K.O. Jackson, Kokomo Tribune Business Writer
For seven hours a day, Monday through Friday, Lloyd Beets applies his college education as a business-technology major at his product inventory control job.
Using computers, Beets and 28 other employees keep track of all supplies coming in and out of the Miami Correctional Facility.
Beets, 26, can track garments being sent to Indiana’s 31 correctional facilities.
For the Kokomo native, the job comes naturally. However, his surroundings aren’t ideal.
Beets is a prisoner making 50 cents an hour for his labor.
He is one of hundreds of prisoners in the Indiana Department of Correction’s Prison Enterprises Network. PEN employs offenders to make goods and provide services to state agencies, political subdivisions, private businesses and citizens.
When he is released in 2017, Beets hopes to combine his previous education with his current schooling in office administration to make a living.
“I am a people person and this helps me to deal with people,” said Beets, who is serving time on drug charges and is enrolled in PEN’s 14-month apprentice program.
“It’s an opportunity for me to use the skills I learned in college and relate them to a real job. That’s what I want when I get out.”
Indiana’s Apprenticeship Program, facilitated through the U.S. Department of Labor, is the largest state prison program in the country and the cornerstone of the mission to teach a work ethic and job skills to offenders, said Ann Hubbard, public information officer at the prison.
She said the partnership between the USDOL Office of Apprenticeship and Indiana’s PEN Products was initiated in February 2006.
Of the reported 3,188 offenders housed at the Miami facility, 2,237 are currently enrolled in USDOL Apprenticeship programs, added Hubbard.
The offender workers are involved in several jobs within PEN Products, including the Braille program, soap shop, garment shop, and wire-harness shop.
Mirroring what may occur to the 97 percent of inmates when they are job-hunting after being released, all PEN job openings are posted. Candidates submit an application and interview for the job. They must also pass a prison conduct check.
Furthermore, competition for the available jobs mirrors what is occurring throughout the nation: Too many people and not enough jobs.
Most prison jobs pay as low as 20 cents an hour; PEN jobs top out at 50 cents an hour. And like the real working world, if a job is open, everyone wants it.
“When we have a job opening, we will have 200 to 300 people applying for it,” said Becky Deeb, PEN’s new enterprise development manager. “It’s like that on the outside.”
Deeb added PEN Products is a self-funded re-entry initiative.
“PEN Products is in the business of preparing offenders for their release by instilling a work ethic and providing offenders with marketable skills,” said PEN Products Director Mike Herron. “You have people on the outside who cannot get a job. That is even tougher if you are an felon. We hear stories of some men who have never worked a day in their life. We teach them the basic needs in everyday life. Get up, go to work, go home. We want them to leave here with a plan and be able to turn the corner.”
Although PEN’s program is one of the nation’s largest, other states have instituted similar initiatives.
In Ohio, prisoners are hired to produce clothing and bedding. According to the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, which houses 51,000 prisoners, using inmate labor not only cuts operation costs, but it teaches job skills and the workers’ recidivism rate is less than half of the prison population.
And like PEN, Ohio’s program also mirrors the working world: Several Ohio Penal Industries shops are being shuttered. In February, inmate jobs were cut from 1,554 to 1,269.
From the real working world to the prison working world, Akley Forrest has enough work experience that, when he is released in 2013, his knows he can be productive at several jobs if given an opportunity.
The South Bend man has been serving time for murder. Before he was sentenced, he was a head cook at a restaurant. In PEN’s program, he’s worked with green-compliance chemicals and is currently part of a team that daily produces 84,000 1-ounce bars of soap that are used throughout the state’s correctional facilities.
“This keeps me and my mind busy and out of trouble,” said Forrest. “It’s a privilege being in PEN. We don’t do this so much for the money. It’s helped me to be a more productive person and I can use that when I get out.”
Though inmate employees are always supervised, fewer guards are needed for the workers, said Doug Evans, PEN’s operations and job placement manager.
“They use tools,” said Evans, “but at the end of the day, when they are turned in, all tools are accounted for.”
PEN’s job placement is a new feature, said Evans. He said the purpose is to decrease recidivism by connecting released offenders with jobs.
PEN’s job placement has two segments, he added. First, it prepares offenders for free-world employment by supplying on-the-job training. Second, it reaches out to private businesses willing to hire PEN’s qualified inmates once they are released.
Reporting to work on time and getting paid for a full day of work are opportunities Evans and others hope the inmates take — and use — once they are released, instead of being among the 85 percent of unemployed ex-offenders who are re-arrested.
“You have to change the mindset. You have to start with yourself and see yourself as being a productive member of society,” said Evans.
“Some day, most of them are going to leave here. Having meaningful employment is vital in transitioning from prison to the free world. When they have their apprenticeship certificate from the Department of Labor, that’s the same as anyone’s anywhere. They can take that with them when they leave.”