Prison Labor: A Report from Iowa

by D.A. Sheldon, Free Press contributor

Currently there are 175 prisoners working for private business here in Iowa and the number is expected to grow to 400 in the next year. One company request to gain access to cheap prison labor is Boomsma's Inc., a major egg supplier that wants to hire 50 in Rockwell City to process and package eggs for grocery stores.

The deputy director of corrections heading the Iowa prison industries advisory board boasted that Iowa wll become one of the nations' leaders in private employment of prisoners. The department of punishment is already employing prisoners at making packaged sandwiches for convenience stores, welding, light assembly, woodworking, sewing, graphic design, and telemarketing.

The wages these companies claim to pay prisoners varies from the Iowa minimum wage of $5.25 an hour to $12 an hour, but after deductions are made, including deductions for taxes, prison room-and-board, and prison work programs, prisoners usually only receive 25 to 50 cents an hour. This is about the same amount paid to prisoners working for state industries producing products like license plates and office furniture for state agencies, or to prisoners doing janitorial or food preparation work in the institutions in which they reside.

The little pay received by prisoners is still not enough to afford the basic necessities of life, including hygiene products, and writing and postage supplies. One reason such items are hard to purchase is that each facility has strict limits on where you can buy items from. Usually prisoners must buy from the institutional canteen, which sells products about 20 percent above the price you could buy them outside prison. These canteens are usually owned and operated by a private contractor.

While slave employment has increased, access to educational programs has declined, especially after the federal Pell grant program was modified in 1994 specifically eliminating federal funds for prisoners wanting a college education. With the money dried up, local community colleges which had a contract to provide college level courses to prisoners stopped any further classes, and now the only subjects taught are at highschool level, with old text books and a few on-loan teaching assistants in each facility.

*To add to the madness, all Iowa prison systems are connected to a fiberoptic network that stretches into all Iowa public schools, colleges, and universities. This real-time, two-way, digital video conference network is the most comprehensive in the nation and was designed to provide educational opportunities, but instead it is now being used in the prison system for parole hearings and other bureaucratic business. A sham to say the least.

D.A. Sheldon is a prisoner at Clarinda Correctional Facility in Iowa. He is the author of the book Voices from Within the Prison Walls published by News and Letters. To order a copy send $6 to News and Letters, 59 E. Van Buren Street, Room 707, Chicago IL 60605.