,1995). Deductions
of that money were $5,068,909 to offset the cost of their own incarceration,
$3,243,011 in federal and state taxes, $1,713,043 in victim compensation,
and $1,862,867 went toward the support of their families and it all averages
out to forty-one cents for every dollar goes back to society(Sexton,1995).
This helps lower the taxes we have to pay. If we get more people
into the employment part of it they would have to pay more taxes.
We would be able to cut down on the taxes we as citizens would have to
pay to the government. "Escod's prison- based work force hand assembles
a wide variety of wire harnesses for electronic cables. Inmates un
reel color-coded wires from large spools, individually lay them out on
large sheets of plywood that outline the correct assembly pattern, tie
the wires into bundles, and finish them into electronic cables. Inmates
perform their jobs in teams. Each team, composed of from five to
twenty-five workers, depending on the complexity and the size of a given
product, is responsible for the entire production process, including setting
up the tools and equipment required to complete the job order, and assembling
and inspecting the wire harnesses, and packaging the finished products"(Sexton,1995).
Escod's plant manager at the Evans facility, Bert Christy, points out,
"Any person here has a strong desire to work because this is by far the
best game in town."(Sexton,1995) If the prisoners work hard enough
in return they are treated good. It causes the prisoners to keep
their mind in a mind set so when they do get out they are thinking about
work instead of committing another crime. Most prisoners try to work
hard to achieve some kind of standard. "If a work team attains productivity,
quality, and on-time delivery goals for a week, the team is rewarded with
a fast food lunch"(Sexton,1995). They develop valuable work habits
and learn how to meet productivity and quality standards. This hopefully
helps to change the way they think and they would actually have priorities
when they get out. "As a result, TWA, Third Generation, and other
companies have hired, after their release, inmates who worked for the companies
while in prison. Such stable post-release employment may reduce the
chances that these ex-convicts will return to a life of crime"(Sexton,1995).
Merv Epstein, Third Generation's President, says, "We could not find enough
qualified industrial sewers in rural South Carolina, and the prison solved
a real problem for us in that respect. These women were good workers,
they took pride in the products they made, and I would like to hire eighty
percent of them after they get out of prison my other two plants."
Third Generation employed thirty-five inmates who sewed a variety of leisure
wear garments and lingerie that were purchased by JCPenny, Victoria's Secret,
and other retail apparel firms. Last year the the company's Leath
plant produced more than 1.5 million dollars worth of garments. Like
it was stated it would definitely help lower the risk of them going out
and committing another crime.
Overall, prison labor could be a good thing or bad thing the way you look
at it. The next time you go into a store think that the person stocking
those shelves could be a convict. The next time you purchase an item
from a store you could actually be supporting prison labor. The person
that just got hired at your job that sits next to you could be a prisoner
that just got out, but he could also have changed his ways and become your
best friend and not even know it. You can see that prison labor does
take away salaries from other people that have a clean slate that just
don't have the experience and the credentials. Companies do
look like they are getting greedier for money, but most people have no
clue this kind of thing is going on. Next time someone you know gets laid
off of work it might be because the company wants to make more money so
they move to a prison. Just beware that this kind of thing is going
on. On the other hand, it sounds like that criminals change their
ways if they have something to put their mind to which is work. By
companies supplying prisoners with jobs they have something to do and not
start of a life of crime over again when they get out.
Sources:
Elliott,Jeff. (1996). Prison Labor: Prison Labor Boon for Employers, Report Says. http://www.monitor.net/monitor/free/prisonjoint (8 Nov. 1998).
Elrich,Reese. (1995). Prison
Labor: Workin' For The Man.
http://www-unix.oit.umass.edu/~kastor/private/prison-labor.html
(8 Nov. 1998).
Hightower, Jim. (1996). Prison Labor: "Made in the USA," By Prison Labor. http://www.jimhightower.com/1996/ht960125.html (8 Nov. 1998).
Overbeck, Charles. (1996). Prison Factories: Slave Labor for the New World Order. http://www.parascope.com/articles/0197/prison.htm (15 Nov. 1998).
Sexton, George E. (1995). Work in American Prisons: Joint Ventures with the Private Sector. http://www.ncjrs.org/txtfiles/workampr.txt (15 Nov. 1998).
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