Legacy Site

¶ … corporations' access to prison labor. Questions: How, why and whom do we imprison? How is money best spent? Five sources. APA. Corporations and Prison Labor Most people's familiarity of prison labor comes from the media, particularly from movies. Chain gangs working on railroads or highways can be seen in movies such as 'Cool Hand Luke' and 'O' Brother Where Art Thou.' Another popular movie, 'The Shawshank Redemption' depicted the use of convict labor for other types of contract labor such as roof tarring.

Manufacturing automobile state license plates is another use of prison labor familiar to most of the general public.

But, how does the general public feel about the use of prison labor, and moreover, how do laborers in the private sector feel about companies using prison labor instead of them? Is the use of prison labor good for the economy? Is it good for the prisoners, for the prisons? And just how good is it for the corporations? The use of prison labor in the United States is as old as the country itself.

Prisons earned most of their operating cost by leasing prison labor to the businesses in the private sector, making profits as much a concern as prisoners (Du Pont 72). Since then, the use of prison labor has steadily dropped, from forty-four percent in the 1930's to eleven percent by the 1990's. One reason for the decline is the resentment from the labor movement threatened by competition (Du Pont 72). However, in the last few years, it has resurfaced as a major source of labor for many major corporations.

Supporters claim it is good for business and gives prisoners training in skills that will afford them viable employment when they are released from prison. However, many see it as slave labor and unfair competition in the labor market. Pac Serives, a packaging firm, claims its affiliate, Exmark, only uses prison labor for the work overflow. A few of the companies that use prison labor through Exmark are Microsoft, JanSport, Starbucks, U.S. West, and Costco (Microsoft pg). Many see the use of prison labor as a dangerous trend.

The United States imprisons more people than any other country in the world. With roughly two million people behind bars, this number is "more than three times the number of prisoners in 1980" (Schwartz pg). California has built twenty-one new prisons in the last twenty years and have five under construction, and plans for another ten. Moreover, one in ten "adult Georgians can expect to spend time in prison, twice the national average...only the federal prison system added more inmates than Georgia, despite a declining crime rate" (Cook A1).

Since 1970, Georgia's population has increased seventy-eight percent, its inmate population has increased a staggering 417% (Cook A1). The prison industrial complex is a booming business for "construction, guarding, administration, health, education and food service...One of the fastest-growing sectors of the prison industrial complex is private corrections companies" (Schwartz pg). Many corporations have discovered that prison labor is as profitable as using overseas sweatshops. Moreover, corporations, such Trans World Airlines, are using prison labor for jobs such as booking flight reservations.

"Other companies that use prison labor are Chevron, IBM, Motorola, Compaq, Texas Instruments, Honeywell, Microsoft, Victoria's Secret and Boeing" (Schwartz pg). Federal prisons, operating under the trade name Unicor, use their inmate populations to make products "from lawn furniture to congressional desks" (Schwartz pg). However, federal safety and health standards do not apply to prison labor, nor do the policies set forth by the National Labor Relations Board. The bottom line is that corporations are not required to pay even minimum wage.

For example, California inmates working for the Prison Industrial Authority earn between 30 to 95 cents per hour "before required deductions for restitutions and fines" (Schwartz pg). Who benefits? Prisons receive large revenues from prison labor, shareholders of the corporations gain, and of course there's the bottom line profit of the corporations (Corporate 6A).

State Corrections agencies are even advertising their prisoners to corporations by asking these questions: "Are you experiencing high employee turnover? Worried about the cost of employee benefits? Getting hit by overseas competition? Having trouble motivating your workforce? Thinking about expansion space? Then the Washington State Department of Corrections Private Sector Partnerships is for you" (Schwartz pg).

Who's in prison? Statistics show that out of the two million incarcerated, there are about 150,000 armed robber, 125,000 murderers and 100,000 sex offenders, the rest are the mentally ill, drug addicts, and other non-violent type offenders (Schwartz pg). Over the 11-year period spanning 1982 to 1992 annual spending on criminal justice (i.e. police, judges, and corrections) at the federal level increased from $4.27 billion to $13.53 billion, an increase of 216.86% in 10 years" (Corporate 6A).

Whether one believes or not that prison labor is valuable job training for the inmates, there is no doubt that prisons have become big business and no doubt that prisons.