Jobs (Pt 2 Is This any way to Run Things?)

THIS BLOG WAS WRITTEN IN NOVEMBER, 2014.

            As inmates go, I’m one of the fortunate few. I have family and friends who help me. They visit regularly, they write often, they send money. Data on the population here (as of June 2013) showed that roughly 70% of the 1050 men were “returning” inmates. In other words, this wasn’t their first trip to the circus. Almost 40% were below a high school education level (15% were below 3^rd grade). At that time, there were 5 men with four year college degrees – that includes me and a school teacher who, coincidentally was also a sex offender. No sex offenders can work at the school. Less than 24 hours after my arrival here I got a job – at the school – as a teacher’s aide. It’s unheard of: a job within a day and at the lightest non-factory pay rate: 45 cents per hour. Pay. Jobs (non-factory, that is) come on part-time and full-time levels with hourly rate set at 27 cents, 35 cents, and for the lucky few, 45 cents.

            If you are a part-time building cleaner you get 15 hours a week at 27 cents. In a four week pay cycle you earn $16.20 before state-ordered mandatory ten percent forced-savings (in a non-interest bearing account) and five percent court fines/fees account. So, the guy keeping the building clean gets approximately $14.00. He then must buy detergent (offenders get 1 state wash a week in laundry; all other wash is at your own cost; we are only provided 3 sets of t-shirts, boxers, socks, pants and shirts), deodorant, toothpaste, and all other hygiene products. Heard the expression, “three hots and a cot?” Don’t believe it. Fact is, prison is a Spartan existence and without support from outside it is difficult to survive with just what’s provided.

            Work and school keeps men occupied. Any idiot in here sees that. So what does the chief housing/program guy decide to do during lock? He cuts all jobs in buildings from 20 workers to 4. Why? Who knows.

            Here is what happens when guys have no jobs, and no money. People will do what they have to do to survive. Stealing, robbery, extortion increase. Fights go up. Hustles – those without will hustle food from the chow hall, drugs, sex, anything to make a buck.

            The program manager has even tried to gut education aide pay: “Spending too much on income salaries.” Meanwhile, his staff is held to no professional baseline standards on recidivism results, or problems in the re-entry buildings or backlog on annual reviews.

            Worse, the slave-labor like “Virginia Corrections Enterprise” factory where products are made by inmates paid 55 cents to 85 cents an hour then sold to state agencies at significant markups (30% to 50% above what they could spend buying from private companies) keeps running with no one daring to slow that spending down.

            It is almost as if the people in charge do things that deliberately create chaos and trouble in the facility and add to men’s misery and likelihood of failure at release to keep this place “necessary and relevant.”

            Is this any way to run a prison? Shame on the Commonwealth of Virginia. It’s time to shed light on this corrupt, inept, inefficient system. Too many lives are being lost in the grinder that is corrections.