NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Sunday, March 23, 2014, 4:20 AM
Prison reform is “in” these days. There are strong bipartisan efforts in Congress that involve releasing low-risk inmates earlier and scaling back harsh mandatory minimum sentences.
But I stumbled on a mess last week that makes me wonder about the federal Bureau of Prisons.
A central element in rehabilitating federal inmates is languishing, according to a previously unpublicized audit by the Department of Justice inspector general.
It focuses on Federal Prison Industries, Inc., a wholly owned government corporation operated within the Federal Bureau of Prisons. It dates to 1934 and aims to provide meaningful work to inmates, who create goods and provide services sold only to the federal government.
It’s supposed to employ 25% of the prison population and offers wages from 23 cents an hour to $ 1.15 an hour, which is actually more than other prison work assignments.
FPI does not get direct taxpayer funding; it generates self-sustaining revenues via more than 80 factories at 65 prison facilities. It has $ 750 million in annual sales, including of military uniforms, body armor, desks, storage cabinets and draperies.
The Defense Department is its biggest customer, accounting for 48% of sales.
But revenues and employment are sinking. It’s averaged $ 31 million in annual net losses since 2009, and employment has dropped to 12,400 inmates, or 7% of the eligible population, its lowest proportion ever.
The reasons include winding down of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. It’s also made bad bets, like on solar panels produced at the Otisville, N.Y. and Sheridan, Ore., prisons.
There’s also been a huge change made to its “mandatory source” authority, which meant that federal agencies had to buy its product rather than solicit bids from commercial firms.
That explains a very brief posting I found last week in the Federal Register, where bureaucratic actions and proposed rules are published.
The Defense Department dryly indicated that FPI’s share of DOD procurement is greater than 5% when it comes to metal screening, office furniture, lockers, bins, shelving, draperies, awnings, shades, men’s outerwear and advertising displays.
So what?
Well, Congress now says that if FPI exceeds 5%, an agency must put that product out to bid.
When “electrical hardware and supplies” exceeded 5% by 2008, the result was vivid: FPI’s sales to the Pentagon “plummeted from $ 39.9 million to just $ 376,000” over three years, according to the audit.
No surprise, overall sales to the Pentagon dropped from $ 536 million in 2007 to $ 357 million two years ago.
To make matters worse, an attempt to hire more inmates by instituting a job-sharing program seems to have been a mini-disaster.
When it comes to plotting new business opportunities, FPI may not be ready for prime time, either.
That’s because it has “limited experience in sales and marketing due to its previous reliance on the use of mandatory source authority,” says the audit.
The audit also informed BOP that 37 of 1,580 non-U.S. citizen inmates employed by FPI had been issued final deportation orders (they then resolved that embarrassment).
The understated audit made four recommendations for changes, which BOP Director Charles Samuels responded to in writing — sort of.
He disputed one recommendation, on lowering the inmate employment goal. But, says the audit, he didn’t clearly state what he thought of the others, “resulting in all four recommendations being unresolved.”
Rehabilitation is a truly worthy goal. But the road to hell is also paved with similarly noble intentions.
jwarren@nydailynews.com
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