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Rehabilitate prisoners? Actually, Arizona’s prison labor program is more like slavery

Televerde, an integrated sales and marketing technology organization, pays prisoners the state minimum wage. But after deductions, prisoners earn much less.
© Illustration: Merry Eccles, USA TODAY Network; Photo: Arizona Correctional Industries Televerde, an integrated sales and marketing technology organization, pays prisoners the state minimum wage. But after deductions, prisoners earn much less.

Leasing human beings to profiteers is morally wrong.

It's no less so when the leasing is done by government and the human beings are prisoners.

In fact, it is akin to slave labor.

It raises serious questions about our public institutions and the people we entrust to guide them.

That's the central takeaway from a joint investigative series The Arizona Republic and KJZZ conducted over 15 months. What reporters found is a Department of Corrections work program that exploits prisoners to the benefit of private companies and municipalities alike.

Arizona has a sizable, captive workforce

It does so on the guise of prisoner rehabilitation and job training, though, as the series revealed, there is no evidence to support the former and scant demonstration of the latter.

Yet the program has expanded over the past decade and its ties to its beneficiaries have so deepened that Arizona's top corrections official testified to lawmakers that some communities would “collapse” if the cheap labor were to go away.

In other words, the program works for the profiteers and the government that facilitates the captive work force. For the men and women carrying out the work, the benefits are far more dubious.

Who benefits? Database shows who uses prisoners' work

Arizona houses more than 37,000 prisoners at taxpayer expense, to the tune of $1.4 billion this fiscal year. That puts us among the states with the largest prison populations per capita.

From this revolving population, prisoners are surveyed on their interest to work. A number of them are given assignments within the prison, making 10 to 35 cents an hour to perform such jobs as cooking, laundry and cleaning bathrooms.

Prison officials see this as a way for prisoners to earn money to buy basic hygiene items or snacks, and to pay for their incarceration.

ACI pockets most of prisoners' wages

About 1,000 prisoners are sent out by the Department of Corrections to work for state agencies and municipalities, and earn 50 cents to $1.50 per hour for their labor. Roughly 2,000 prisoners are selected for more elite work for the state-run agency Arizona Correctional Industries. ACI in turn leases them out to some 20 to 30 private companies.

It's a big win for all parties – except the captive workforce. Companies get a consistent supply of cheap labor and avoid having to pay benefits, insurance and taxes. Municipalities can maintain and clean government grounds and divert their savings to other services. Arizona Correctional Industries registers millions in revenues.

Most prisoners, according to the investigative series, get assigned tedious, repetitive and occasionally dangerous work. Reporters found dozens of prisoners who suffered injuries on the job, for which they get no workers' compensation. The numbers are believed to be higher, but because prison officials refuse to disclose medical grievances on the grounds of privacy rights, there's no way to know.

Complaints about work conditions, many prisoners told reporters, are futile.

Even those who get plum jobs of up to $12 an hour see most of their wages taken away for incarceration costs and fees. The lucky ones who save and keep at it for years leave prison with several thousand dollars for a fresh start.

To be clear, the work for ACI is technically voluntary, and the population in question has been tried and convicted for its crimes. Hardliners see no reason for pity: If they do the crime, they should do the time.

Arizona's work program falls short of its mission

The problem goes beyond that simple argument, however.

Reasonable people would agree that the price criminals must pay is forfeiting their freedom, not being pressed into indentured servitude. And, certainly, not forfeiting their dignity.

Prisoners, in essence, can choose to work for next-to-nothing in potentially bad conditions, get stuck in worse jobs inside prison walls or even be punished if they refuse.

Some choices.

Prisons are able to do this because of the 13th Amendment, which prohibits slavery and involuntary servitude but allows states to force prisoners to work without having to pay them a cent. Eight states, including neighboring Texas, force labor.

That Arizona pays prisoners does not vindicate the practice.

The work program as designed and carried out by Arizona Correctional Industries falls far short of its stated mission.

Prisoners miss services to help them rejoin society

The investigative series debunked one of ACI's chief selling points: That it significantly reduces recidivism among those who participated.

Republic and KJZZ reporters, stonewalled by the Corrections Department, created a computer program of their own to download information from the department's website for analysis and found that the recidivism rate was, in fact, hardly any different for prisoners in the ACI program than those who were not.

Corrections data also belie boasts of rehabilitation. Over a nearly two-year period ending in November 2019, 71% of the prison population needed substance abuse treatment, but only 17% of them could enroll in a program for it.

The reporting found near universal condemnation by prisoners against the state, claiming inadequate training and unsafe working conditions, among other things.

“It's really hard to be used and used and used,” Marlo Kobylarek, a prisoner who worked for ACI for a year, told the reporters. “And it sucks because it should be for a greater good than a greater profit. But that's all it is. It's just a profit.”

Is this really serving Arizona?

ACI is trading a captive labor market with profiteers under a system that encourages work exploitation and incarceration.

The Republic/KJZZ series should provoke deep examination by policymakers both inside the prison system and out.

Our leaders should ask themselves whether Arizonans are served when the department, of which Arizona Correctional Industries is emblematic, does little to rehabilitate or successfully prepare prisoners for reentering society. Or when its biggest stories of success are, instead, those of ACI's revenues and its clients' access to steady, cheap labor.

Is the focus and its results worthy of an institution that in recent years rebranded itself as Arizona's Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry?

Forced labor, legal or not, is wrong. No human being should be forced into de facto slavery – not in the 21st century, not in Arizona and not anywhere.

This is an opinion of The Arizona Republic's editorial board

This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Rehabilitate prisoners? Actually, Arizona's prison labor program is more like slavery

 

This “Eyes on Trafficking” story is reprinted from its original location.

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PBJ Learning is a leading provider of online human trafficking training, focusing on and prevention education. Their interactive Human Trafficking Essentials is used worldwide to educate professionals and individuals how to recognize human trafficking and how to respond to potential victims. Learn on any web browser (even your mobile phone) at any time.

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EYES ON TRAFFICKING

This “Eyes on Trafficking” story is reprinted from its original online location.

ABOUT PBJ LEARNING

PBJ Learning is a leading provider of online human trafficking training, focusing on awareness and prevention education. Their interactive Human Trafficking Essentials online course is used worldwide to educate professionals and individuals how to recognize human trafficking and how to respond to potential victims. Learn on any web browser (even your mobile phone) at any time.

More stories like this can be found in your PBJ Learning Knowledge Vault.