From the article, it sounds like these companies and sme govies are getting a little TOO used to cheap inmate labor.

http://www.parascope.com/articles/0197/prison.htm

The operation is run by Badger State Industries, the Wisconsin prison industries program, which employs 600 inmates and which raked in a $1.2 million profit in 1995. In the past, to protect manufacturers from unfair competition, Wisconsin allowed sale of prison-made goods only to state and local government agencies. But Governor Tommy Thompson's new state budget allows commercial entities to use prison facilities and labor for manufacturing purposes. The money will be used to pay for the costs of incarcerating the prisoners -- including the ones who work in the factories.

Wisconsin is following the lead of other states, such as California, Tennessee, Kansas, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, Nevada and Iowa, which have incorporated prisoners into the labor force, placing artificial downward pressure on wages. Thousands of state and federal prisoners are currently generating more than $1 billion per year in sales for private businesses, often competing directly with the private sector labor force. The Correctional Industries Association predicts that by the year 2000, 30 percent of America's inmate population will labor to create nearly $9 billion in sales for private business interests.

Oregon has even started advertising its prison labor force and factories, claiming that businesses who utilize incarcerated workers would otherwise go overseas for cheap labor (thanks, GATT and NAFTA!). In 1995, an overwhelming majority of Oregon voters passed a constitutional amendment that will put 100 percent of its state inmates to work.

And they'll be making a lot more than license plates and road signs. One product of Oregon's inmate factories are uniforms for McDonald's. Tennessee inmates stitch together jeans for Kmart and JC Penney, as well as $80 wooden rocking ponies for Eddie Bauer. Mattresses and furniture are perennial favorites in prison factories, and Ohio inmates even produced car parts for Honda, until the United Auto Workers intervened. Prisoners have been employed doing data entry, assembling computer circuit boards and even taking credit card ticket orders for TWA.

But private industry isn't the only sector eager to exploit cheap prison labor. On June 14, 1995, the U.S. House of Representatives narrowly rejected an amendment to the 1996 Defense Authorization bill which would have permitted the Defense Department to use nonviolent offender inmates provided by state or local corrections facilities to do construction and maintenance services at military installations.

-- OR (orwelliator@biosys.net), November 12, 1999

Answers

i know there may be potential negative ramifications to this but i think it is an excellent idea to use prisoners for real jobs (i hope they are also earning some of the money). it can cover part of the cost of their incarceration, teaches them a skill, and gives them meaningful work to do. much better than just being locked up with nothing to pass the time. the prison system at present is a mess. i think it should be privatized with govt oversight. hey, isn't this OT?

-- tt (cuddluppy@yahoo.com), November 12, 1999.

The object is to obtain a cheap (slave labor) source of labor by making all kinds of activities into "crimes", such as buying, selling, and using drugs. It's none of the states' or YOUR f*ing business if someone wants to fry their brain. Probably nowadays more than half the prison population is due to drug "crimes" and another quarter due to "Drug-related" crimes (burglary, robbery) because government has made drugs so expensive on the street.

Moralists, busybodies, meddlers, bleeding hearts ... f* you all.

-- A (A@AisA.com), November 12, 1999.

Actually agreeing with tt and A.

Yes, make them work, but when huge profits are involved....can't help thinking we are careening towards a gulag system.

-- Cerealkiller (funny@town.com), November 12, 1999.

--MAN 0 MAN am I against prison labor! we have a police state now where 75% of those incarcerated are there for political crimes, namely not being part of the big shot's gangs who deal drugs on a global scale. The cost of prohibition (and the PROFITS) are in the trillions probably, who knows! Now add in the expense of crimes on people that are caused by the drugs being kept at an unnaturally high price level to maintain these profits, and a huge bunch of police and incarceration "jobs". THAT is the primary reason we still have some drug prohibition. Seized assetts, political careers, two faced politicos making a public "get tough on" name for themselves...yada, yada the king wants this "stroke of the pen, law of the land-kinda cool" deal, let him start with that! Want to knock crime down to andy of mayberry levels, end prohibition and the police state! It's the obscene profits. that's all it is. greed and power. And we also have the various other laws that make it almost impossible anymore for anyone to NOT be "guilty" of something or other. G-e-e-e-ez loweeez, how much more police state do people want? How much more crime? How many more platoons of darth vader look-alikes kicking in doors? A-r-r-g-h-h-h we're one step from china and poppin people on trumped up b.s. charges and harvesting their organs alive! It bytes it, bigtime. Just say NO to the globalist police staters! free dood zog

or

never mind, just give me a "booming" stock market, professional sports, cheap beer and leave me alone, it won't effect me......

-- zog (zzoggy@yahoo.com), November 12, 1999.

I can certainly support prisoners (1) learning marketable skills, and (2) helping to support themselves through prison industries (making clothes, gardening, farming, etc.). Slave labor, however, is too far! I would be particularly concerned to find that some actions were being criminalized just to create more slaves...

-- Mad Monk (madmonk@hawaiian.net), November 12, 1999.