{"id":1176,"date":"2012-01-13T10:32:10","date_gmt":"2012-01-13T15:32:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/prisoner-call-centers.html"},"modified":"2012-01-13T10:32:10","modified_gmt":"2012-01-13T15:32:10","slug":"prisoner-call-centers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.l-a-k-e.org\/blog\/2012\/01\/prisoner-call-centers.html","title":{"rendered":"Prisoner call centers"},"content":{"rendered":"Prisoners answering the telephone for your government?\nYes, apparently.\n

\nM. Alex Johnson of msnbc.com and Bill Lambdin of WNYT-TV wrote yesterday for\nMSNBC,\n\nInside the secret industry of inmate-staffed call centers<\/a>,\n

\nWhen you call a company or government agency for help, there’s a\n\n<\/a>\ngood chance the person on the other end of the line is a prison\ninmate.\n

\nThe federal government calls it “the best-kept secret in\noutsourcing” — providing inmates to staff call centers and\nother services in both the private and public sectors.\n

\nThe U.S. government, through a 75-year-old program called Federal\nPrison Industries, makes about $750 million a year providing prison\nlabor, federal records show. The great majority of those contracts\nare with other federal agencies for services as diverse as laundry,\nconstruction, data conversion and manufacture of emergency\nequipment.\n<\/blockquote>\n\n<\/a>\nWe’ve heard of Prison Industries before.\nThe\n\nGeorgia prisoners who struck back in January 2011<\/a>\nwork for Prison Industries, allegedly for no pay.\n

\nBut the program also markets itself to businesses under a different\nname, Unicor, providing commercial market and product-related\nservices. Unicor made about $10 million from “other agencies and\ncustomers” in the first six months of fiscal year 2011 (the most\nrecent period for which official figures are available), according\nto an msnbc.com analysis of its sales records.\n

\nThe Justice Department and the U.S. Bureau of Prisons don’t\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n

\nbreak\ndown which companies they do business with. But Unicor said inmates\nprovide private call center service, including data review and sales\nlead generation, for “some of the top companies in America” under a\nfederal mandate to help companies repatriate jobs they have\noutsourced overseas.\n<\/blockquote>\nWe’ve heard of UNICOR before.\n\n<\/a>\nIt apparently says it\n\n“supplies numerous electronic components and service for guided missiles, including the Patriot Advanced Capability Missile (PAC-3)”<\/a>.\nSo apparently in addition to building weapons for the military,\nUNICOR supplies prisoners to answer your calls to your government\nand to companies.\n

\nMaybe you’re out of a job. Can you compete with 23 cents an hour?\n

\n\n<\/a>\nAnd the state of Georgia wants to privatize the prisons themselves,\nproviding more profits to select private industry at the expense\nof the prisoners and of you, the taxpayers.\n\nWe don’t need a private prison in Lowndes County, Georgia.<\/a>\nSpend those tax dollars on rehabilitation and education instead.\nFollow\n\nthis link<\/a>\nto petition the Valdosta-Lowndes County Industrial Authority.\n

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