Prisons and Honest Work

Seven years after President Clinton signed legislation to end “welfare as we know it,” there’s still one large group that gets an unconditional entitlement to public support without having to labor: prisoners.

Congress should do everything it can to move this population from dependency to work. Numerous rigorous studies have shown that work programs help defray incarceration costs by keeping inmates occupied and less violent. They also slash recidivism.

About 95% of current state and federal prison inmates will be released to their communities. Two-thirds will be rearrested within three years. Parolees make up one-half of those living on the streets of Los Angeles and San Francisco.

That’s why the House Judiciary Committee should resoundingly defeat HR 1829 by Rep. Peter R. Hoekstra (R-Mich.) when it takes up the bill Friday.

By ending a requirement that government agencies seeking certain products and services look first to Federal Prison Industries Inc., the bill would gut the one part of the U.S. prison system that helps change prisoners so they leave incarceration better than they entered.

Created in 1934, Federal Prison Industries now puts 22% of able-bodied prisoners to work making everything from bulletproof vests and safety glasses to office furniture, military uniforms and auto parts.

The main supporters of the bill -- Steelcase Inc. and Herman Miller Inc., two Michigan office-equipment makers that compete with the program -- say that the preference unfairly blocks private companies from winning lucrative government contracts. Far from shutting out competition, however, federal rules just give the prisons a chance to match or better private bids.

Moreover, 74% of the prisons’ $679 million in sales in 2002 went back to the private sector for the purchase of tools, goggles and other equipment.

The remaining 26% went to pay for the cost of housing and guarding prisoners, and into wages, which help inmates pay restitution to their victims.

There couldn’t be a worse time to gut the prison industry program. The number of federal inmates has surged from 25,000 to 169,000 in the last two decades. What will happen to them?

House leaders should consider this challenge from Pat Nolan, the Assembly’s Republican leader in California before he was imprisoned for racketeering in the 1980s: “Do we want them unskilled and angry after years of forced idleness? Or do we want them capable of contributing to society with skills they have learned during their confinement? How we treat them in prison will determine what type of neighbors they will be.”

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To Take Action: Contact F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., Judiciary Committee chairman, at (202) 225-5101 (phone), (202) 225-3190 (fax) or e-mail: sensenbrenner@mail.house.gov.