INTRODUCTION

Good morning Chairman Bill McCollum and members of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime. I am Reggie Wilkinson, Director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction (DRC) and Immediate Past President of the American Correctional Association. I am honored to appear before you today to testify regarding the impact of House Resolution (HR) 2558 and other relevant issues on prison industries. I would especially like to thank the Correctional Industries Association for their ongoing support for the development of quality industry programs in our nation’s prisons and jails.

First, I’d like to provide the subcommittee with a thumbnail sketch of our overall approach to prisoner employment, and give the subcommittee a perspective on what we have learned from our experiences in Ohio, before delving further into the areas impacted by HR 2558.

Prison industries have always been an integral part of modern corrections. In the 1800’s, prisoners at the Ohio Penitentiary worked at making shoes, uniforms, brooms, barrels and much more.

In my 26-year career in corrections I have had the opportunity to observe the successes and pitfalls of various prison industry initiatives, and I feel confident that we are on the right track with our current programs.

Ohio has the fifth largest state correctional system in the country, housing over 46,700 inmates in 31 prisons. In 1991, when former Ohio Governor George Voinovich and former Lieutenant Governor Mike DeWine, now both U.S. Senators, took office they pledged to increase inmate productivity. Ohio Governor Bob Taft also endorses a comprehensive approach to prisoner work programming.

One of the crucial areas targeted in these efforts was improving the efficiency and management of our Department’s industrial training program known as the Ohio Penal Industries (OPI). As a result of an independent evaluation performed by Ohio’s Operations Improvement Task Force in 1991, the Department made a concerted move to adopt modern business practices. I appointed a prison industries director with extensive private sector management experience. OPI created business and marketing plans, increased focus on profitability and the marketability of product lines, and introduced the concept of excellence as well as a focus on customer requirements. Our products and services are no longer viewed as second class, but more so, as well manufactured and competitively priced goods and services.

WHY PRISON INDUSTRIES?

Before we look at the impact of the legislation before us, let me address the issue of why we have effective prison industrial programs. In my view, there are at least six primary rationales:

First: Prison jobs are a management tool to keep prisoners busy. When prisoners are forced to be idle, tension and violence increase, especially in light of prison crowding that Ohio and many other correctional systems face on a daily basis. Prison industry programs keep thousands of inmates productively involved in the day-to-day, structured operation of our correctional facilities.

Second: Job training reduces crime. Inmates who participate in meaningful job training demonstrate a statistical reduction in recidivism. A 1995 study conducted by the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction showed that OPI is having a positive impact. Participation in OPI jobs reduced the return rate of offenders released from prison by 20 percent. Participation in high-skilled OPI jobs resulted in a 50 percent reduction in recidivism. The study also indicated that certain groups of prisoners benefited differently. For instance, prison industry participation had the greatest impact on African American males.

Third: Meaningful job training increases an ex-offender's chances of finding and keeping a job after release. As one can imagine, former prisoners attempting to find jobs are at a natural disadvantage. It is our mission to teach them skills so that they can compete in the job market after they have served their prison sentences. Ohio’s 105 vocational education programs range from building maintenance to welding, from brick laying to auto mechanics.  

Our certified vocational programs are buttressed by a solid base of educational and treatment programs, pre-release activities, and formalized linkages to the community.

Fourth: Partnerships with private sector industries boost economic development. In an attempt to expand prison industries and create more real-world and high-skilled jobs, DRC has placed an emphasis in recent years on partnering with the private sector. These partnerships benefit both DRC and the companies we contract with. We currently have 22 agreements with private sector entities that employ 680 inmates.

Before signing, agreements are reviewed by Ohio’s Prison Labor Advisory Council (PLAC), a six-member board which advises and assists DRC in our responsibility to create meaningful work for inmates. The Council is comprised of business and community leaders, who help insure that proposed private sector agreements will meet the Department's objectives to have no adverse impact on Ohio's labor market. If endorsed by the PLAC, companies agree to sign a statement that they will not displace Ohio workers in utilizing inmate labor.

Fifth: Prison industries offset the cost of incarceration. OPI is a self-supporting entity that does not require financial assistance from Ohio’s General Revenue Fund. According to an independent study commissioned by DRC, OPI further defrays taxpayer costs by providing a $15.9 million annual benefit to Ohio's economy and creating 62 private sector "spin-off" jobs. Customer surveys, moreover, consistently demonstrate that OPI is fulfilling its mission to produce quality products.

By the end of Fiscal Year 1999, OPI employed almost 3,000 inmates and generated sales of over $38 million, making OPI the fifth largest industrial training program in the nation. These sales enable OPI to cover expenses and operate self sufficiently. Enclosed in your packets is a listing of OPI shops and services, which range from the traditional production of license plates and janitorial supplies, to high-tech services such as asbestos abatement and computer refurbishing.

Finally, prison industries imbue inmates with a work ethic and a sense of self-responsibility. Many inmates have never held a job for any length of time. Many do not know what it means to report to work at a designated time, take instruction, and feel the satisfaction of a job well done. In Ohio, prison industries mirror the outside world as closely as possible so that when offenders are released to the community they are as ready as possible to join the world of work.

It is also important that former prisoners learn to accept the same employment obligations that you and I do. They must support their families, pay their rent, insurance and taxes. In many cases, they are required to pay restitution for their crimes and other legal judgements. If we don’t teach responsibility, who will?

COMMENTS ON HR 2558

I would now like to address some main points of discussion regarding HR 2558. I am a proponent of the options presented in the proposed legislation that give states the choice to maintain the status quo or adopt a more competitive stance. Despite the fact that OPI has made great strides in recent years in employing additional offenders, we realize that more inmates can and should be provided access to these meaningful jobs, especially in the growing service industry.

I applaud the efforts of the Chairman and this subcommittee to study ways that this can be accomplished. I appreciate the improvements that are implicit in HR 2558 relative to the previous version of the legislation (HR 4100) that was introduced last year.

I am especially pleased that the new bill provides states the option of continued participation in the Prison Industries Enhancement (PIE) program without jeopardizing existing mandatory source laws.

Providing states the option of eliminating their mandatory source laws in exchange for open markets is a reasonable alternative that balances the concerns of business, labor and correctional agency managers.

While I generally support the legislation as proposed, I would like to suggest some possible alternatives that could enhance our ability to employ offenders, particularly in the PIE program.

I’d like to caution the subcommittee against consideration of amendments that would add "services furnished" to the list of products manufactured by inmates that are restricted from Interstate Commerce under Section 1761 of Title 18 of the U.S. Code. This change could force the elimination of 550 OPI jobs in Ohio alone. This would have an obvious adverse impact on Ohio’s prison budget and management techniques.

Next, I would urge the elimination of language regarding "workers compensation" and "prevailing wage" from PIE. It is my firm belief that provisions, such as workers compensation benefits imply that inmates are "employees" rather than wards of the state. This continues to open up a quagmire of legal liability that could threaten to engulf states with lawsuits in the foreseeable future. The courts have continuously upheld that inmates working in correctional industry programs are not employees.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to determine a prevailing wage for some industries in many regional areas where OPI shops are established.

TEACHING THE WORK ETHIC

In Ohio, we’ve worked very hard to increase the employability of ex-inmates. In addition to offering my support of HR 2558, I am here today to seek your help in supporting and increasing those efforts. Let me give you a couple of salient examples from a holistic approach that we’ve developed to impact offender employment readiness activities.

A recent innovation designed to enhance the ability of offenders to successfully reintegrate into society is our Offender Job Linkage Program. Information on this program has been provided with my testimony. This initiative came about as a result of a meeting with Chuck Colson, Director of Prison Fellowship, and Ohio business leaders. In an environment of low unemployment, with employers aggressively seeking job applicants, Ohio industry leaders were asked to give certain inmates an opportunity to work following their release. The Department supported this effort by creating the "job linkage" program. We now invite local business leaders to interview skilled inmates close to release at job fairs in our prisons. As a prerequisite to participation in the job fairs, inmates must be within 90 days of release and are required to produce a current resume¢ and participate in classroom training to develop interview skills. Staff from the Ohio Department of Human Services and the Ohio Bureau of Employment Services assist DRC staff in preparing the offenders for interviews.

To date, over 1,900 inmates and approximately 100 employers have participated in 92 job fairs across the state. Approximately 26 percent of the inmates participating were offered actual employment following their release, while the majority of the remaining offenders were encouraged to report after their release for additional interviewing and consideration.

We recently added teleconferencing technology to this initiative, encouraging employers in Ohio’s urban centers to interview job-ready inmates in remote prisons via video linkages. While the video interviews cannot replace face-to-face meetings, employers have vouched for their value as pre-interview screening tools. Both employers and inmates are excited about the possibilities inherent in this technology.

The bottom line is that we must work together to help former criminals become not just law abiding citizens, but persons who will make positive contributions to their communities. It’s a simple equation of pay now or pay later.

Corrections professionals believe that our best hope is in the entry-level manufacturing and service industries.

Each gainfully employed ex-inmate typically means one less criminal.

That translates into fewer crime victims.

The title of the agency I lead is the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. The correction part is accomplished through the separation of offenders from society and the limited freedom inherent in prison.

The rehabilitation part is manifested by good counseling, treatment, educational, and industrial programs. We can either give ex-offenders the chance to participate in our society through meaningful work, or we can expect many of them to come back into our prisons after commiting more crimes.

I appreciate the opportunity to appear before the subcommittee today to speak about the crucial issues of prison industries and prisoner employment.

I support the overall aims of HR 2558, and it is my hope that these discussions will, once again, result in legislation that can bring about fruitful change and facilitate greater numbers of offenders in the future becoming taxpaying, contributing and productive citizens.