Over the past two plus years I have been writing a manuscript for publication. It addresses the issues I have raised time and again through these Diary Posts - prison labor, corporate involvement in using that labor and the lack of any real oversight by the Government agency entrusted with oversight of the PIECP program under which it all operates. These diaries over the past few months are based upon the volumes of material I have amassed through research.
Working title was "A State of Sovereign Corruption" and exposed the prison industry manipulations ongoing in Florida. I had to change the title to "A Nation of Sovereign Corruption". The necessity for the titular change needs no explanation to those who have been reading my Insourcing, Corporatocracy and Slave Labor series'.
Comments, suggestions and of course discussion on these issues are welcome. Tomorrow I will continue identifying the state prison industries and who they are partnered with, products made and whether they are PIECP Certified and members of the NCIA.
“A NATION OF SOVEREIGN CORRUPTION”
By Robert Sloan
© 2011
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Prologue
Many media sources reported state and national unemployment statistics in 2010 reflect the loss of millions of jobs across the United States. Recession, shipment of jobs overseas and closing of thousands of small business from coast to coast are reported to be the reason for so many private sector job losses. These stated “reasons” might be a contributing factor to our unemployment but there is another contributor to the escalating unemployment rate – prison labor and a little known federal program titled the Prison Industries Enhancement Certification Program (PIECP).
News organizations and agencies print stories mentioning the reliance upon prisoner labor by municipalities, counties and states to reduce budget shortfalls by using inmates to perform janitorial, maintenance and other necessary work in or around courthouses, municipal cemeteries, public buildings and other facilities. Private sector companies, employees or contractors who performed these tasks previously, are terminated when inmates take their places. Articles describe this trend as necessary under our current financial situation with governments cutting services and staff due to budget reductions.
These same news outlets however make little mention of PIECP (commonly referred to as PIE) and how this program is unfairly impacting upon private sector jobs and private sector manufacturing and services. When prison industries are mentioned in the news, a statement that prison industries and their products represent an insignificant amount of the products manufactured and sold in the US, usually accompanies the article. This is just not the case.
Under the PIE program jobs are shifted from private sector to prison labor on a daily basis. As jobs disappear on the outside, they multiply behind prison walls and fences. State and federal authorities assure the public that strict guidelines exist to prevent prison labor from taking jobs from the private sector and their participation in the program is accompanied by adherence to these guidelines. This also, is not the case.
PIECP guidelines under 18 USC 1761(c) includes language that prohibits participating prison industries from unfairly impacting private businesses or employment “in the locality” of each individual prison industry. Since most prisons are located in sparsely populated rural areas of each state, PIE operations that start-up in those locales have very little impact upon “local” private sector employment or interfere with private manufacturing of the same or similar products as made at the prison. However in a lot of instances, manufacturers and jobs outside the immediate prison locality are seriously impacted.
Prison Industry operators and the Department of Justice continue to inform the public that the PIE program does not adversely affect private sector manufacturing, sales or jobs – they fail to advise that these statements are only true in the immediate area of the prison industry. What isn’t said or reported is that prison industries do impact upon both businesses and jobs away from the locality of the prison. This has happened in Texas and elsewhere, when prison industry operations caused the closure of competing businesses within the state of operation with a resulting loss of hundreds of private sector jobs - to prisoner labor.
Jobs all over the country are disappearing and reappearing in prison operations where wages are seriously reduced, property leases are provided to manufacturers for as little as $1.00 per year and utilities subsidized by prison authorities. For every job position filled by a prisoner, one or more are lost to the private sector. They may not be local, but they are lost all the same.
Prison Industries advertise for PIE partners on their websites, advising that instead of moving production overseas or offshore, manufacturers can maintain their US operations while reducing wages and overhead by using prison labor. They can also put “Made in the U.S.A.” labels on their products and avoid expensive shipping and logistical expenses related with offshore manufacturing. While this may technically keep the jobs in the US, it transfers the workforce from private sector to prison labor. Thus jobs are still lost, just not to India or foreign workers. When a worker in New York State loses his or her job it doesn’t matter if the job went overseas or to another state’s prison industry – the job is lost and the employee is forced to relocate or go on assistance to make ends meet.
This is the impact upon private sector employees and businesses caused by prison industry operations and the federal PIE program.
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Over the course of the past twenty years, all three branches of the U.S. Government have transformed themselves. They have become subservient to lobbyists and the wants and perceived needs of special interest groups and corporations. This trend expanded and flourished from 2000 through 2009. In Texas from 1995 through 2000 Governor George Bush discovered and exploited this existing but little understood federal program that eventually led to an explosion of profits to private prison operators, private sector businesses and state prison industries operated by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ). In Florida these developments were matched stride for stride under Brother Jeb Bush’s Governorship.
This book is about the influence of some of the most influential special interest corporations. I will examine one of these corporate entities in great detail in an effort to demonstrate just how their operation impacts everything from private jobs to unfair competition for market shares of their manufactured products. I have chosen this specific corporate entity to explore, as it operates an entire state’s prison industries and is pointed to as the operation other state prison operations should emulate. I hope this will encourage readers to examine the prison industry operations and programs in their locale to determine if those operations mirror those of this one operation out of Florida.
The detailed Florida prison industry happens to be a private, non-profit corporation considered a quasi-governmental state agency. This “agency” is a tax-exempt entity that has learned how to manipulate a state Legislature to act according to the corporation’s will through massive lobbying and large campaign “contributions.” This book will look closely at that Florida Corporation and determine just how corporate profits can be maintained through manipulation of both state and federal laws. Florida is where most of the facts you are about to read came to light. The research and investigation started there and wound its way through several state Legislatures and corporate boardrooms until it finally led to the Oval Office in the White House in Washington, DC. Though the Oval Office has changed hands since this story began, there have been no changes, concerns or attention given to PIECP or to alter it under the leadership of President Obama.
Over the years, the acts committed by this exempt Florida corporation were occurring - many criminal in nature – similar businesses, state and federal government agencies and even the U.S. Congress were pointing to this corporate entity and saying what a fine job they were doing. In 1997 a U.S. Congress Sub-Committee with Bill McCollum as the Chairman , urged the Federal Prison Industries to adopt the business practices of this corporation, to mirror their policies and operate in a like manner.
In researching this corporation it became apparent the acts complained of by this single entity were already going on elsewhere in the U.S. Huge amounts of money appeared to be falling from the loose pockets of federal and state governments and finding its way into the waiting hands of savvy entrepreneurs who saw this coming and in no small part, helped it along.
We will cover the past two decades thoroughly and re-visit beyond that briefly. This is necessary to demonstrate the actual purpose of this Florida Corporation when Legislative Act founded it in 1981. By state law the Legislators bestowed sovereign immunities upon this private nonprofit corporation, not realizing the impact this single act would have on the state, incarcerated inmates and Florida taxpayers.
At the time this is written, an inmate in Florida is set to forfeit his life for viciously murdering a female Correctional Officer in June of 2008. The inmate was serving two life sentences while working in the prison industry’s training program at the time the murder was committed. In pursuit of profits, the Department of Corrections and the private nonprofit Corporation that operates the prison’s Industries ignored safety procedures. Their negligence resulted in the taking of a human life.
In reality I don’t believe anyone could have foreseen what was to come from an innovative yet innocent federal attempt at rehabilitation through the PIE program. In any program – state or private – where there is an opportunity to make money there is the very real risk that an individual or individuals will see a way to manipulate the agenda for personal gain.
We read stories about this kind of conduct almost daily. We don’t, however, expect to read about this kind of thing happening at such a high level of state and federal government – or about losses in the millions of dollars. Dollars lost and unrecoverable by either the state or private individuals it was taken from…with little desire or attempt to prosecute those involved.
Research and investigation has determined the joining together of state operated prison industries with private sector businesses, manufacturers or corporations will in no way result in a true reduction in recidivism rates. Private sector corporations amass huge profits from the warehousing of human prisoners the public requires incarcerated. These same corporate entities realize even more profits through the use of those inmates in their custody by working them in industrial manufacturing and service operations. The mixing of public safety interests with the profit driven interests of private sector corporations has the same result as mixing oil and water. When you take those same public safety interests and combine them with prison industry operations that use inmate labor to produce goods and services the only winners are the private corporations.
Prison industry operators and their private sector partners claim recidivism is reduced, but there is no firm data to support this statistical claim. They further claim that through privatization, the taxpayer’s burden for incarceration is reduced. This claim is also without any factual statistical basis. Historically, privatization of prisons and prison industries in most states results in little or no savings to the state. What privatization does do is allow the state to shift responsibility and liability to the private corporations. Any claims of abuse or lack of medical care or treatment by inmates or their families are directed away from the state and borne by the private corporations involved. This also allows the states to “fine” contractors for negligence or failing to abide by contract requirements.
In 2008 the Florida Department of Corrections fined Aramark Corporation more than a quarter of a million dollars for contract defaults under their joint food service contract. This resulted in money paid to the state’s general revenue fund, but did nothing to put more food into the mouths of the inmates or ensure that proper hygiene was used in food preparation. In this situation those actually harmed by the actions of the state’s food service contract were not compensated for the actions that caused the large fines.
The same is true where inmate health service has been “outsourced” to private medical companies like Prison Health Services. Negligence by health corporations inflicted upon inmates in a prison contracted with, result in fines paid to the state and the inmate and their families are left to battle the private corporation on their own for any claims of neglect or malpractice. Neither prisons nor states will prosecute contractual offenders on behalf of an injured inmate or his/her family.
This book looks primarily at the relationships between prison industries, the federal PIECP operations and the private sector corporate partners chosen to participate in this program. It will also address the issue of those corporations profiting off of privatized prisons and prison industries associated with that privatization.
It also reveals the U.S. Government’s lack of actual oversight of PIECP and how that translates into deliberate abuses to inmate workers, taxpayers and private sector competitors in the name of profits. The author hopes the reader will also realize that privatization at all levels of state prison operations impacts taxpayers in similar manner and form across the board.
I will also go into some detail on the Prison Industrial Complex (PIC). PIC encompasses all privatization involving prisons and prison labor in the U.S. The PIC includes both state and federal detention of inmates and illegal immigrants. SB 1070 enacted in Arizona will also be discussed with particular attention to those corporate interests involved in providing this as “Model Legislation” through a conservative PAC.
Below is a partial listing of U.S. and Canadian Corporations involved in using prison labor in the U.S.:
• Boeing Corporation
• Microsoft
• Northern Telecom (Nortel)
• Honeywell
• Revlon
• IBM
• Pierre Cardin
• Nordstrom
• Compaq
• Texas Instruments
• Chevron
• Victoria’s Secret
• United Vision Group
• Chatleff Controls
• Lockhart Technologies, Inc. (Now Labor-to-Industry)
• Starbucks
• Nintendo
• Forever 21
• Toys R Us
• Jostens
• Planet Hollywood
• Eddie Bauer
• Insilco Operations, Inc.
• Jansport
• McDonalds
• LBJ Farms
• U.S. West
• Costco
• Lucent Technologies
• AT&T Wireless
• Bay Networks
• 3Com
• Intel
• Digital Switch
• New Bridge Networks
• Hewlett Packard
• Siemens
• Kaiser Steel
• Redwood Outdoors
• Wilson Sporting Goods
• Union Bay
• Elliott Bay
• A&I Manufacturing
• Washington Marketing Group
• JC Penney
• Best Western Hotels (Reservations)
• Kane Furniture
• K-Mart
• Target
• Hawaiian Tropic
• Burger King
• Konica
• Allstate
• Louisiana Pacific
• Parke-Davis and Upjohn
• Chevron
• Colgate Palmolive
• Graham Webb International
• LCI
• Herman Miller
• Spalding
• Macy’s
• Bank of America
• Glove Corp
• Actronix Corp.
• Southern Protein Purveyors
• Colorado Boxed Beef
• Carpet Stones, Inc
• Bob Barker Industries
• Tropical Hawaiian Products
• Floyd Wilcox and Sons
• High Country Potato
• Idaho Pacific
• Norsun
• SunGlo Idaho
• Walters Produce
• Damon Wire Harness
• Global Accessories
• Jacob’s Trading Sewing
• Kauffman Engineering (Formerly Global Tec.)
• USRC/Raine Sewing
• Brand FX Company
• Burgin Drapery/ fmly Rafferty Group
• JetCo
• Majestic Truck Services, Inc.
• Midland Manufacturing
• NuAge Marketing Solutions
• Misty Harbor, Inc
• Sully Truck Wash
• Rock Communications (CBG Printing)
• Sully Truck Wash
• Graphic Edge, Inc
• Allied, Inc.
• BAC Company
• Century Manufacturing, Inc.
• Great Plains
• Electrex, Inc.
• Hubco
• Impact Embroidery
• Impact Screen Print
• Koch and Company, Inc.
• Pioneer, Inc
• Primewood Inc.
• SeatKing (Formerly Keyes)
• Company Apparel Safety Items (CASI)
• Mailing and Distribution
• Assembly and Packaging
• KGP Telecom
• Plastech
• MBG Inc.
• Phillips Environmental
• Quake Industries
• Garner Industries, Inc. (GII)
• TEK II NSP
• TEK Inc.
• TEK Industries, LCC
• Uniquely RV
• Yik Yak Designs
• Contract Mattress
• Drapery Factory
• Jacobs Trading Co
• Shelby American Management Co
• Thompson Equipment Company
• Vinyl Products, Inc.
• Airmar
• DIA.com
• Precision Assembly
• Rest Easy
• XMA Corporation
• DWCRC
• CWI, Inc
• CCCF Custom Sewing, Inc
• Manufacturing Company
• Santiam Custom Metals
• Santiam Manufacturing
• Appalachian Engineered Floors
• Apparel Sewn Products
• Craig Industries, Inc.
• Escod, Inc
• R.M. Design, Inc. (Kershaw)
• RM Design, Inc.
• Standard Plywood, Inc.
• Standard Plywood, Inc. Lower & Upper
• Metalcraft, Inc
• Atrium Coffield
• Anderson Flooring
• Henderson Controls, Inc.
• OnShore Resources, Inc.
• WJ Metal Fabrication
• Texas International Hardwood Veneers
• Bullfrog Spa’s
• Advanced Modular Manufacturing
• Intermountain Staffing
• Intermountain Staffing Washington Co. Utah
• Thomas Damascus Steel
• UCI Furniture and Upholstery Shops
• Wasatch Embroidery and Bootmaking, Inc
• Intermountain Staffing Resources
• Circle A Brands
• Century Meats
• Vespers, Inc.
• Third Generation
• Leath Industries
• Yashida Group
• GFS Manufacturing
• M-Tron
• ExMark
• Escod Industries, Columbus, Oh
• Carr Lowery
• MicroJet
• Antipodes
NOTE: The foregoing corporations, companies and businesses represent a partial listing of those partnered with or using prison labor from state prison industry sources. The hundreds of corporations, businesses and companies partnered with or contracting under UNICOR (Federal Prison Industries) are not included in this listing.