General Discussion

eridani

(51,907 posts) Tue Mar 18, 2014, 05:57 AM Mar 2014

Are Prison Labor Companies Lobbying to Keep Prisoners in Jail for Nonviolent Offenses?

http://www.nationofchange.org/are-prison-labor-companies-lobbying-keep-prisoners-jail-nonviolent-offenses-1395068568

In recent months, a broad, cross-ideological coalition has pressed forward to reform mandatory minimum prison sentencing. In some cases mandatory minimum sentencing can lead to a lifetime in jail for nonviolent offenders. But a strange group has appeared on lobby disclosure forms reviewed by Republic Report. Prison labor companies are attempting to influence the bill, and they refuse to reveal what they’re doing and why.

The group is called the Correctional Vendors Association, an organization that represents companies that use prison labor to produce everything from furniture to clothing goods. CVA has spent $240,000 on lobbying over the past year, and forms show the organization is interested in shaping the outcome of the Justice Safety Valve Act, or S.619, a bill proposed Senators Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and Rand Paul (R-KY) to allow judges to impose a sentence below the mandatory minimum in many cases, including drug-related sentences.

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Federal Prison Industries Inc, a government-owned corporation that is part of the U.S. Bureau of Prisons, employs thousands of federal inmates to work at an assortment of prison factories and workshops that produces over $900 million in goods for various contractors, including military clothing. Critics have accused the system for exploiting prison labor — many earning between 12 cents and 40 cents per hour — to the detriment of American businesses and free labor.

The prison labor program has survived many challenges over the years thanks in large part to a lobbying of the Correction Vendors Association, a coalition of contractors that work with Federal Prison Industries, also known as Unicor.