Correctional Industries Seeks Business to Operate Inside Prisons

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE August 5, 2008

OLYMPIA – The Department of Corrections is looking for businesses to operate in prisons and provide offenders with job skills that help them live crime-free lives after they return to their communities.

Washington voters in November authorized DOC to re-establish Class I Industries, a program that allows private companies to partner with state prisons.

The businesses will partner with Correctional Industries (CI) to hire offenders to manufacture goods at sites located inside prisons. The offenders working in Class I Industries are paid a comparable wage for similar work performed in the same geographical area. Class I work programs have been shown to help reduce recidivism and are an important part of a comprehensive and successful re-entry program.

“Private sector businesses have a unique opportunity to produce quality products and services while giving offenders marketable job skills they can use to secure living-wage jobs upon release,” said CI Director Lyle Morse. “These programs make the public safer by helping offenders make the final transition to employment as part of their successful re-entry program.”

Since last November’s passage, CI has hired a business recruiter who is responsible for contacting new and former business partners and researching potential sites in prisons statewide where the businesses would operate.

Class I businesses are not allowed to unfairly compete with any similar-type businesses located and operating within the State. As part of the approval process, potential Class I businesses are reviewed by the Correctional Industries Board of Directors to determine what, if any, impact they may have on existing Washington businesses. Offender wages from CI programs are used to pay for the cost of incarceration, victim’s compensation, court-ordered fines, restitution, family and child support, and to establish an offender’s savings account.

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