Profiting from prison

Profiting from prison
Axios: Stef W. Kight and Dan Primack
June 8, 2019

A handful of American businesses have their fingers in almost every aspect of prison life, raking in billions of dollars every year for products and services — often with little oversight.
The big picture: Taxpayers, incarcerated people and their families spend around $85 billion a year on public and private correction facilities, bail and prison services, according to the Prison Policy Initiative.

• For-profit prison companies arose in response to the government's incapacity to handle the skyrocketing incarcerated population.
• Now entrenched, they've become "one more hurdle" to changing the American system of mass incarceration, Lauren-Brooke Eisen of the Brennan Center for Justice told Axios.
• These companies also have been known to cut corners — sometimes endangering people — in order to profit off of a system that disproportionately impacts the impoverished and marginalized.

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BONUS ​The prison labor you benefit from
Prison labor is behind some products and services Americans use every day — from call centers and Whole Foods goat cheese to farmer's market fruit, Stef writes.

• About 18,000 incarcerated people participate in publicly run prison programs that offer vocational training, while providing labor to private companies through Federal Prison Industries, also known as UNICOR.
• But prison reform advocates see these programs as a form of modern slavery where incarcerated people often make less than $1 per hour.

A look inside: At a local strawberry festival about 50 miles west of Washington, D.C., Virginia's Department of Corrections showcased produce grown by incarcerated people on local, government-owned farms.

• Incarcerated people are paid 45 cents an hour for the labor, and can earn various certifications such as a forklift operator license or commercial pesticide handler permit, according to the program’s director John “Kenny” Raiford.
• The vast majority of the vegetables and fruits grown go back to prison kitchens, which has helped lower food costs.
• But some asparagus and melons are sold locally.