TAXPAYERS PAY A HIGH PRICE FOR CALIFORNIA'S OVERSTUFFED JAIL CELLS

The Prison Industry

Politically popular in Sacramento and Washington, tough-on-crime laws have
filled our prisons to historic levels. But at what costs?

Part of the price tag for keeping more than two million Americans behind
bars can be counted; part is hidden. Taxpayers, businessmen and prison
reformers each pay a different price.

Higher Taxes

As the prison population goes up, so does the tax bill to build new
prisons, hire extra guards and feed and house more inmates. In 1997,
California taxpayers paid $4 billion to operate correction facilities for
157,547 inmates - up from 24,569 prisoners in 1980. But taxes tell only
part of the story.

Subsidized Competition

As the prison population goes up, so does the number of workers in prison
factories. All 50 states and the federal government operate subsidized
prison industries that hire inmates, on average, at $2 to $8 a day to
produce goods and services that compete against private businesses.

California-run prisons employ 6,300 inmates making textile, furniture and
metal products. Nationally, more than 51,000 inmates work in state prison
factories with total annual sales nearing $1 billion. Selling mainly to
state agencies, these factories close state government markets to private
firms.

In addition, Californians thinking of opening an office furniture business
must compete against 14 U.S. federal prison industry furniture plants
employing 4,521 inmates. Federal furniture, textile, electronics and
graphics prison factories currently operate in nine locations in the state,
including Lompoc, Taft and Dublin.

Worse still, federal acquisition regulations require federal agencies to
purchase products made in federal correctional institutions. According to
Paul Miller at the Independent Office Products and Furniture Dealers
Association, these regulations effectively cut private furniture
manufacturers and dealers out of $222 million a year in potential
government sales. Another 16,445 federal inmates in textile, electronics,
metals and graphic services plants cut private firms out of another $333
million in sales to the federal government.

The Chamber of Commerce and the National Federation of Independent Business
represent hundreds of thousands of small businessmen and have long lobbied
in Washington - unsuccessfully so far - to break the market monopolies held
by the Federal Prisons Industries.

Pro-Prison Political Action

As the number of state inmates goes up, so does the number of prison guards
and administrators. By 1999 there were 30,874 federal and 391,015 state
correctional employees. The 44,200 employees needed to run California's
prison system in 1997 actually outnumbered state workers in California's
parks, police, highways and health departments combined. To protect their
jobs, prison workers form associations that promote pro-prison policies and
resist prison-reform initiatives.

For example, with a 61 percent for and 39 percent against vote on Nov. 7
California voters passed Proposition 36 calling for mandatory treatment -
instead of imprisonment - for non-violent, first and second time drug
offenders not caught selling or manufacturing drugs.

Backers of Prop. 36 claim treatment is what these offenders really need and
since treatment costs are in the $4,000 a year range, versus $25,000 for a
year in jail, Californian taxpayers could save $100 to $150 million annually.

Sponsoring television ads against Prop. 36 was the 28,000-member California
Correctional Peace Officers Association. This same union in the early 1990s
supported tough-on-crime legislation that helped fill the state's prisons.
Union officials now fear Prop. 36 will shrink both the prison population
and their membership.

On the national level, the Correctional Industries Association, a trade
group representing about 2,000 individual and corporate members, openly
promotes prison workshops. The group's official legislative agenda supports
putting more inmates to work and efforts to expand inmate employment
through expanded market access for inmate-made products.

Not surprisingly, federal and state prison policies are caught in a
self-perpetuating cycle. First, tough-on-crime laws have put more than
300,000 drug offenders behind bars. Prison managers then use this cheap
labor supply to expand prison factory output at the expense of private
firms. To complete the cycle, entrenched pro-prison interest groups have
now evolved into a political force standing in the way of common sense
drug-law reforms.

As our leaders in Sacramento and Washington are finding out, big prisons
have a way of biting back.