Well here we are once again wondering what could possible be next on the issues of prison labor and prison torture - and the involvement of corporations in both.
Sad to say things continue to go downhill for prisoners even in the face of escalating support of criminal justice reforms by 22 U.S. states.
I just received an email response to a query I sent to them a couple of months ago. As with every previous query sent to any department of the U.S. government, this one was forwarded to and responded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA)
First grant me a moment of redundancy - you'll understand the reason for this in a paragraph or two.
18 USC 1761 is the controlling federal statute authorizing the Prison Industries Enhancement Certification Program (PIECP). Here it is for all to read - please pay particular attention to subsection (2) (a-d):
18 USC Sec. 1761. Transportation or importation
(a) Whoever knowingly transports in interstate commerce or from
any foreign country into the United States any goods, wares, or
merchandise manufactured, produced, or mined, wholly or in part by
convicts or prisoners, except convicts or prisoners on parole,
supervised release, or probation, or in any penal or reformatory
institution, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more
than two years, or both.
(b) This chapter shall not apply to agricultural commodities or
parts for the repair of farm machinery, nor to commodities
manufactured in a Federal, District of Columbia, or State
institution for use by the Federal Government, or by the District
of Columbia, or by any State or Political subdivision of a State or
not-for-profit organizations.
(c) In addition to the exceptions set forth in subsection (b) of
this section, this chapter shall not apply to goods, wares, or
merchandise manufactured, produced, or mined by convicts or
prisoners who -
(1) are participating in - one of not more than 50 non-Federal
prison work pilot projects designated by the Director of the
Bureau of Justice Assistance;
(2) have, in connection with such work, received wages at a
rate which is not less than that paid for work of a similar
nature in the locality in which the work was performed, except
that such wages may be subject to deductions which shall not, in
the aggregate, exceed 80 per centum of gross wages, and shall be
limited as follows:
(A) taxes (Federal, State, local);
(B) reasonable charges for room and board, as determined by
regulations issued by the chief State correctional officer, in
the case of a State prisoner;
(C) allocations for support of family pursuant to State
statute, court order, or agreement by the offender;
(D) contributions to any fund established by law to
compensate the victims of crime of not more than 20 per centum
but not less than 5 per centum of gross wages;
(3) have not solely by their status as offenders, been deprived
of the right to participate in benefits made available by the
Federal or State Government to other individuals on the basis of
their employment, such as workmen's compensation. However, such
convicts or prisoners shall not be qualified to receive any
payments for unemployment compensation while incarcerated,
notwithstanding any other provision of the law to the contrary;
and
(4) have participated in such employment voluntarily and have
agreed in advance to the specific deductions made from gross
wages pursuant to this section, and all other financial
arrangements as a result of participation in such employment.
(d) For the purposes of this section, the term "State" means a
State of the United States and any commonwealth, territory, or
possession of the United States.
The National Institute of Justice published an article titled "Factories Behind Fences: Do Prison ‘Real Work’ Programs Work?" by Marilyn C. Moses and Cindy J. Smith, Ph.D., in June 2007.
In the article they reported that to date inmates in the program had received $205,714,532.00 in gross wages paid in the program. Of those wages, and pursuant to subsection (2)(b) above, $101,043,422.00 had been deducted and "(reimbursed to the state[s])." I queried the NIJ about the accuracy of information provided in the article and chart, providing them documentation from Florida and Minnesota, not all of that $101 million+ deducted from inmate wages had gone to the states to reimburse taxpayer costs of incarceration. The exact wording in the artice is:
"A significant portion of the wages earned by prisoners in the program, for example, goes directly to the State to cover the cost of prisoner room and board."
Here is the response form the BJA through the NIJ:
From: "asknijresponsecenter@ncjrs.gov" <asknijresponsecenter@ncjrs.gov>
To: gndlf1@yahoo.com
Sent: Wed, February 2, 2011 12:37:50 PM
Subject: RE: From AskNIJ: Regarding your question.
Dear Mr. Sloan,
Thank you for contacting the National Institute of Justice (NIJ).
We apologize for the delay in our response and for any inconvenience
this has caused. The following response was provided by the Bureau
of Justice Assistance (BJA) regarding your inquiry:
Under the 18 U.S.C. § 1761(c)(2)(B), PRIDE - as the State of Florida
PIECP umbrella authority certificate holder - is authorized to
deduct "reasonable charges for room and board, as determined by
regulations issued by the chief State correctional officer, in the
case of a State prisoner." BJA considers the PRIDE Chief Executive
Officer to be "chief State correctional officer," authorized to make
these room and board determinations because PRIDE qualifies as a
"department of corrections," under the implementing guideline
definition,1and because the Florida State Legislation has designated
PRIDE as the entity controlling "the jurisdiction in which the
certified work pilot project is located."2 Interpreting these two
definitions, in harmony, as buttressed by state statues - leads to
but one conclusion, PRIDE is the appropriate state entity to make
room and board determinations including deduction amounts and uses.
BJA's PIECP guidance on this issue is consistent with 18 U.S.C. §
1761(c)(2)(B), in that both the Guideline and the statute provide the
State with authority to specifically determine the amount and use of
the room and board deduction, as long as the amount does not exceed
the statutory limit and as long as it the use "defrays the cost of
incarceration," typically borne by the public.1 These broad Federal
parameters accommodate the following State of Florida mandate:
The Prison Industries Trust Fund... shall consist of moneys
authorized to be deducted pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 1761 ( c) and
applicable federal guidelines, to be appropriated by the Legislature,
and moneys deposited by [PRIDE]. . . authorized under this part to
manage and operate correctional work programs. The appropriated
funds shall be used for construction or renovation of [PRIDE]
facilities or for the expansion or establishment of correctional work
programs . . . or for prison industry enhancement programs as
authorized under s. 946.523.
F.S.A. § 946.522 (emphasis added). It is axiomatic that since inmate
work assignments are required under Florida state law, F.S.A. §
946.002, the cost of correctional work programs may fairly be
considered a PIECP worker "board expense."
We hope this information is helpful. If you need additional
assistance, please feel free to contact us again.
Sincerely,
Yvonne
Content Specialist
National Criminal Justice Reference Service
http://www.ncjrs.gov
Now as I've said in the past, I'm no lawyer...but this just seems wacky as hell and a complete violation of the federal statute quoted above. maybe I'm too naive on such legal matters, but if there are any lawyer types reading this leave me a comment if I'm wrong or misinterpreting the statute's legislative intent on this. I'd really appreciate it, for real.
Now let's briefly look at the wages actually paid to the inmates in the program. The statute says they are to receive "prevailing wages" and as I've written previously, the prison industries instead substitute minimum (when they absolutely can't get away with less) for prevailing. Last segment I identified a Resolution passed by the oversight authority, the National Correctional Industries Association (NCIA) on what they think should be paid to the inmates in the industries:
"National Correctional Industries Association
Resolution on the Fair Labor Standards Act
WHEREAS, correctional industries and institutional work represent critical activities yielding social, economic and management benefits for the corrections agency, the inmate and the public at large;
WHEREAS, correctional industries and institutional work programs reduce idleness in institutions that are, on average, more than 130 percent of capacity;
WHEREAS, correctional industries are programs designed to train and employ as many inmates as possible, and, as such, they carry additional financial burden not found in the private sector; yet, at the same time, they must be financially self-supporting;
WHEREAS, inmates are not employees who should enjoy full benefits offered by an employer to an employee;
WHEREAS, correctional industries and institutional work programs cannot absorb the financial burden of paying minimum wage and continue to operate as they exist;
WHEREAS, the consequences of designating inmates as employees will result in the imposition of an unnecessary tax burden;
WHEREAS, it is important that it be made clear that Congress did not intend inmates to be considered employees under the Fair Labor Standards Act; and
WHEREAS, it is essential to terminate the numerous and costly lawsuits filed by inmates in courts around the nation;
THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that the National Correctional Industries Association hereby expresses its support for federal legislation which seeks to clarify that inmates are not employees and are not entitled to minimum wage by specifically excluding prison and jail inmates."
So the men and women working in those industries are clearly receiving far less than required. Of what they do get paid, the industries are allowed by the DOJ and BJA to take back 40% of those wages and keep it to offset their cost of operation - or according to the BJA, use it for anyfuckingthing they want to!
To my mind this exactly qualifies as "Slave Labor" and accurately describes the act of exploitation as it is defined by Wikipedia:
Exploitation: In political economy, economics, and sociology, exploitation involves a persistent social relationship in which certain persons are being mistreated or unfairly used for the benefit of others. This corresponds to one ethical conception of exploitation, that is, the treatment of human beings as mere means to an end—or as mere "objects". In different terms, "exploitation" refers to the use of people as a resource, with little or no consideration of their well-being. When someone is taking advantage of a person in any way this is exploitation. This can take the following basic forms:
Taking something off a person or a group that rightfully belongs to them
Short-changing people in trade
Directly or indirectly forcing somebody to work
Using somebody against his will, or without his consent or knowledge
Imposing an arbitrary differential treatment of people to the advantage of some and the disadvantage of others (as in ascriptive discrimination).
Using somebody to buy/provide things for you and never paying them back.
Through the response included above it can be seen that the U.S. government not only condones what's being done, they encourage it by refusing to enforce the controlling law.
Our Justice authorities know perfectly well that all of the prison industries are not to use tax dollars for funding of the PIE operations as that would defeat the purpose of offsetting the costs of incarceration through the authorized room and board deductions. Saying "the cost of correctional work programs may fairly be considered a PIECP worker "board expense." is ludicrous to begin with and double talk at the very least - where the damn correctional program is the one they're taking the friggin' money from. So, making the inmates pay for their own work program is somehow "beneficial to those inmates working in it?"
What in the hell is wrong with our country!? Why do they have a need to exploit those among us with absolutely no voice or way out of their situation? Because they can...the DOJ runs all prison industry in the U.S. with the exception of the small amount being conducted by those industries not participating in the program (eight or so states). The rest of it? Authorized and controlled by the DOJ. 100% of the Federal Prison Industries fall under their authority, so in the U.S. we now have a handful of states not falling under their control...but over the past year even this has changed. From 2004 to now they have added five states that previously weren't certified, and one more has applied for certification; New Hampshire. Three more have introduced legislation to become qualified to apply: Michigan, Kentucky and Pennsylvania. By this time next year we'll have 47 prison industries involved, including a couple of jail industries as well.
A side effect of all this slave labor is that the world has become to look at us differently since Abu Ghraib, waterboarding and other tortures. Instead of fearing our enforcement of human rights, now we're seen as leading the world in incarceration and already surpass China in number of citizens incarcerated. Prison labor has become chic of late on the world stage due to the perception that the leading democratic nation on earth now condones such treatment of it's people.
How about India? They've emulated us regarding technology and IT services and related fields, already. They have begun to compete with us for technical occupations and are attracting more and more Americans to that country to continue their training and development of hard and software. Now they're openly emulating our prison labor use as well.
Check out this articlewritten 3 days ago: "Chained to their desks: prisoners will staff call centre within Indian jail Murder convict among trainees for scheme backed by India's authorities which could lead to inmates answering calls from UK" I'm sitting here shaking my head as I write this, hurting because this would not be happening around the globe if America had not turned it's back on human rights. To think, the starting spot was right here, in good old Texas and Florida. I don't feel very patriotic tonight...especially when I know thousands of my fellow citizens will continue to lose their jobs in the midst of the increased corporate demand for cheap prison labor.
Before I stop for the night, I wanted to pass along a wonderful bit of news...Senator Ensign just introduced a new Bill in the U.S. Senate. It's titled: "To require a 50-hour workweek for Federal prison inmates, to reform inmate work programs, and for other purposes." Please take a moment and read this proposed legislation. It is another attempt at corporatocracy. He is wanting to allow partnerships between private corporations and UNICOR (just like PIECP) on the excuse that he wants them to make products now only made in foreign countries. Let me know if it passes, would it stop there? I already know how I feel about increasing inmate hours by 25% per week - and why they're doing it...they have all of our jobs and need more work done by those in their custody.