California's Prison Industry Authority
by Willie Wisely P. O. Box 1902-B 1B-208L, Tehachapi, CA 93581-5902
Imagine a half-billion dollar manufacturing company that uses slave
labor, has little overhead, ignores state and federal laws regulating workplace
safety, includes hazardous materials in the construction of its products,
forces customers to buy those products under penalty of law, yet loses money.
Now, imagine that this company is protected from bankruptcy and government
interference. Protected because the government owns and operates the company.
It's California's Prison Industry Authority. Why is this company still in
business?
Some 41 other prison industry programs across the nation turned a profit
in 1992-93. California's PIA lost $1.4 million on sales of $128.6 million.
Florida, Texas, and North Carolina-with the largest prison industries outside
of California-compete with private businesses in the marketplace. Florida's
PRIDE (Prison Rehabilitative Industries & Diversified Enterprises) program
is a private, nonprofit corporation created by the Legislature in 1981.
Unlike PIA, PRIDE doesn't employ civil servants. PRIDE netted $4 million
on gross sales of $77.6 million in 1994, and spent $635,000 assisting paroled
prisoners. Just 18% of PRIDE alumni return to custody. PIA spends virtually
nothing to help parolees, and the recidivism rate in California is over
75%.
Although the Texas Industries Division is prohibited from making money on
30% of its output, the program has turned a profit every year since its
inception in 1963. TID employs 7,500 prisoners from a prison population
of 94,000. California's PIA uses only 6,800 prisoners out of a 130,000 total.
North Carolina's prison industry made $5.4 million on sales of $51.2 million
in 1994. But, PIA has lost money five out of the twelve years it's existed.
And, of these four states, only California requires government agencies,
schools, libraries, and hospitals to buy prison made goods. From furniture
to eyeglasses, PIA manufactured wares are poorly made, overpriced, and often
delivered months late. Don Green, purchasing agent for California State
Polytechnic University, Pomona, needed chairs for the new computer lab.
He could have bought them from a local retailer for about $58 a piece. However,
California law forced him to order the furniture from the prison manufacturing
empire. He waited a year for delivery, and paid twice the retail price.
In 1994, state entities chose from 110 product lines and 2,000 items in
the slickly printed PIA catalog, spending $135 million on prison made goods.
The only ones who seem happy with the status quo are the civil service shop
foremen, supervisors, salespeople, and administrators who make an average
of $44,000 a year-much more than they could earn for similar jobs in the
real world.
"It's a joke, absolutely, positively a joke. And everybody covers everybody's
ass," said Leonard Greenstone, the lone dissident on the Prison Authority
Board, in a recent Orange County Register interview. A black vocational
instructor who didn't want to be identified for fear of retaliation admitted
the program is mismanaged. "When I worked for PIA, my shop turned a
profit. Pretty soon I was warned to cut back on production. They told me
it made the other supervisors look bad." Private business people think
the law forbidding state agencies and other divisions from purchasing commodities
on the open market should be abolished.
"It's like the factory system under communist rule. The workers and
supervisors got paid whether their products sold or not. There was no reason
for them to build quality merchandise because they had no competition,"
said Joe Harrington, retired Longshoreman, armchair Marxist, and local curmudgeon
in Costa Mesa, California. The California Constitution forbids prisons from
competing with private enterprise. Yet, that's exactly what they're doing.
"The complaints we hear are that (PIA) is in direct competition with
California business. You can't deny that," Lynn Wright, Governor Pete
Wilson's government purchasing expert conceded. The competition isn't quite
fair because PIA has a protected market.
PIA administrators claim the law protecting their market is necessary because
prisons aren't permitted to sell goods to the general public. They also
claim their products are more expensive because prisoners are unskilled,
illiterate, and require constant supervision. While it's true PIA is barred
from selling directly to the public in California, they are aggressively
developing markets in foreign countries. They sell blue jeans and denim
jackets with "California Department of Corrections" stenciled
on them in Dayglo orange to the Japanese.
In that report, prison industry managers also say outdated equipment, delays
in processing orders for raw materials, the high turnover of prisoners,
and random lockdowns by prison administrators further drive costs up and
production down. The Commission was skeptical. "Despite these burdens,
the inability of the PIA to routinely break even or post a profit is perplexing
in the light of the ability to set prices without fear of losing customers,"
their report concluded.
One state lawmaker has proposed a change. California Senator Richard Polanco
authored Senate Bill 617. If passed into law, the bill would free state
entities from the requirement to buy only from PIA. They would be at liberty
to find better deals in the private sector. On May 11, 1995, the measure
easily won approval in the state Senate.
Joined by Senator Dan Boatwright, Polanco demanded a probe of PIA's finances
and operations by the state Bureau of Audits. But mismanagement isn't the
only problem with PIA. Materials used in the manufacturing of furniture
the prison industry sells to state schools and hospitals are dangerous,
flammable, and destructive to the environment.
For example, urethane foam is purchased by the PIA Furniture Factory at
Tehachapi prison's maximum security IV-B Facility. The large sheets of foam
must be cut to size for use in chairs and couches. Cutting urethane foam
in the unventilated shop poses a serious, potentially lethal, health threat
to prisoners and civilian employees alike. When the foam is cut with power
saws, tiny particles are dispersed into the air. Trapped inside human lungs,
these particles can be deadly. "Urethane foam particles are carcinogenic.
And after accumulating in the lungs, they can cause a condition similar
to asbestositis," says John Diffenbaugh, a Captain with the Kern County
Fire Department. The foam also bears a warning to consumers that it was
manufactured with 1,1,1-trichlorothane, a substance known to destroy ozone
in the upper atmosphere. Urethane foam is also extremely flammable, and
once ignited produces a toxic gas which can quickly overcome and kill anyone
nearby. The California Furniture Association does not approve of the use
of this foam in furniture. PIA ignores the danger, causing some employees
to seek other jobs.
"I'm transferring out of here," said a former PIA supervisor.
"My father died of emphysema, and I've seen too many people with suspicious
coughs in the shop. That damn dust will kill you." Foam dust fills
the air at Tehachapi's Furniture Factory, and many prisoners working there
develop a chronic cough. After Captain Diffenbaugh warned that the dust
could cause serious illness, prisoners demanded exhaust fans to remove the
particles from the shop air. Instead, they were given disposable paper face
masks with labels that read, "This is not a filter. Prolonged use may
be dangerous to your health." Meanwhile, it's politics as usual.
Governor Wilson is officially neutral on Polanco's bill, but strongly committed
to PIA. "Prison Industry needs to expand, not contract, these positive
efforts toward providing job skills and lessening the financial burden of
state prison costs," he said in a 1992 video message. But, because
PIA uses obsolete equipment and outmoded techniques, prisoners don't learn
practical skills needed in the workplace outside. PIA executives claim they
save taxpayers millions of dollars by allowing prisoners to earn time off
their sentences for working. According to the legislative analysis of SB617,
however, that's just not true.
The conclusion that prison industry saves tax dollars by allowing prisoners
to earn time off is based on the false assumption those prisoners wouldn't
find other jobs and earn time off anyway. The savings guesstimate also supposes
the Department of Corrections would have to create other activities for
prisoners. The Little Hoover Commission found that PIA really didn't save
taxpayers any money at all. "Through the mechanism of forcing these
departments to purchase from the PIA, the costs of dealing with inmates
are shifted throughout the state government but are still paid by the same
public-provided dollar that would cover costs if they were contained in
the Department of Corrections budget." So what's the bottom line?
The bottom line is, the PIA, like the Department of Corrections itself,
has become a welfare system for its employees. The sole purpose of PIA,
it seems, is to furnish employees with big salaries for little work. It's
not concerned with helping ensure prisoners stand a chance of success on
parole. It's not concerned with producing well made goods or turning a profit,
either. One lifer at Tehachapi said, "Give me a year, and I'd have
this place making millions. Take that Furniture Factory out, and manufacture
computer memory chips. Prisoners would gain job skills that are actually
needed outside, and customers would get memory chips at prices comparable
to Japanese chips." What a great idea!
But PIA doesn't appreciate great ideas. And, Governor Wilson-counting on
his base of faithful civil servants at election time-will likely veto Polanco's
bill, just as he did other bills in 1991-92 aimed at reforming PIA. So schools,
already strapped for cash thanks to budget cuts, must continue to pay $3.56
for plastic binders they could buy at a stationery store for $1.55, and
$695 for conference tables that run $279 at a furniture outlet.
State hospitals will have chairs and couches in their waiting rooms made
with highly flammable, toxic materials. In a way, California's Prison Industry
Authority is like the goose that laid the golden egg. As long as no one
kills the goose, PIA employees, and the myriad vendors who make a living
supplying the prison industry, continue getting the gold. The trouble is,
though, the goose is crapping all over everyone else.