Oregon inmates produce electronic menu boards for McDonalds. In New Mexico, inmates take hotel reservations by telephone. Business hot shots and politicians argue that this import of Third World conditions is justified because, after all, we need the jobs. The San Francisco-based computer firm DPAS closed its data retrieval operation in Mexico in 1994, and transferred the work to inmates of San Quentin prison. We have a captive labor force, a group of men who are dedicated.
Prison labor is the ultimate reliable workforce.
Not surprisingly, the Gadsden operation has provoked complaints from the Union of Needletrades, Industrial and Textile Employees, which is worried about the loss of union jobs. We're getting work done here that before was going offshore. Some 1.1 million Americans are in prison today, compared with 316,000 in 1980. Nearly 3 out of every 100 American adults are in prison or on parole or probation. Western Penitentiary, scene of the January jailbreak, is already at 162 percent of capacity.