State wants to up inmate mask production
Corrections Department wants to buy more sewing machines for prisoners, who earn as little as 40 cents, to make face coverings
The New Mexico Corrections Department wants to spend $131,538 on sewing machines to increase the rate at which prisoners earning as little as 40 cents per hour can produce face masks and other protective gear, such as surgical gowns, to combat the novel coronavirus.
“Corrections Industries has currently filled orders for approximately 150,000 masks with additional orders for masks in the pipeline totaling somewhere between 200,000 and 400,000,” procurement officer Kathleen Branchal wrote in a purchase request posted on the state’s Sunshine Portal.
Branchal is asking for the state Department of Finance and Administration’s approval to purchase 45 commercial grade sewing machines and 20 “finishing” machines from an Alabama supplier without going through a competitive bidding process, as is usually required for purchases over $60,000. She cited the COVID-19 crisis.
“Currently Corrections industries only has approximately 30 reliable operational sewing machines which is nowhere near capable of producing these kinds of quantities needed by New Mexico state agencies to ensure the safety of New Mexico citizens,” Branchal wrote.
“Prototypes are currently being developed and tested for gowns and research is being conducted on the feasibility of the manufacture for other personal protective equipment such as face shields,” according to the request.
New Mexico inmates at the men’s and
women’s prisons in Grants are earning between 40 cents and $1.50 per hour to sew the masks, according to Corrections Department spokesman Eric Harrison.
State agencies, tribal governments and nonprofits are eligible to purchase goods from Corrections Industries, which also produces office furniture and the wooden name plates that are ubiquitous in state government offices.
Harrison said the masks are being sold for $1.50 to $2, depending on quantity ordered, availability and pricing of raw materials and finished goods, and cloth gowns are priced at $16.95 to $17.95, based on the same criteria.
Proceeds from the sale of the items are reinvested in the Corrections Industries division “to provide marketable job skills and transitional opportunities for offenders in a professional and safe work environment,” Harrison said.
In the past, sales of inmate-created art and tours of the now defunct “Old Main” prison facility — the site of a bloody 1980 inmate uprising — have generated money for the division.
But Harrison said the division now only has five viable projects: the Western Correctional Sewing and Chemical Products Plant, the Northwestern Correctional Sewing Plant, the Central Correctional Furniture Plant, the Guadalupe Correctional Print Plant and Penitentiary of New Mexico Canteen Operations.
Corrections Industries projects generated about $10.8 million in revenue in fiscal year 2019, but the division had expenses of about $11.7 million, creating a loss for the year of about $900,000, according to Harrison.
Harrison said division director Robert Leon is “working on strategies that will right-size or eliminate existing businesses where necessary, expand existing businesses and strategically start new ones,” in an effort to keep the division fiscally sound.
Corrections Industries “is currently working to expand sewing operations and establish a centralized warehousing and distribution center located in Santa Fe at Penitentiary of New Mexico,” the spokesman said in an email.
Prison reform advocates have equated prison labor with slavery, citing the 13th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which abolished forced labor, “except as punishment for crime.”
But Barron Jones, senior policy strategist for the American Civil Liberties Union of New Mexico, and a former state prisoner, said it’s not that simple.
“I spent seven years of my life doing inmate labor, and I understand how exploitative it can be,” Jones said in a recent interview. On the other hand, “most prisoners want to work, and jobs can be good things.”
Jones, who said he worked for $1 per hour moving furniture while incarcerated in New Mexico, said inmates working isn’t necessarily a problem. It’s the terms and conditions under which they are required to work that raises red flags for civil rights advocates.
Not only are inmates paid far less than workers on the outside — maintenance workers are paid as little as 10 cents per hour, according to the department’s website — but they are often denied many of the protections afforded other workers, such as sick leave or compensation for on-the-job injuries, Jones said.
For example, inmates are not eligible for overtime pay, according to the department’s website.
Harrison said the 25 to 30 prisoners sewing the protective gear are doing so voluntarily, and the purchase of the new machines would allow Corrections Industries to put about 45 more inmates to work.
But Jones said prison is a “naturally coercive place” where a prisoner’s decision to work for rock-bottom wages is influenced by the consequences they may face if they refuse.
According to the department’s own policies, “inmates may be assigned to Corrections Industries without their consent in order to meet the Department’s need for inmate labor,” and inmates who disobey orders to perform labor are not eligible to accrue “good time” credit that could shorten their time behind bars.
Another consideration, Jones said, is that prison work details can prevent inmates from having time to participate in other forms of programming — such as drug treatment or education — which could be more effective at preventing them from returning to prison after they are released.