Chaucer’s quote “Idle hands are the devil’s workshop” still rings true. Congress had an opportunity earlier today to weigh in on this old adage with floor consideration of the Federal Prison Industries Competition in Contracting Act (HR 2965). Prison labor has a long and storied history in America. Alexis de Toqueville came to America not to learn of democracy, but to study our prison system… and was imminently impressed with what he saw.
That system now operates as Federal Prison Industries (FPI) and under the UNICOR moniker. In fact, FPI was specifically created – in response to labor union criticisms - in the 1930s to streamline the prison workforce, provide training and rehabilitation of inmates, and ensure product diversity so that “no individual industry would be substantially affected.”
Conservatives are divided on the role and effectiveness of FPI. Generally, those wary of FPI’s mandatory source contracting ability with the federal government agencies will be pleased with this bill. However, those that feel FPI serves a useful purpose – namely keeping federal prison inmates busy and productive, teaching them a trade, and providing specific products to federal agencies at a low cost – may view the bill’s language as somewhat problematic.
Here’s a few key provisions in the bill, which FPI proponents may be concerned about:
- Sets caps on FPI’s gross sales to the government using sole source contracting (and lowers that cap each year). Thus, this provision initiates phasing out sole source contracting to federal agencies, which will likely decrease inmate participation rates in FPI and potentially increase federal agency procurement costs.
- Dramatically increases inmate hourly wages by mandating a 55 percent increase over current top wages by 2008, and a 78 percent increase over current top wages by 2013, which – with significant labor cost increases - may effectively kill the FPI program. It is interesting that, just weeks after a Republican Congress vote on raising the federal minimum wage, they may create a new federal mandated minimum “living” wage for imprisoned criminals.
- Creates new federal programs, and authorizes in excess of $400 million over the next five years to implement them (in contrast, FPI receives no annual authorization or appropriations). Thus, the bill authors recognized the fact that due to this bill many inmates will no longer be working and productive, so the bill provides millions of federal dollars and creates at least two new programs to keep them busy.
Conservatives historically support unfettered access to the free market, and work to reduce government barriers to commerce and competition. For some, however, FPI and free-market principles are not mutually exclusive. The reality of the matter is this: FPI creates a unique situation of the government selling to the government, on preferred terms, to the advantage of the prisons, prisoners, the government, and the taxpayer (lower costs for goods and services). Congress can choose to either require tens of thousands of federal inmates to be productive, creating products for the federal government at low costs, or they can further limit FPI’s ability to produce and sell products by limiting sole source and significantly raising labor costs – thereby potentially creating opportunities for the private sector to sell to the government.
Given today’s overwhelming vote in favor of “FPI reform,” these issues are now passed along to our colleagues in the Senate to hash out.
Posted in Government Oversight |
0 Comments | Permalink
