Over the last thirty years, the state of Colorado has made an industry out of inmate labour. Its subsidiary, Colorado Correctional Industries, announced profits of $16.5 million for 2006. French inmates work on contracts that put short-term contracts on the outside in the shade.

France

Like the Colorado prisoners shown in Prison Valley, inmates in French prisons can be given tasks related to the general running of the facility they are imprisoned in under what are called central services. Or asked to work for private companies operating inside the prison. French labour laws do not apply here. No minimum wage, no sick pay, no protection against unfair dismissal. And so on. The only applicable laws are those to do with health and safety. In their book Le travail en prison (Prison Labour) [Éditions Autrement, January 2010], Gonzague Rambaud and Nathalie Rohmer ask: Where else can staff be legally paid 3 euros per hour? In Romania? In China? There’s no need to outsource. All you need to do is look for prison workshops where inmates work for subcontractors of large French companies (L’Oréal, Bouygues, EADS, Yves Rocher, BIC, etc.) (…) Given the tasks they perform (packing sweets, grading onions, putting straw bottoms in chairs, bottling perfumes, sewing, etc.), it is legitimate to question the benefits of prison work for rehabilitating prisoners into the job market afterwards. The two journalists also point to an advertising spot aimed at local businesses vaunting the merits of a prison in eastern France: Labour paid by output, 12 months a year, no absenteeism, no industrial disputes…

United States

In Colorado, inmate labour is organized by a state enterprise called Colorado Correctional Industries (CCI), which is a fully owned subsidiary of the Department of Corrections. It is a good example of the wider industry.

There were two reasons the prison authorities created CCI in 1977. First of all, they wanted to make a profit, but above all they wanted to keep costs down, especially catering and laundry (sheets, uniforms, etc.).

The first factory in the strict sense of the term was built in 1980. And Colorado Correctional Industries made the most of this opportunity to launch their own brand – Juniper Valley Products. CCI’s business benefits from some protection as state institutions have to give them preferential treatment when ordering. State agencies, local councils, counties and associations are among its clients. Since then CCI has also signed many deals with the private sector.

This rationalisation of inmate labour is in fact part of a long local tradition. Cañon City’s first prison opened a shoemaking workshop in June 1874, adding sewing and the license plates seen in our film ‘Prison Valley’ later on. It took until 1990 for CCI’s factories to be recognised as complying with the Prison Industries Enhancement Certification Program introduced by the US Congress in 1979. A presentation leaflet for the Colorado Correctional Industries from 2001 explains their role: training, supervision and tests designed to support prisoners’ good behaviour. The guiding principle is to teach inmates a trade and above all a sense of a job well done for when they leave prison.

Today, depending on the year and the source, between 1,200 and 1,500 prisoners work in CCI factories in 16 penitentiaries dotted around Colorado. That’s between 10 and 12% of the state’s entire prison population. CCI had turnover of $12 million in 1990. It has skyrocketed since then. The most recent known figure was $39 million in 2001. CCI announced a net profit of $16.5 million for 2006 and the institution states that inmate labour saves six million dollars per year (in operating costs) for Colorado taxpayers.

CCI’s main areas of business are:

• Manufacturing: air filters, flags, license plates, mattresses, leather and metal goods, office furniture, plastic bags, armchairs, cells, signposts, etc.
• Services: catering in canteens, construction and maintenance services, prison maintenance, highway sweeping, printing, recycling, web design, transport, etc.
• Agriculture: farm produce, fish faming, honey, flowers, vineyards, breaking in wild horses, dog training, etc.

Some of the dogs trained by the county’s prisoners have been taken on by… the New York Police Department for the war on drugs. As for the Wild Mustangs (a herd of 2,200 horses), they are caught by helicopter on the plains of Colorado, Arizona, New Mexico, California and Nevada. They are then broken in by prisoners and 75% of them end up being used by US police patrolling the US-Mexican border.

Coloardo Correctional Industries have their headquarters in Colorado Springs (Colorado). Their showroom, with a display of the latest prison-made products, is in Denver.

Now for the prisoners’ side of the story. The ones we met in the license plate workshop located in the oldest prison in Cañon City told us they earned 50 dollars a month, potentially double that with bonuses. In the basement of this workshop, physically and mentally handicapped prisoners produce plates, which they slide into individual envelopes. The factory churns out two million license plates per year.

On the other side of town, the Fremont Correctional Facility isn’t just the largest prison in the state of Colorado in terms of the number of prisoners (1,661); it’s also the biggest supplier of prison labour. 507 work there on a regular basis, mainly in the carpentry workshop. Some of them earn up to $80 dollars a month including bonuses. All have received training and all of them are volunteers. The most prized positions are breaking in the horses because it’s in the open air. And because it’s one of the best paid jobs – 2 dollars a day for a part-time job. At the moment, 55 prisoners work on the huge ranch below the East Cañon City Complex. All of them have been convicted of minor theft or small-time drug dealing and sentenced to between 6 months and 2 years. Their coach, who’s employed by the Bureau of Land Management, told us: You teach the prisoners to be patient. We teach them the basic skills of a trade, of work. If they don’t get their head down, they’re out. Just like in the outside world. If they pull on the horse too hard, it gets excited. Just like in real life. If you take it cool, you’ll be OK, otherwise… The horses teach them that.

According to various different people, there’s a long waiting list to work for Colorado Correctional Industries. The slightest prank, the smallest misdemeanour and you drop to the bottom of the list.

Sources

• We build opportunity leaflet — Colorado Correctional industries, 2002
• A history of the Colorado DOC by Terry Schwartz, Ph.D, published by Juniper Vanney Printing Services — Colorado Correctional industries, 2001
• DOC inmate labor crews to return to Fremont County — Cañon City Daily Record, 2007
• Hard Labor Behind Bars — Cañon City Daily Record, 2007
• Building a Prison Economy in Rural America, Tracy Huling, extract from Invisible Punishment: The Collateral Consequences of Mass Imprisonment — The New Press, 2002
• Big Bucks from the Big House: the prison industrial complex and beyond, Christian Parent, extract from the book Lockdown America, Police and Prisons in the Age of Crisis — Verso Books, 1999
• Le Travail en prison, Gonzague Rambaud et Nathalie Rohmer — Éditions Autrement, janvier 2010

Find all the statistics about prisons and comparative statistics for the United States, France and Europe in the film Prison Valley.