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  #1  
Old 12-31-2004, 05:49 PM
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License plates and prisoners

Do prisoners make anything else useful to the general population outside besides license plates?

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  #2  
Old 12-31-2004, 05:54 PM
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In Texas we use them for farm labor. TDC owns vast farms, and it is one of the few penal systems that actually turns a profit - not every year, but often enough that the taxpayers get to smile about it. There is just something satisfying about driving thru Rosenburg and seeing that dude up on his horse with a rifle, and all those felons planting rice in the mud. While other states talk about prisoners costing 30 grand a bed, ours don't cost us a thing sometime. As a result, we are always looking for more.
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  #3  
Old 12-31-2004, 06:08 PM
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...up here in Warshington State, they build furniture for state agencies and many companies are looking to utilize the state sanctioned slave labor camps for their own profit generating schemes. Curiously, some of us are a tad concerned, but we're a bunch of nervous ninnies anyway.
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  #4  
Old 12-31-2004, 06:39 PM
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big buisness

http://www.unicor.gov/
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  #5  
Old 12-31-2004, 07:08 PM
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Got a min security facility near Madison where they raise pheasants. Last I knew they still make plates up in Waupun too.

Gilly
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  #6  
Old 12-31-2004, 07:08 PM
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Kenny Hill, a luthier, in search for good help, taught prisoners how to build guitars.
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  #7  
Old 12-31-2004, 08:13 PM
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I talked to a guy over the summer with a beautifully restored Jeep Grand Wagoneer from the early 80s. He said the Nevada state prison has a program where they teach the prisoners auto mechanics and restoration, and they restore these cars for a pretty reasonable price (he thought it was around $6-7k).
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  #8  
Old 01-01-2005, 12:42 AM
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Fed prisons used to make furniture and other office supplies. Up until about 4 years ago if you wanted to purchase furniture you had to justify NOT buying from the prisons.

I think that the US Gov had been bad-mouthing Chinese slave labor and China said, "You goofs do it, too."

I don't know that it's true, but I thinbk the time frame is about right.

Lots of rural sheriffs have penal farms. In the one I'm most familiar with, the inmates volunteer. They can either sit inside their cell all day or go work on the farm. If it was me, that would be a no-brainer--show me the garden.

But then I'm,

Botnst
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  #9  
Old 01-01-2005, 01:38 AM
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this may be a hijack, but i'd be more inclined toward life sentances if they were a difficult lifestyle in prison. I find it unpalatable for a murderous miscreant to be serving a life term with very little discomfort. if the conditions were insufferable, I'd say sentance them all to that. then the worst case being that someone were convicted incorrectly, at least we did'nt kill them. Random thought......
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  #10  
Old 01-01-2005, 01:41 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by azimuth
this may be a hijack, but i'd be more inclined toward life sentances if they were a difficult lifestyle in prison. I find it unpalatable for a murderous miscreant to be serving a life term with very little discomfort. if the conditions were insufferable, I'd say sentance them all to that. then the worst case being that someone were convicted incorrectly, at least we did'nt kill them. Random thought......
What's that sheriff's name in Phoenix? Has the inmates wear pink jumpers and the only channel they have on TV shows reruns of the sheriff reading children's books.
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  #11  
Old 01-01-2005, 01:46 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Botnst
What's that sheriff's name in Phoenix? Has the inmates wear pink jumpers and the only channel they have on TV shows reruns of the sheriff reading children's books.
sherriff joe arpaio, i believe. the inmates and the ACLU hate him; the law abiding public that i've heard speak of him, love him........something about nutri-loaf seems to give the prisoners the gag factor and the public a wisened smile.
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  #12  
Old 01-01-2005, 01:46 AM
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Prisons are even being used as call centers!:

http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/8128267.htm?1c

(in case the link above does not work: )
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INMATES HIRED AS TELEMARKETERS GET PAID FOR 40-HOUR WORK WEEK

By Andrew Kramer

Associated Press


ONTARIO, Ore. - Chris Harry is a model employee for the U.S. call center industry. The 25-year-old arrives promptly at his cubicle, speaks courteously on the phone and is never late or absent.

He plans to stick with his job for three years, a boon in an industry plagued by high turnover. And he gladly works for money many Americans would scoff at -- $130 or so a month.

After all, he could be back swabbing cell block floors for a third of that.

``I can't complain about fair,'' said Harry, who was sentenced to 10 years and eight months for robbery. ``I did a crime and I'm in prison. At least I'm not wearing a ball and chain.''

Prison inmates like Harry are the reason Perry Johnson, a Southfield, Mich.-based consulting company, chose to remain in the United States rather than join a host of telemarketing companies moving offshore.

Perry Johnson had intended to move to India. But the company chose instead to open inside the Snake River Correctional Institution, a sprawling razor wire and cinder block state penitentiary a few miles west of the Idaho line.

10 states participate

The center's opening followed a yearlong effort by the Oregon Department of Corrections to recruit businesses that would otherwise move offshore, and echoes a national trend among state and federal prisons to recruit such companies.

``This is a niche where the prison industry could really help the U.S. economy,'' said Robert Killgore, director of Inside Oregon Enterprises, the quasi-state agency that recruits for-profit business to prisons.

``I'm really excited about this,'' he said. ``We keep the benefits here in the United States with companies where it's fruitless to compete on the outside.''

Prison officials have long praised work programs for lowering recidivism and teaching inmates skills and self-respect, yet have been criticized by unions for taking jobs from the private sector.

Those concerns are moot if a company planned to leave the country anyway, Killgore said. National prison labor trade groups support the idea.

Ten states including Oregon employ inmates in for-profit call centers. Oregon and many others also make garments and furniture -- industries that have largely moved offshore, other than in prisons. Inmates are paid between 12 cents and $5.69 an hour, according to Bureau of Prisons statistics.

Perry Johnson opened its call center in an Oregon prison for half the price of relocating to India, and achieved many of the same benefits, according to Mike Reagan, director of Inside Oregon Enterprises at Snake River.

At Snake River, to qualify for the call center job, inmates must have three to five years remaining on their sentence. Outside, the typical turnover is nine months.

Randomly screened

Also, inmates make good telemarketers, prison officials said.

``They see an opportunity to talk to people and learn how to communicate,'' said Nick Armenakis, a manager for Inside Oregon Enterprises. ``They are told that to keep these jobs, they have to be very patient and very contrite, and follow protocol.''

The convicts pitch Perry Johnson's quality control consulting service to executives at American businesses, sometimes even company presidents.

Prison officials randomly monitor inmates' phone conversations, and all calls are digitally recorded to discourage personal calls or illegal activity.

The prisoners work 40-hour weeks in rows of nondescript cubicles.

Critics assail the idea of retaining American jobs in prisons as a flagrant violation of minimum wage laws and an affront to free workers.

``Obviously, it doesn't do anything for the labor market here,'' said University of Oregon political science professor Gordon Lafer, author of a study on prison labor.

``It's like bringing little islands of the Third World right here to the heartland of America,'' he said. ``You get the same total control of the workforce, the same low wages, and it does nothing for the inmates.''

Also, convicts don't benefit much from training for jobs that no longer exist in America because they have all gone overseas or into prisons, he said.

Harry said he is thankful for the skills he has learned in prison, and he intends to attend college when he is released. He kicked back in his cubicle and bantered about the weather with a customer in Houston.

``I've been here three months,'' he said. ``Nobody's ever suspected they're talking to a convict.''
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
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  #13  
Old 01-01-2005, 01:48 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by azimuth
this may be a hijack, but i'd be more inclined toward life sentances if they were a difficult lifestyle in prison. I find it unpalatable for a murderous miscreant to be serving a life term with very little discomfort. if the conditions were insufferable, I'd say sentance them all to that. then the worst case being that someone were convicted incorrectly, at least we did'nt kill them. Random thought......
The conditions in Texas prisons are no picnic. Next door in Louisiana, they are even worse. Oklahoma's McAlester prison is a hellhole. None of these states offer air conditioning, and the men are confined to their miserable 8x10 cells most of the day. If you are white, you are going to be beaten and raped on a regular basis. I would rather slit my wrists than spend time in a Texas prison.
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  #14  
Old 01-01-2005, 01:53 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by azimuth
sherriff joe arpaio, i believe. the inmates and the ACLU hate him; the law abiding public that i've heard speak of him, love him........something about nutri-loaf seems to give the prisoners the gag factor and the public a wisened smile.
...sadists like the good sheriff should be locked up along with his misanthropic apologists.
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  #15  
Old 01-01-2005, 01:55 AM
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Quote:
Originally Posted by KirkVining
The conditions in Texas prisons are no picnic. Next door in Louisiana, they are even worse. Oklahoma's McAlester prison is a hellhole. None of these states offer air conditioning, and the men are confined to their miserable 8x10 cells most of the day. If you are white, you are going to be beaten and raped on a regular basis. I would rather slit my wrists than spend time in a Texas prison.
yes, but do they have those little chains on one ankle tethered to a big iron ball? and do they make big rocks into little tiny ones all day? that's what i'm talking about.....

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