New leviathan prisons are being built with thousands of eerie acres of factories inside the walls. Prisoners do data entry for Chevron, make telephone reservations for TWA, raise hogs, shovel manure and make circuit boards, limousines, waterbeds and even lingerie for Victoria's Secret. http://www.greenleft.org.au/1998/328/20614
Oregon Prison Industries produces a line of "prison blues" jeans. An ad in its catalogue shows a handsome prison inmate saying, "I say we should make bell-bottoms. They say "I've been in here too long". (ibid)
US Technologies sold its electronics plant in Austin, Texas, leaving its 150 workers unemployed. Six weeks later, the electronics plant reopened in a nearby prison. (ibid)
There also was another little-noticed item posted at the US Army Web site, about the Pentagon's Civilian Inmate Labor Program. This program "provides Army policy and guidance for establishing civilian inmate labor programs and civilian prison camps on Army installations."
The Army document, first drafted in 1997, underwent a "rapid action revision" on Jan. 14, 2005. The revision provides a "template for developing agreements" between the Army and corrections facilities for the use of civilian inmate labor on Army installations. http://www.truthout.org/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/47/17936
And you were wondering what happened to all those entry-level jobs! Consider what this kind of prison 'farming' has done to availability and competition. It is one thing, and a positive one, to give prisoners an opportunity to learn and apply new work skills, etiquette and values and for them to earn some money but, to my mind, it is quite another to have corporations to be able to undercut their competition by access to a cheaper labor force. As corporate America has a huge hunger for a stable, qualified work force and the fact that building prisons is one of the busiest industries in the U.S., the relationship provides for potential concers for all citizens.
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