8/27/2019 California Work Program Inmates
06.25.98 - California prison factories generate $150 million in sales each year, new UC Berkeley report finds NEWS RELEASE, 06/25/98 California prison factories generate $150 million in sales each year, new UC Berkeley report finds By Kathleen Scalise, Public Affairs BERKELEY - If you think prison inmates only make license plates, you're behind the times. A report released this month by an economist at the University of California, Berkeley found California prison factories and farms are responsible for over $150 million in direct sales annually in the state. Prison products today range from silk-screened clothing in Tehachapi to fine-ground optics in Vacaville. The report is the first comprehensive study of the economic impact of the California Prison Industry Authority, the largest prison work program in any state. The organization employs about 7,000 inmates in 23 prisons from Del Norte to San Diego County, said report author George Goldman, a cooperative extension economist in the Department of Agriculture and Resource Economics at the UC Berkeley College of Natural Resources. Prison work programs in California are voluntary, and inmates line up for a chance to work, even though they are paid on average only 57 cents per hour.
The pay scale ranges from 30 cents to 95 cents per hour. Goldman's study shows a positive economic impact on the state from prison work programs and also indicates what would happen if they did not exist. 'If you wipe out the California Prison Industry Authority, you'd lose $62 million in personal income in the state,' said Goldman.
Educational Programs For Inmates
Additionally, 560 jobs would disappear, not counting those held by convicts and state civil service staff. Goldman found prison labor is also healthy for the private sector. Prison programs produce goods that in many cases would otherwise come from outside the state while employing the private sector to supply raw materials.
Biggest prison products are food, with $33 million in sales annually; fabrics, $32 million; paper and wood products, $30 million; and metal products, $22 million. A main goal of prison work programs is to provide 'a positive outlet to help inmates productively use their time and energies,' said Frank Losco, spokesperson for the Prison Industry Authority. Another goal is to instill good work habits, including appropriate job behavior and time management.
Although the prison programs are self-supporting, 'it's not trivial to set up one of these factories,' said Goldman. 'And the factories cannot be as efficient as the commercial sector, what with the extra costs of security, prison shutdowns and so forth.' In California, only government agencies are allowed to purchase prison products, unlike other states such as Nevada, where convicts make cars for retail sale, and Oregon, where jeans are produced.
In fact, Oregon's jeans - labeled 'Prison Blues' - proved so popular last year that prison factories couldn't keep up with demand. In California, however, the prisons themselves are their own best customers. The California Department of Corrections purchases about half of what the prisons make, choosing from a Prison Industry Authority catalog. Goldman has done economic surveys for many industries, but this is the first time he has studied prison work programs in depth, and even he was surprised at the breadth of items produced. Prison goods and services include farm and dairy products, such as eggs, prunes and almonds; meat cutting; coffee roasting; manufacturing of furniture, shoes and clothing; dental and optical services; and much more, including a knitting mill run by the California Men's Colony in San Luis Obispo.
'I thought like everyone else, vaguely, that prisoners make license plates,' said Goldman. 'I didn't even know if they still did that. I had no idea they made mattresses at San Quentin or still ran prison farms. They do make more than $10 million worth of license plates each year.' Compared to other California industries, prison production weighs in with about the same economic impact as book binding ($138 million), pulp mills ($133 million), chewing gum manufacturing ($142 million), or a single moderately successful Steven Spielberg film, said Goldman. That's small change compared to California's blockbuster industries such as agriculture, said Goldman, but 'it's still a good thing and has a positive impact on the state.' This server has been established by Public Information Office.
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Some in the state, especially opponents of prison work programs, fear the state may have grown too dependent on the low-cost firefighting help inmates provide. They point, for example, to the objection then-state attorney general, now-U.S.
Senator, Kamala Harris raised in 2014, when prison overcrowding was being considered in the courts. She argued reducing the state’s prison population would “severely impact fire camp participation” at a time of dangerous statewide droughts. Today California has over 40 conservation camps for fire-fighting inmates.
Prison Work Programs
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To: All Media Partners From: Jennifer M. Hansen, Public Information Officer Date: January 23, 2014 RE: Mono County Sheriff’s Office – Inmate Worker Program Lately, you might have seen local inmates around various areas and communities of Mono County performing community service work. The increased community service the inmates of the Mono County Jail are performing is part of the implementation of the Inmate Worker Program. In 2011, Governor Jerry Brown signed Assembly Bill (AB) 109, a historic legislation that has, in so far, helped California “close the revolving door” of low-level inmates that cycle through the State prison system. This legislation has been California’s solution to reducing the number of inmates in State prison. With the recent implementation of AB 109, the impact to the Mono County Jail has been significant. The low-level inmates once being sent to State prison are now staying housed and serving their sentence in local county jails.
The challenge that the Mono County Jail faces, as a small jail that only houses 44 beds, is how to keep these long-term inmates motivated and engage them in constructive activities. With funding from the AB109 realignment and the Community Corrections Partnership (CCP), comprising of local agencies including the Mono County Sheriff’s Office; Mono County Probation; Mono County Superior Court; Mammoth Lakes Police Department; Mono County District Attorney’s Office; Mono County Public Defenders; Mono County Department of Social Services; Mono County Office of Education; Mono County Department of Behavioral Health; Mono County Board of Supervisors; and Wild Iris, the Mono County Jail has aggressively implemented an Inmate Worker Program. This program allows our locally housed inmates, who have not been charged with a violent or sexual crime, to engage in providing community service throughout Mono County. This program includes work details such as: washing Mono County Sheriff’s Office patrol and jail vehicles; washing county-wide fire protection districts fire engines and equipment; weed removal at local fire stations, county parks, cemeteries, and along local sidewalks and roadways; litter and trash removal along county roadways; snow removal along local community sidewalks; painting projects of county-wide facilities and offices; preparation and cleanup for large localized county-wide events; and snow removal around fire hydrants within the Town of Mammoth Lakes. Funding has allowed for the department to purchase a work trailer with tools and other necessary equipment for the inmates to perform these varied tasks. The Inmate Worker Program has already shown positive results around Mono County and its communities. Citizens benefit from the hard work the inmates put in to keep their local communities clean.
Local agencies benefit from the hard work the inmates put in that allow their staff to focus on other projects. This program also benefits the inmates by getting them outside and helping to build camaraderie amongst themselves which allows for a better living environment for the inmates and jail staff.
In addition to the Inmate Worker Program, the CCP group is actively working on additional programming opportunities for the locally housed inmates in the Mono County Jail. These additional programs are in the works to begin later this year. Written and reported by: Jennifer M. Hansen, Public Information Officer.
Prison may seem like the worst possible place to train a dog, especially at a facility like the California State Prison in Los Angeles County, home to the kinds of criminals we often think of as society’s worst. But last year, a select group of the prison’s inmates—many serving life sentences for heinous crimes of murder and kidnapping—helped give rescue dogs a second life by caring for them, training them, and after an intensive 12-week program, turning them over to an adoptive family. Over the summer, photographers Shaughn Crawford and John DuBois spent six days inside the prison, capturing these often surreal scenes of inmates and their dogs lounging in cells, playing in the prison yard, going through obedience training, and, ultimately, bonding. “I was really blown away by how compassionate they were and how much these guys cared for these animals,” Crawford says. “Their passion and their love for these dogs was really heartwarming.
Community Work Program Orange County
A lot of times, they would start crying when they talked about it.” California State Prison in LA County is a maximum-security, or Level 4, facility and the only one in the state where inmates serving lifetime sentences train dogs. The prison program, Paws for Life, was developed by LA non-profit Karma Rescue, and it gives the dogs an opportunity to become Canine Good Citizens, an American Kennel Club designation that makes it easier for them to get adopted. But just getting within the prison’s walls proved difficult for both photographers, who had to navigate TSA-style pat-downs and security checkpoints while lugging multiple cameras and backpacks full of gear. The prisoners were all Level 4 inmates—the highest possible security level—but thanks to good behavior, a select group had been downgraded to Level 3 and given the opportunity to participate in the program. Crawford and DuBois said they quickly felt comfortable around the inmates, at times even losing sight of the fact that they were working with hardened criminals.
At one point, DuBois recalled, a guard yelled at him for walking down one of the facility’s narrow corridors alongside a prisoner, something that is against prison rules due to security concerns. “You immediately start to feel at home with these guys,” DuBois says.
“But all of a sudden the guard freaked out. There were a few times when you get snapped back into reality.” In one of their favorite moments, the photographers captured inmate Jack McNeil and a dog named Shelby playing with a water hose in the prison yard but again ran up against the ever-present constraints of their situation.
The prison officials eventually told McNeil he couldn’t waste water playing with the dog. All the dogs have since been adopted, including one by a prison official who was initially critical of the program, DuBois says, and Karma Rescue has plans to expand the program to six other prisons.
And are photographers based in California. Josh Sanburn is a writer for TIME in New York. Follow him on Twitter.
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