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Outsourcing Unit To Be Set Up In Indian Jail
littlekorea writes "Indian outsourcing firm Radiant Info Systems has found yet another way to lower wages — hiring data entry clerks from a local prison. Some 200 inmates will be paid $2.20 a day to handle manual data entry tasks for Radiant's BPO deals in a pilot for the scheme. Radiant execs told the BBC that the deal will provide skills to inmates when they are released from prison. No doubt they would also be due for a pay raise." They're going to need to cut wages if they want to be competitive with the 100,000 US prisoners who work for 25 cents an hour.
I just came home from a lovely four year stay at a fed prison. Yes, you can eventually make $.25 an hour, but you have to work up to that.
See federal (BOP) pay scales here.
FPI (UNICOR) is the prison industries. Read: slave labor for government profit. At the facility I was at there was a data processing factory, fixing bad OCR scans by entering Postscript commands.
However, anyone with any computer skills was forbidden from working there, so my job was Captain's Crew...cleaning the sidealks for half hour every day. Nice use of my MCSE, no?
"The pie shall be cut in half and each man shall receive.....death. I'll eat the pie."
Radiant: we're a little short on staff -- think you could raise the penalty for jaywalking?
Congressman: can do!
The feds have NO interest whatsoever in providing skill training, no matter what their propaganda tells you. At the FCI where I was, inmates typically slept till lunch, signed false pay sheets claiming 40 hours worked. They thought they were getting over, but it's actualy the feds, who can provide "proof" of "gainfully employed inmates."
But it's a scam. The BOP/DOJ has a vested interest in the 75% recidivism rate...it keeps the beds full and the $30,000 a year per inmate flowing nicely. Most inmates sleep till lunch, play basketball or softball in the afternoon, and watch TV and gamble all night.
Look, my unit had nine televisions (big flat screens, full cable, Netflix movies twice a week) and four toilets for 150 guys. Total in the facility? 1,800 inmates in regular population housed in 6 units, with a total of 48 toilets and 108 televisions. What's wrong with this picture?
Skills training my ass. Try getting a job with nothing on your resume but "data entry and basic Office." And that's for the tech/UNICOR jobs! It's like a health club..once they have you, they want you to keep coming back. Again and again. No skills? You're probably going to reoffend.
Step 3: Profit!
That's what happens when state and federal governments contract out such a basic thing as their prison systems. To the government and government-run prisons, prisoners are nothing but an expense so the fewer, the better. To the private companies, each prisoner represents profit so the more the merrier.
Certainly I can understand the government buying items on the open market such as automobiles, ships, airplanes, office stationery, electricity, etc. I hardly expect them to mine their own ore, smelt it, forge it, and make their own products, to run their own paper mills, or maintain their own electrical grids. Yet a line does need to be drawn someplace because things like prisons are rightly an unwanted expense. I propose that the government can freely purchase any needed goods (including units of energy like kilowatt-hours) but must perform all services itself, carried out by individuals who are government employees.
No one should have a vested interest in a high recidivism rate, particularly not when large sums of money are involved. It does not serve society's interests. Further, I bet they're fine with high recidivism until a crime happens to them. Any such entity with vested interests like this is a parasite that feeds off the failing of others. These parasites are state-sponsored.
It is a miracle that curiosity survives formal education. - Einstein
Wait a minute. My cubicle feels like a cell. My wardrobe is defined by Corporate Goons. At the whim of a bureaucrat, I can be sent, against my will, anywhere in the country. Many time's, I've been awakened in the middle of the night by alarms and screaming. (Usually, the voices are saying things like, "The servers are down!" or "My Email is gone!") Have I been in prison all along? That would explain some of the meetings... Well, no more! There's no cage that can hold me! I'm bustin' outta here. Here's the plan. Just after the morning scrum meeting, you throw a paper airplane to distract the guard. I'll slip under the raised floor. I've got a plastic spoon from the break room, so I'll dig a tunnel. If we do this every day for the next 40 - 50 years, we'll make it out!
After exhaustive research and excrutiating analysis, I've determined that Bubba is, in fact, everywhere.