BREAKING NEWS! Material (c) by Bob Sloan, 2010
June 20, 2011 - Please follow my Daily Kos blogging at: http://www.dailykos.com/blog/Bob%20Sloan/ to follow issues involving prison industries, privatization of prison facilities and legislation impacting upon both.
June 8, 2011 - The Department of Justice just released a request for applications to oversee the PIECP program! It appears they are finally trying to sever the ties with the NCIA who has been in charge of oversight of the program since 1995. As I've provided elsewhere on this site - the NCIA is made up entirely of those prison industries, their administrators and the corporations taking part in the program. Thus, the DOJ has allowed them to oversee themselves for more than 15 years now.
December 15, 2010 - The Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) announced a new policy this week in reference to the complaints PIECP Violations has made about state prison industry programs participating in PIECP not paying "prevailing wages". It is titled "Back Wage Policy for Inmate Workers Under the Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program (PIECP)" and can be found here: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/BJA/grant/PIECPBackWagePolicy.pdf at the BJA PIECP page site. I have posted it below for those who want to read it now:
March 12, 2010: Visit the following site (Alternet.org at the link below) and read for yourself the path we are all following to deliver profits to the prison industry investors and corporations. Great article that connects the dots. Posted on March 11th.
Back Wage Policy for Inmate Workers Under the Prison Industry Enhancement
Certification Program (PIECP)
Issued: December 2010
Background:
18 USC 1761 (c), the statute authorizing the Prison Industry Enhancement Certification
Program (PIECP), states that PIECP inmates must “have, in connection with PIECP
work, received wages at a rate which is not less than that paid for work of a similar nature
in the locality in which the work was performed. The Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA)
1999 PIECP Guideline gives the State wage setting agencies authority to make wage
determinations for PIECP workers that are comparable to those in effect for similarly
situated workers. When a compliance assessment reveals that the wages paid to PIECP
inmate workers are less than the wages approved by the State wage setting agency
(usually the Department of Economic Security or DES), BJA will work with the PIECP
Certificate Holder to determine the extent of the back wages and amounts due, and to
design a compliance plan to ensure the back wages are paid to the workers in question
(where possible), or to an alternate recipient when reasonable efforts have failed to yield
reliable information about the location of released former PIECP workers. Alternate
recipients might include the inmate welfare fund, the victims’ compensation fund to
which PIECP victims’ deductions are usually sent, or any other organization proposed by
the Certificate Holder and agreed upon by BJA.
Policy:
In determining appropriate back wage amounts, the Certificate Holder should calculate
the difference per hour, between the DES approved wage amount ant the actual wage
amount paid to each PIECP worker. Back wages should be calculated for every payroll
period falling within the period of non-compliance. The total amount of back wages
which must be paid equals the cumulative unpaid wages for all of the payroll periods that
fall within the non-compliance time frame.
Regardless of the Cost Accounting Center models in place within the Certificate Holder’s
work pilot project, BJA holds the Certificate Holder as the entity ultimately responsible
for complying with the PIECP wage requirements. The Certificate Holder and proposed
recipient(s) must also agree upon the amount of back wages due. The back wage amounts
must be paid within 90 days of the date when BJA approves of the Certificate Holder’s
identified back wage amounts. If the Certificate Holder continues to operate in noncompliance, after being informed of instances of non-compliance with the PIECP wage
requirements and the back wage policy, and refuses BJA proposed compliance plans,
BJA will take action to terminate the Certificate Holder’s PIECP certification.
Further Information:
For further information on this policy, contact Julius Dupree at Julius.Dupree@usdoj.gov
or 202-514-1928. Due to our complaints about PRIDE and other industries violating the wage requirement mandated by 18 USC 1761(c), the BJA agreed to perform an onsite-investigation in Florida to determine the accuracy of our allegations. We were notified just prior to the issuance of the Back Wage Policy that we would be able to request the full report via FOIA from the agency in early January 2011.
This policy shift by the BJA is the first and most important change in PIECP in years and could represent a substantial sum of back wages paid to inmates that now work or have worked in prison industries under PIECP. As the policy says, the prison industry holder of the PIECP Certificate will be responsible for all back wages and must be paid for the full period of non-compliance. Even released inmates are entitled to the payment of back wages - if located.
SO MOST IMPORTANT IF YOU WORKED IN PRISON INDUSTRY WHERE PIECP PRODUCTS WERE MADE - YOU MAY BE ENTITLED TO BACK WAGES!
At the same time, the BJA changed the responsibilities of the NCIA to exclude duties of non-compliance investigations and compliance reviews. It appears from now on the BJA is assuming those duties. We believe this is in response to our complaints that allowing the NCIA to oversee the prison industries was the "fox guarding the hen-house" as the NCIA membership is comprised of all participants in the PIECP industry program. This has allowed the prison industries to violate the PIECP mandatory requirements without discovery for years.
August 21, 2010 - Posted an opinion article on my blog @: http://sloan-wwwpiecp-violations.blogspot.com/, title "Corporations, Prisons and Politics" linking all three to the current situation involving private prisons and prison industries. Interesting and informative piece involving such corporate giants as AT&T, Koch Industries, Kraft Foods, Johnson & Johnson, American Bail Coalition, Bayer, GlazoSmithKline, Pfizer, etc., partnered with and funding 2000 conservative state lawmakers in successful efforts to create state laws benefiting the corporate partner's profits. The main players are all directly involved with the current situation involving Arizona's SB1070 ("Breathing While Brown") immigration law.
July 7, 2010 - Uploaded "Private Corporations Partnered with Prison Industries" file to the PIECP Site Files page. This document provides up to date listing of those US and Canadian Private Corporations now involved in using inmate or prison labor to manufacture, package or provide services to the public and private markets. Identifies products and gives location of the prison facility used by the corporations as well as sub-corporations used to avoid disclosing prison labor uses to the public.
June 1, 2010 - US Senator Carney called for authorities to look into the military helmets made by federal prison industry (UNICOR) inmates for the armed forces. The government recently recalled 44,000+ of these helmets due to their failing a ballistics test. The helmet contract is held by a private company ArmorSource, of Hebron, Ohio and subcontracted to UNICOR, who has first right of refusal on government contracts. UNICOR immediately waived that right and ArmorSource will manufacture those 44,000 helmets plus approximately another 200,000 that are back logged. Media articles on this issue announced that two private sector companies in Pennsylvania and Ohio expect to hire as many as 380 workers to fulfill the contracts. See: http://dailyitem.com/0100_news/x433574704/Helmet-recall-could-lead-to-Valley-jobs.
As PIECP-Violations has been saying for years, the prison industries have taken many private sector jobs from hard working Americans. The loss of this single contract of military helmets is a perfect example of the kinds and numbers of jobs lost and the impact on private sector manufacturing by prison labor. Currently there are hundreds of corporations partnered with prison industry to use inmate labor and save on wages and benefits. These corporations and companies that have moved operations behind prison walls and fences hold thousands of government and private sector contracts for manufacture or services.
It is imperative that we make every effort to remove prison labor from manufacturing of products sold and distributed to consumers and other businesses nationwide. President Obama's administration is looking frantically for a way to increase jobs for the working folks who are languishing on unemployment. A big reason for the increased unemployment is jobs lost to prison industries. If these jobs can be taken back by the private sector, hundreds an possibly thousands of unemployed Americans will be able to return to the work place and earn a living once again.
A step toward accomplishing the return of jobs to private sector is to enforce the existing federal regulations that allow private manufacturers to partner with prison industrys. The laws are being ignored by participating industries and their partners as well as the Bureau of Justice Assistance who has ultimate oversight over the PIECP program (18 USC 1761[C]). Until and unless we citizens raise our voices to the Department of Justice and the White House, the status quo will remain and jobs will continue to disappear behind prison fences.
IF PIECP laws are followed and enforced big corporations such as Microsoft, Starbucks, Victoria's Secret and others will make the same decision that Dell Computers made: to stop using prison labor. Right now with PIECP guidelines being ignored, it is financially advantageous to these manufacturers to use PIECP and prisoner labor. If participants had to pay prevailing wages - as required but unenforced - pay unemployment and workers compensation premiums - as required and unenforced - and pay prisoners for their labor on products sold inside state lines, these prison industry partnerships would cease. The result would be an immediate hiring campaign in the private sector to replace prison labor now being used to manufacture.
The purpose of PIECP is to train prisoners in job skills, technology and knowledge that will make them better able to become employed upon release. This is the mission goal of the program but it has been ignored for two decades in favor of profits. The Bureau of Justice Assistance continues to turn a blind eye when enforcement is required. Lobbyists and those with precise corporate interests fork over money to ensure that oversight remains blind to their manipulations and the profits continue to roll into corporate coffers while private sector jobs continue to dwindle.
You can help. Email your support for enforcement of PIECP to Julius C. Dupree, Jr. Policy Advisor, at: julius.dupree@usdoj.gov or write or phone/fax Mr. Dupree at: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance, 810 7th Street, NW, Washington, DC- 20531. Phone: 202/514-1928 (ph) 202/307-0036 (fax). Lend your voices to ours and let's make a real change in our employment situation and return citizens to working for a proper wage.
_________________________________________
The following excerpt is from an article by Peter Gorman reprinted from the Mar. 10, 2010 Ft. Worth Weekly. This article is important to prison industries as CCA and GEO Group's prisons typically have one or more prison industry operations at their facilities. Prisoners who work in those industry facilities are subjected to less pay and worse conditions than allowed under the Federal PIECP program Guidelines. As you read this, keep in mind that it is our - yours and mine - tax dollars supporting this outfit and thus the prison industries they operate.
"Private Prisons, Public Pain "
Despite a long record of abuses, GEO is still running Texas prisons.
The town was home to the world’s first rodeo, the Pecos Kid, and the legendary Judge Roy Bean. Just around the block from the sheriff’s office is a replica of Bean’s office and his single-cell jail.
Wednesday, U.S. Reps. Pete Hoekstra and Dave Camp put out a press release:
The president recently held a “Jobs Summit” at the White House. Topping the agenda was the creation of “green jobs.” With the unemployment rate in Michigan hovering above 15 percent and the nation at 10 percent, a great deal of hope is being thrust upon the renewable energy industry and the promise of “green jobs.”
It appears, however, the administration is content with having those jobs performed by prisoners as opposed to law-abiding citizens.
November 14, 2009 - Research and investigation leads me to believe that in the coming few months, there will be a push by a Conservative group (ALEC) out of the D.C. area that will be pushing an agenda of locking up "Illegal Aliens" for profit. It seems that the war on drugs, crime and incarceration in general has been falling off for a number of years now, and the private prison operators are getting nervous as more and more beds are emptied from their profitable facilities.
I have little concrete evidence of this agenda of locking up immigrants, but from articles read and the prospectus' provided by a couple of private prison companies, it appears they are headed in this direction. When I brought this up to others, I was told about ALEC and if such a legislative agenda was planned regarding private prison beds, it had to involve ALEC and some of their corporate members, Geo Group and Corrections Corporation of America. I got my hints from reading the projections for 2010-2011 from the documents they submitted to the S.E.C.
Since both of these companies are already deeply involved in private prison and prison industry operations - I wouldn't put it past both to try and capitalize off immigrants coming here looking for work.
June 20, 2011 - Please follow my Daily Kos blogging at: http://www.dailykos.com/blog/Bob%20Sloan/ to follow issues involving prison industries, privatization of prison facilities and legislation impacting upon both.
June 8, 2011 - The Department of Justice just released a request for applications to oversee the PIECP program! It appears they are finally trying to sever the ties with the NCIA who has been in charge of oversight of the program since 1995. As I've provided elsewhere on this site - the NCIA is made up entirely of those prison industries, their administrators and the corporations taking part in the program. Thus, the DOJ has allowed them to oversee themselves for more than 15 years now.
December 15, 2010 - The Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) announced a new policy this week in reference to the complaints PIECP Violations has made about state prison industry programs participating in PIECP not paying "prevailing wages". It is titled "Back Wage Policy for Inmate Workers Under the Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program (PIECP)" and can be found here: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/BJA/grant/PIECPBackWagePolicy.pdf at the BJA PIECP page site. I have posted it below for those who want to read it now:
March 12, 2010: Visit the following site (Alternet.org at the link below) and read for yourself the path we are all following to deliver profits to the prison industry investors and corporations. Great article that connects the dots. Posted on March 11th.
Back Wage Policy for Inmate Workers Under the Prison Industry Enhancement
Certification Program (PIECP)
Issued: December 2010
Background:
18 USC 1761 (c), the statute authorizing the Prison Industry Enhancement Certification
Program (PIECP), states that PIECP inmates must “have, in connection with PIECP
work, received wages at a rate which is not less than that paid for work of a similar nature
in the locality in which the work was performed. The Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA)
1999 PIECP Guideline gives the State wage setting agencies authority to make wage
determinations for PIECP workers that are comparable to those in effect for similarly
situated workers. When a compliance assessment reveals that the wages paid to PIECP
inmate workers are less than the wages approved by the State wage setting agency
(usually the Department of Economic Security or DES), BJA will work with the PIECP
Certificate Holder to determine the extent of the back wages and amounts due, and to
design a compliance plan to ensure the back wages are paid to the workers in question
(where possible), or to an alternate recipient when reasonable efforts have failed to yield
reliable information about the location of released former PIECP workers. Alternate
recipients might include the inmate welfare fund, the victims’ compensation fund to
which PIECP victims’ deductions are usually sent, or any other organization proposed by
the Certificate Holder and agreed upon by BJA.
Policy:
In determining appropriate back wage amounts, the Certificate Holder should calculate
the difference per hour, between the DES approved wage amount ant the actual wage
amount paid to each PIECP worker. Back wages should be calculated for every payroll
period falling within the period of non-compliance. The total amount of back wages
which must be paid equals the cumulative unpaid wages for all of the payroll periods that
fall within the non-compliance time frame.
Regardless of the Cost Accounting Center models in place within the Certificate Holder’s
work pilot project, BJA holds the Certificate Holder as the entity ultimately responsible
for complying with the PIECP wage requirements. The Certificate Holder and proposed
recipient(s) must also agree upon the amount of back wages due. The back wage amounts
must be paid within 90 days of the date when BJA approves of the Certificate Holder’s
identified back wage amounts. If the Certificate Holder continues to operate in noncompliance, after being informed of instances of non-compliance with the PIECP wage
requirements and the back wage policy, and refuses BJA proposed compliance plans,
BJA will take action to terminate the Certificate Holder’s PIECP certification.
Further Information:
For further information on this policy, contact Julius Dupree at Julius.Dupree@usdoj.gov
or 202-514-1928.Due to our complaints about PRIDE and other industries violating the wage requirement mandated by 18 USC 1761(c), the BJA agreed to perform an onsite-investigation in Florida to determine the accuracy of our allegations. We were notified just prior to the issuance of the Back Wage Policy that we would be able to request the full report via FOIA from the agency in early January 2011.
This policy shift by the BJA is the first and most important change in PIECP in years and could represent a substantial sum of back wages paid to inmates that now work or have worked in prison industries under PIECP. As the policy says, the prison industry holder of the PIECP Certificate will be responsible for all back wages and must be paid for the full period of non-compliance. Even released inmates are entitled to the payment of back wages - if located.
SO MOST IMPORTANT IF YOU WORKED IN PRISON INDUSTRY WHERE PIECP PRODUCTS WERE MADE - YOU MAY BE ENTITLED TO BACK WAGES!
At the same time, the BJA changed the responsibilities of the NCIA to exclude duties of non-compliance investigations and compliance reviews. It appears from now on the BJA is assuming those duties. We believe this is in response to our complaints that allowing the NCIA to oversee the prison industries was the "fox guarding the hen-house" as the NCIA membership is comprised of all participants in the PIECP industry program. This has allowed the prison industries to violate the PIECP mandatory requirements without discovery for years.
August 21, 2010 - Posted an opinion article on my blog @: http://sloan-wwwpiecp-violations.blogspot.com/, title "Corporations, Prisons and Politics" linking all three to the current situation involving private prisons and prison industries. Interesting and informative piece involving such corporate giants as AT&T, Koch Industries, Kraft Foods, Johnson & Johnson, American Bail Coalition, Bayer, GlazoSmithKline, Pfizer, etc., partnered with and funding 2000 conservative state lawmakers in successful efforts to create state laws benefiting the corporate partner's profits. The main players are all directly involved with the current situation involving Arizona's SB1070 ("Breathing While Brown") immigration law.
July 7, 2010 - Uploaded "Private Corporations Partnered with Prison Industries" file to the PIECP Site Files page. This document provides up to date listing of those US and Canadian Private Corporations now involved in using inmate or prison labor to manufacture, package or provide services to the public and private markets. Identifies products and gives location of the prison facility used by the corporations as well as sub-corporations used to avoid disclosing prison labor uses to the public.
June 1, 2010 - US Senator Carney called for authorities to look into the military helmets made by federal prison industry (UNICOR) inmates for the armed forces. The government recently recalled 44,000+ of these helmets due to their failing a ballistics test. The helmet contract is held by a private company ArmorSource, of Hebron, Ohio and subcontracted to UNICOR, who has first right of refusal on government contracts. UNICOR immediately waived that right and ArmorSource will manufacture those 44,000 helmets plus approximately another 200,000 that are back logged. Media articles on this issue announced that two private sector companies in Pennsylvania and Ohio expect to hire as many as 380 workers to fulfill the contracts. See: http://dailyitem.com/0100_news/x433574704/Helmet-recall-could-lead-to-Valley-jobs.
As PIECP-Violations has been saying for years, the prison industries have taken many private sector jobs from hard working Americans. The loss of this single contract of military helmets is a perfect example of the kinds and numbers of jobs lost and the impact on private sector manufacturing by prison labor. Currently there are hundreds of corporations partnered with prison industry to use inmate labor and save on wages and benefits. These corporations and companies that have moved operations behind prison walls and fences hold thousands of government and private sector contracts for manufacture or services.
It is imperative that we make every effort to remove prison labor from manufacturing of products sold and distributed to consumers and other businesses nationwide. President Obama's administration is looking frantically for a way to increase jobs for the working folks who are languishing on unemployment. A big reason for the increased unemployment is jobs lost to prison industries. If these jobs can be taken back by the private sector, hundreds an possibly thousands of unemployed Americans will be able to return to the work place and earn a living once again.
A step toward accomplishing the return of jobs to private sector is to enforce the existing federal regulations that allow private manufacturers to partner with prison industrys. The laws are being ignored by participating industries and their partners as well as the Bureau of Justice Assistance who has ultimate oversight over the PIECP program (18 USC 1761[C]). Until and unless we citizens raise our voices to the Department of Justice and the White House, the status quo will remain and jobs will continue to disappear behind prison fences.
IF PIECP laws are followed and enforced big corporations such as Microsoft, Starbucks, Victoria's Secret and others will make the same decision that Dell Computers made: to stop using prison labor. Right now with PIECP guidelines being ignored, it is financially advantageous to these manufacturers to use PIECP and prisoner labor. If participants had to pay prevailing wages - as required but unenforced - pay unemployment and workers compensation premiums - as required and unenforced - and pay prisoners for their labor on products sold inside state lines, these prison industry partnerships would cease. The result would be an immediate hiring campaign in the private sector to replace prison labor now being used to manufacture.
The purpose of PIECP is to train prisoners in job skills, technology and knowledge that will make them better able to become employed upon release. This is the mission goal of the program but it has been ignored for two decades in favor of profits. The Bureau of Justice Assistance continues to turn a blind eye when enforcement is required. Lobbyists and those with precise corporate interests fork over money to ensure that oversight remains blind to their manipulations and the profits continue to roll into corporate coffers while private sector jobs continue to dwindle.
You can help. Email your support for enforcement of PIECP to Julius C. Dupree, Jr. Policy Advisor, at: julius.dupree@usdoj.gov or write or phone/fax Mr. Dupree at: U.S. Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Assistance, 810 7th Street, NW, Washington, DC- 20531. Phone: 202/514-1928 (ph) 202/307-0036 (fax). Lend your voices to ours and let's make a real change in our employment situation and return citizens to working for a proper wage.
_________________________________________
The following excerpt is from an article by Peter Gorman reprinted from the Mar. 10, 2010 Ft. Worth Weekly. This article is important to prison industries as CCA and GEO Group's prisons typically have one or more prison industry operations at their facilities. Prisoners who work in those industry facilities are subjected to less pay and worse conditions than allowed under the Federal PIECP program Guidelines. As you read this, keep in mind that it is our - yours and mine - tax dollars supporting this outfit and thus the prison industries they operate.
"Private Prisons, Public Pain "
Despite a long record of abuses, GEO is still running Texas prisons.
The town was home to the world’s first rodeo, the Pecos Kid, and the legendary Judge Roy Bean. Just around the block from the sheriff’s office is a replica of Bean’s office and his single-cell jail.
Wednesday, U.S. Reps. Pete Hoekstra and Dave Camp put out a press release:
The president recently held a “Jobs Summit” at the White House. Topping the agenda was the creation of “green jobs.” With the unemployment rate in Michigan hovering above 15 percent and the nation at 10 percent, a great deal of hope is being thrust upon the renewable energy industry and the promise of “green jobs.”
It appears, however, the administration is content with having those jobs performed by prisoners as opposed to law-abiding citizens.
November 14, 2009 - Research and investigation leads me to believe that in the coming few months, there will be a push by a Conservative group (ALEC) out of the D.C. area that will be pushing an agenda of locking up "Illegal Aliens" for profit. It seems that the war on drugs, crime and incarceration in general has been falling off for a number of years now, and the private prison operators are getting nervous as more and more beds are emptied from their profitable facilities.
I have little concrete evidence of this agenda of locking up immigrants, but from articles read and the prospectus' provided by a couple of private prison companies, it appears they are headed in this direction. When I brought this up to others, I was told about ALEC and if such a legislative agenda was planned regarding private prison beds, it had to involve ALEC and some of their corporate members, Geo Group and Corrections Corporation of America. I got my hints from reading the projections for 2010-2011 from the documents they submitted to the S.E.C.
Since both of these companies are already deeply involved in private prison and prison industry operations - I wouldn't put it past both to try and capitalize off immigrants coming here looking for work.