The state prison system is CALPIA’s biggest customer, accounting for about two-thirds of sales. flags, license plates and packaged snickerdoodles to furniture found in the offices of nearly every state agency.įabric is CALPIA’s biggest moneymaker in manufacturing, bringing in $23.7 million in revenues in 2019, with furniture not far behind at $16.9 million, according to a recent audit. Through CALPIA, prison labor makes everything from U.S. The California Prison Industry Authority, a state agency known as CALPIA, oversees roughly 7,000 incarcerated workers statewide. David Burke, an inmate at Avenal State Prison “Why is money more important than human lives? Inmates are just a business.” “This should appall everyone who wants to live in a civilized society.” “It is a bureaucratic decision to keep people working for pennies an hour during a pandemic,” said Kate Chatfield, director of policy at the Justice Collaborative, a national organization that advocates for criminal justice reform. But legal scholars and civil rights advocates have long criticized prison labor as exploitative and part of the historical legacy of slavery - a deep injustice, they say, only magnified by COVID-19. Supporters of prison labor say the practice helps defray costs of incarceration, provides job skills and reduces recidivism rates. The statement said the agency has taken “extraordinary measures to address COVID-19” in prisons, such as providing staff and inmates with protective equipment.īut interviews with incarcerated workers paint a disturbing picture of prison labor during the pandemic: meager wages, questionable infection control and the threat of more time in prison looming over their heads. Kane said the agency reduced inmate staffing at factories, imposed social distancing and decided when to close or reopen operations in consultation with the corrections department and the court-appointed federal receiver overseeing healthcare inside California’s prisons.ĭana Simas, a spokeswoman for the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said in a statement that the agency follows isolation and quarantine protocols approved by the federal receiver. The agency acknowledged that goods like furniture were made “when deemed safe” but declined to say what other factories remained open. Michele Kane, a spokeswoman for the California Prison Industry Authority, which oversees the factories, said in a statement that “essential critical enterprises,” such as food, laundry and the manufacture of masks and hand sanitizer, have continued operating during the pandemic. The Times sent detailed questions and requested interviews with the heads of state agencies responsible for prison conditions, but officials responded through representatives. “The more you give them, the more they want.” It was “like a slave factory,” Hall said. Seven days a week, the women cranked out masks until their bodies ached, and all they could do at night was collapse asleep in their cells. Some said they were threatened with discipline that could jeopardize their chances for release from prison if they refused to work because of COVID-19 fears.Īt the Chino prison, workers said, supervisors kept raising the daily quotas, from 2,000 to 3,000 to 3,500 masks. Factory staff, they said, warned that workers would lose their jobs - their only source of income - if they missed a day.
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