A program called the Federal Prison Industries is being called the “best kept secret in outsourcing” after it was revealed that last year nearly $750 million was raised for the government by prisoners who they use to provide labor for as low as 50 cents an hour for state and private businesses. From the news report:
The Justice Department and the U.S. Bureau of Prisons don’t break down which companies they do business with. But Unicor said inmates provide private call center service, including data review and sales lead generation, for “some of the top companies in America” under a federal mandate to help companies repatriate jobs they have outsourced overseas.
In a fact sheet, Unicor asserts that prisoners in the program are less likely to re-offend and are better trained for full-time work upon release. All revenue goes back into the program, which “operates at no cost to the taxpayer,” it says.
So next time you get connected to a call center you may be speaking to a prisoner. Is this a good thing?
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consider most of my family is in jail…yeah #sadonmeiknow
damn ma :\
They should pay the inmates more but I think it’s a good idea. Since they cannot get degrees and such while being imprisoned, they could at least get some experience working in a “call center”. It’s hard for them when they get out so anything positive is good…
i would hope its nothing where credit card numbers or payments would be taken….i shudder to think…and we don’t know which companies are doing this….
damn kris.
niggas can’t get a second chance with you, hunh?
Hmmmm.. sounds like modern day slavery to me. They should pay the inmates more or use that money generated for inmate rehabilitation programs or for inmates who participate, make college courses available to them. If not they are just making money for their plantation masters/jail corporation owners.
your taxes pay for their food and housing, so thats why its cheap. Its slave labour too. Basically the man is just fucking all of you over twice. whilst the rich get richer.
No wonder you guys have the 3 strikes and your out rule. America was built on slavery, and it has to find another way of doing it.
This is a serious issue guys.
-Over populating prisons by charging ppl for pettie crimes.
-Using them as slave labor for PENNIES an hour and making prison owners BILLIONS of dollars in profit.
-Legit business’ cannot compete with the cheep labor and go out of business so honest people are loosing Millions of jobs!
did you read what’s up there?
this is a federal program to repatriate jobs that were previously outsourced overseas. so these jobs wouldn’t have gone to the job market because our job market costs too much per worker.
IOW what you just said is bullshit. This program brings jobs BACK to the US that were previously outsourced to the developing world. Yeah the prisoners are being used as cheap labor, but it’s better than not being used as labor at all. they learn a trade at no cost to the taxpayer and get to earn a little cash.
This is is not cost Americans jobs that weren’t lost already.
the problem i see here isn’t the notion of “slave labor” – it’s the notion of security – as the smartest poster kristle above made mention of. Do these guys have access to personal and sensitive information? it sounds like they do.
the other problem is prisoner rights. what rights does a prisoner lose when he’s incarcerated. is minimum wage and other workplace rights lost – yes or no? it needs to be clear.
Furthermore…why should the federal corporation that is our government build schools when the real money maker is in the prison. And from a big business standpoint look at all the “benefits”….population control of those pesky brown and black people and less of them on the street…seems like a win/win situation for the government.
The time is now to wake up people…
Juneteenth…oh okay.
prisoners taking sensitive,personal information? I’d like a list of companies that use this form of labor; this seems like a very bad idea.Many of these ‘workers’ are natural scamsters so people should think twice before doing business with them.