by Josh Levin
Perspective Magazine
February 1999
It is morning, and you wake in a cement cell to the sound of a nightstick on bars. You proceed to join a sea of primarily black faces in an assembly line as white guards with shotguns and tasers stroll between the ranks, punishing inefficient laborers. With wages as low as 11 cents an hour and no benefits or vacations, the prisoners must choose between labor and longer sentences, since "good time" policies shave days from the captivity period for days worked. This is not a description of a sweatshop in a developing country, but of a fascistic marriage between private enterprise and state that bears a frightening resemblance to slavery -- prison labor.
Prison labor has a rich history in the United States. After the end of slavery, the "convict leasing" program was instituted in the South. Along with Black Codes, this program functioned to return African Americans to the plantations. Land owners would bid to receive complete control over the lives and labor of prisoners, of whom only a negligible number were white. African American laborers were whipped so severely that survivors would be crippled for life. Women were flogged, hung by their wrists, and placed in solitary confinement. Before long, journalists, community members, ministers, women's groups, and union organizers rallied against this oppressive system. By the 1930s, every state had abolished convict leasing. Unfortunately, leasing was replaced by state-run chain-gangs, a despicable form of slavery and torture. Again, stories of teenagers being beaten to death or dying in solitary "sweat boxes" created public outrage, and chain gangs were abolished in the '50s.
Yet in 1979, Congress began a process of deregulation that has once again allowed private corporations to exploit this captive labor market for profit. Although prison-made goods were initially only manufactured for state agencies, they now flow into all sectors of the economy, competing with outside companies and jobs. Corporations ranging from J.C. Penny and Victoria's Secret to IBM and Toys R Us utilize prison labor to cut costs and increase profit margins. In fact, the next time you call TWA to make airline reservations, you may be speaking to one of 300 youth offenders working as receptionists in a Los Angeles prison.
The U.S. prison population has grown by 300 percent since 1980, making us by far the world's leader in imprisoning our own population, greatly surpassing our nearest competitors, South Africa and the former USSR. Enough people are incarcerated every two days to fill the New Orleans Superdome. Most of these prisoners are drug-related offenders, and programs focusing on rehabilitation and drug treatment are more cost-effective in the long run. Prison/hospitals, halfway houses, and other experimental community programs cost less to run and have much lower rates of recidivism. Yet prison labor is replacing educational and other programs because it requires less funding within the prison while keeping inmates busy. The goal of incarceration is becoming more and more to reap profits, and a member of the South Carolina Division of Correctional Industries states that "rehabilitation is considered to be a byproduct."
Work programs have been protected under the guise of "job training." Yet when an offender enters a California prison, he is surveyed for over 50 skills and placed according to his ability -- with no intent to train him in anything new. In a poll of prison industry leaders, 39 percent said that profit orientation was the most important issue of prison labor, while only 12 percent said rehabilitation. Escod Industries, one of IBM's main suppliers of electronic cables, employs 250 inmates at Evans Correctional Facility in South Carolina. The plant manager, Bert Christy, "believes many inmate workers are over-qualified for the jobs they hold," which would not seem to be advancing the skills of the prisoners. Furthermore, one must question the extent to which these skills manage to keep people out of prison, if the offenders are entering the facilities already trained.
Escod Industries moved to South Carolina after abandoning plans to open operations in Mexico because the wages of the American prisoners undercut those of de-unionized Mexican sweatshop workers. This incentive was also combined with the $250,000 "equipment subsidy" given to Escod by the state and the offer of industrial space at below-market rent. Jostens, Inc. has 40 women in Leah Correctional Facility sewing and packaging graduation gowns. The work is similar to that of garment production in the developing world, and Jostens president Merv Epstein warns: "Keep it simple -- put the least complex sewing jobs you have inside the prison, and don't make frequent style changes."
Globalization has created a service-based economy in the United States, and much manual, labor-intensive production has moved elsewhere. And thus while prison labor mimics working conditions in the developing world and can compete with overseas production, the fields in which the inmates are gaining experience may not hold jobs for them on the American market once they leave.
Prison Labor also tends to have very little oversight. California's Prison Industry Authority (PIA) is an "in-house" prison labor system, which means that the government agency runs the inmate workforce and sells the goods itself, both in the public and private sector. The Prison Industries Board (PIB), which is meant to oversee PIA, "does not even function" and has little authority, according to Leonard Greenstone, a former member. The PIB is appointed by Jim Gomez, who is both the head of the California Department of Corrections and of PIA. Yet Gomez has the most to gain from expansion of prisons and PIA. "Look at the dynasty that's growing. The bigger the industry, the more money and power Mr. Gomez has," says Greenstone. The PIA practices what is called "mandatory source preferencing," in which California State Agencies must buy their furniture, clothing, etc. from California prison labor. The manufacturers receive constant complaints about products that are overpriced, of poor quality, and delivered late. "I have a real difficult time buying from an agency that has a gun to my head," complains a California State Universities commodities buyer.
PIA has become autonomous, profit-driven, inefficient, and unchecked. "Is it good public policy. for one state agency to essentially profit off another?" asks Fred Forrer, a state auditor. Hundreds of businesses have complained that they cannot compete with either joint-ventures or "in-house" prison labor systems such as California's PIA specifically, which can undercut the costs of production when dealing with captive labor as well as monopolize the supply market. PIA only pays 30 to 90 cents an hour, and the inmates obviously receive no holidays or benefits. PIA only pays 1 to 3 cents per square foot of warehouse space, and it sets prices higher than the market's. PIA also receives interest-free loans from the government, and it pays no local, state, or federal income taxes.
Prison Labor is inherently prone to political corruption. On the most basic level, it produces a profit incentive for politicians to build prisons, increase arrests, and extend sentences. Riding the "get tough on crime" attitude in America and a public demand to cut prisoner benefits and programs, companies that utilize prison labor are fueling the prison boom in the United States. This new aspect of the prison-industrial complex shows itself in many examples: questionable campaign contributions, political favors, and the movement of individuals back and forth from political posts to managerial posts in a prison industry.
For instance, Fabry Glove, Inc., a Wisconsin glove maker, gave $2,500 to Governor Tommy Thompson's campaign. Following the contribution, the Prison Industries Board, which Thompson had appointed, gave the company a sole prison labor contract. The state then proceeded to buy $314,000 worth of industrial equipment for Fabry Glove with tax dollars. Fabry also received loans with below-market interest rates usually reserved for state agencies. Furthermore, the state buys the raw materials for Fabry Glove and is reimbursed from sales, which means that taxpayers eat the cost of errors made by the company. Finally, the government pays for shipping raw materials into the prison and also ships all finished products out. Fabry Glove and many other joint-ventures are simply a redirection of tax money into private companies as political favors. As journalist Phil Smith puts it, "The punishment juggernaut of the Reagan-Bush years spawned an array of private enterprises locked in a parasitic embrace with the state," one type being the hundreds of firms now using the unionless, sub-minimum-wage prisoners of the state.
Reagan's globalization and exportation of American manufacturing jobs has coincided with an incredible explosion of the prison population, bringing us up to 1.7 million incarcerated Americans. Jobless people are more likely to commit crimes, but the growth in prisons has swallowed jobs, all the while forcing a sector of the American labor force to work for pennies in sweatshop conditions. Prison labor reaps huge profits for a small few and helps to perpetuate an inefficient and racially skewed system. Prison labor not only subjugates those behind bars, but also hurts Americans in terms of the high costs of prison expansion, high rates of recidivism, and loss of jobs. The growth of prison labor brings America one step closer to resembling a fascist state, in which economic disparity is defined by two distinct classes--one free and one behind bars.
(c) 1999 Perspective Magazine
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without profit or payment to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this information for non-profit research and educational purposes only.
[posted Mon, May 31, 1999]
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