They're just criminals - so why should we care about how they are treated in The Big House?
In fact, if we can get "Onshore outsourcing at offshore prices" by using prison labor, what's the problem?
crossposted from unbossed
As I said in 2007,
It's hard to imagine a creepier government web page than that of the National Security Agency - do not skip intro. Although the NSA kid's page comes close.
This is sock you in the face creepy. But a far creepier federal agency webpage is that of Unicor. What? Never heard of Unicor?
And don't we just know that the bureau of prisons program through UNICOR is just Poisoning Prisoners for Profit and that Life in Prison is a Riot
Well, now the latest, in the sorry saga. Here is the July 16, 2008 letter from NIOSH on this subject:
On November 27, 2007, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) received your request for technical assistance in your health and safety investigation of the Federal Prison Industries (UNICOR) electronics recycling program at Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) institutions in Elkton, Ohio; Texarkana, Texas; and Atwater, California. You asked us to assist the United States Department of Justice, Office of the Inspector General (USDOJ, OIG) in assessing the existing medical surveillance program for inmates and staff exposed to lead and cadmium during electronics recycling, and to make recommendations for future surveillance. In addition, you asked us to assess past exposures to lead and cadmium, and to investigate the potential for take home exposure. This interim letter summarizes our findings and provides recommendations to improve the safety and health of the inmates and staff at the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) in Elkton, Ohio. These findings will be included in a final report that will contain findings from the evaluations at all three institutions identified in your request.
As it turns out, monitoring results for past exposures are not available because they just weren't done for the most part or, if performed, they were so badly performed that they are of little use.
Electronics recycling at FCI Elkton appears to have been performed from 1997 until May 2003 without adequate engineering controls, respiratory protection, medical surveillance, or industrial hygiene monitoring. Because of the lack of both biological monitoring and industrial hygiene data, we cannot determine the extent of exposure to lead and cadmium that occurred during that time frame, but descriptions of work tasks from staff and inmates indicate that exposures during that time frame were likely higher than current exposures. The current GBO is a significant improvement, but can be further enhanced to limit exposure to those performing glass breaking, as well as limiting the migration of lead and cadmium from the room into other areas. While some take-home contamination does occur, surface wipe sampling and biological monitoring suggest that take-home contamination does not pose a health threat at this time. Take-home contamination can be further reduced by changes to the GBO, work practices, and improved personal hygiene as recommended below.
We cannot determine the extent of exposure to lead that occurred in the chip recovery process because of the lack of data. Descriptions of work tasks from staff, and a BLL of 5 μg/dL in an inmate 4 months after the process ended indicate that exposure to lead during this process did occur. We found no evidence that actions were taken to prevent exposure to lead at the outset in the chip recovery process and found that no medical surveillance was performed until after the process ended.
Medical surveillance that has been carried out among inmates and staff has not complied with OSHA standards. No medical exams (including physical examinations) are done on inmates; staff receive inconsistent examinations and biological monitoring by their personal physicians; biological monitoring for lead is not done at established standard intervals; and results are not communicated to the inmates. Inappropriate biological monitoring tests have been done. Records of medical surveillance are not maintained by the employer for the appropriate length of time.
The report makes many recommendations for improvement. I personaly like this one as the most likely to ameliorate the situation:
- Appoint a union safety and health representative. This individual should be a regular participant on the joint labor-management safety committee that meets quarterly. Since inmates do not have a mechanism for representation on this committee, ensure that they are informed of its proceedings and that they have a way to voice their concerns about and ideas for improving workplace safety and health.
Yep. If you want help getting your workplace conditions improved, get union representations. Not so easy for the prisoners, of course, but maybe they can piggy back on the prison workers' union representation.
After all, contamination for one is probably contamination for all.
The report is National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health report on UNICOR use of prison labor