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School
supports prison program
By
Amy O'Bryant
Online Forty-Niner
The
Prison Industry Authority (PIA), a state
prison-operated organization that produces
a large variety of products to sell to state
agencies, provides Cal State Long Beach
with office furniture at the students' expense.
According
to PIA chief of public affairs, Frank Losco,
the organization has at least 55 separate
industries that operate at 32 institutions,
with 95 percent of the products sold to
state institutions. Roughly half of that
95 percent goes back into the prison system
in the form of clothing and food products.
The rest is sold to state facilities that
are required by law to buy these products.
State mandate requires CSULB and other state
universities to purchase these items PIA
produces, even if the items are available
elsewhere for less.
Kathy Bishop, a purchasing agent at CSULB,
says the school must buy a chair from the
Prison Industry Authority, even if a comparable
chair exists at Office Depot for a fraction
of the cost.
Office
Depot can also deliver items in stock within
24 hours, Bishop says. The government agency
can't guarantee a delivery date, but usually
delivers the items in three to four weeks
if it's in stock. Products are considered
"custom" if they don't meet prison
measurements or conditions for stock items,
and can then take six to eight weeks or
longer.
If
the prison organization does not stock the
item and cannot custom make something, a
waiver must be filed by the purchasing department
explaining why something must be purchased
elsewhere. As an example, Bishop says someone
needed a filing cabinet to fit under a workspace
that was not made by the PIA and so it did
not have the same measurements. She says
the organization refused to honor the waiver
because any standard workspace would accommodate
one of their inmate-assembled file cabinets.
The
university has a plethora of literature
designed to avoid creating the appearance
of a monopoly. The CSULB purchasing operations
manual clearly states several requirements
for procurement transactions including a
pledge to protect the public from the misuse
of state funds, to prevent favoritism, fraud
and corruption in the awarding of state
governments and to provide all qualified
bidders with a fair opportunity to enter
the bidding process, thereby stimulating
competition in a manner conducive to sound
business practices and state fiscal policies.
Losco
explains that this is precisely the reason
for the variety of industries in the PIA.
The diversity is intentional, he says, so
there is no substantive impact on other
businesses.
When
asked about the discrepancy between the
prices of prison-produced items and comparable
products by other companies, Losco points
out those inmate-produced products are often
more solidly built and carry a much longer
warranty than others. He also asserts that
prices are competitive, and free of tax
and transportation fees, while admitting
that it is expensive to maintain a prison
workforce.
Costs
for security and training are added to the
price of the product. Plants must be shut
down periodically for various reasons, and
people and tools need to be counted. But
the bulk of the workforce comes very cheap.
Prisoners make between 30 cents and 95 cents
per hour, before deductions. Many pay 30
percent of that toward court-ordered fines
plus a 10 percent administrative fee. An
average day's work usually nets less than
the cost of a pack of cigarettes.
Despite
the lack of wages, prisoners line up for
PIA assignments. In addition to the wages,
inmates may deduct one day from their sentence
for every day worked, which may help account
for their apparent enthusiasm.
A
1996 UC Berkeley study found that the PIA
helped the state economy by providing jobs
and by purchasing materials from within
the state. "They want to keep all the
money in the state," Bishop said.
Considering
the state's current economic crisis, this
seems prudent. But should students be paying
so the state can save? Candace Sagehorn,
associate budget director at CSULB says
that student fees go into the general allocation
fund. Bishop says the general fund is used
for PIA expenditures. Therefore, students
are paying a premium for classroom, office
and dorm furniture that the university could
acquire much cheaper, if not for the mandate.
This is happening simultaneously with a
plan to decrease student services and increase
all student fees.
Losco
makes a good argument that the PIA keeps
inmates busy and gives them viable skills
they can use upon release from prison. But
the contract between the organization and
the state university system could be holding
the students' money prisoner and punishing
the very people the state depends on for
its future.
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