Federal law prohibits inmate products from being sold and shipped across state lines. The company had its parent company, Leggett and Platt in Shelby County, buy the sign from the correctional industries plant at Northpoint Training Center near Burgin and send it to Indiana. For their work, inmates are paid between 25 and 90 cents an hour. The monthly pay is credited to the inmates' accounts, and they can save it, send it home or use it to buy items from prison commissaries. Inmates must apply for the jobs, and employment is dependent on their conduct in prison.
Work usually runs about six hours a day, five days a week.
Grissom said the program teaches inmates a marketable skill and instills discipline in them. Jerry Vance, who runs the program at Lexington's Blackburn Correctional Complex, said private employers often hire inmates who have learned skills. Grissom noted that about 33 percent of all inmates return to prison after release. The recidivism rate for inmates in correctional industries is 15 percent, he said. E-mail this story to a friend.