Frustration Over Prison Job Program

A frustrated San Diego judge is attempting to untangle a bureaucratic mess involving a state prison labor program by demanding that attorneys for the state Department of Corrections present a top decision-maker for the agency at a hearing this week.

At issue is the state’s responsibility to collect millions of dollars from private employers who underpaid prisoners participating in an effort known as the joint venture program. San Diego County Superior Court Judge William C. Pate set a hearing for Thursday because little was resolved at a hearing Friday.

Pate heard from six top corrections officials at the hearing who were ordered to appear and explain why they should not be held in contempt for failing to comply with his orders in regard to the running of the program.

The joint venture program allows private employers to hire prisoners to manufacture goods. Their wages are to be split evenly among themselves, their families, a restitution fund, victims and the state.

The corrections officials had hoped to avoid appearing before Pate. But a last-minute request filed by attorneys on behalf of the state was denied by the 4th District Court of Appeal, leaving officials no other option but to gather in his courtroom Friday.

The corrections officials were called to testify to the extent of their involvement with the program and efforts by the department to accurately assess and collect underpaid wages. One private employer alone is estimated to have underpaid prisoners by more than $2 million. “To this date, there has not been one cent collected,” Pate said.

When he couldn’t get the answers he wanted, Pate asked for a “decision-maker” who could address his concerns. “We don’t have anyone who knows what is going on.... I’m not going to punish the troops.... I’m going straight to the top,” he said.

Once considered a national model, the state joint venture program, created by a 1990 ballot measure, has withered in recent years.

Corrections officials in the past have blamed the program’s decline on a problematic economy, competition from businesses in other states and a lack of space to run manufacturing programs on prison grounds.

Prisoners sued the state because they were not paid prevailing wages for their labor in the program. Allowing private employers to pay prisoners less than they would pay regular employees harmed not only the prisoners, but the public as well, said civil rights attorney Robert Berke.

In February 2004, the state agreed to a court injunction placing the program under Pate’s supervision for two years. Pate noted that he had given officials more than a year to require private employers to boost wages for prisoners who are part of the program and to collect underpaid wages.

Pate ruled in May that the state had failed to develop a list of comparable wage rates for prisoners. He set June 30 as a deadline for the state to prove it had upgraded the labor program.

When the department did not comply, Pate issued an order for corrections officials to appear at last Friday’s hearing.

Corrections officials told Pate they are working on the problem and asked for more time to resolve it.

“In no way, shape or form has this issue been ignored,” said Thomas Clifton, a private attorney representing the Department of Corrections. “We know the responsibilities we have under this injunction.”

Complicating matters is the fact that the department is undergoing the largest reorganization in the agency’s history.

Department Undersecretary Jeanne S. Woodford testified at the hearing that she spends an average of 16 hours a day, six days a week, overseeing 50,000 employees and more than 165,000 inmates in the system.

And just last month, after reports of medical incompetence and neglect, a federal judge declared that he would seize control of prison healthcare from the state and place it under a receiver.

Pate acknowledged the department is faced with more important issues than the one at hand. “We’re only talking about dollars here,” Pate said.

Still, the issue needs to be resolved, he said.

“I’m sitting here refereeing this fight that’s probably not going to amount to much,” he said, addressing corrections official John Dovey. “Someone needs to get a handle on this.... This is the most absurd case I’ve been involved in.”