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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (Jan. 6, 2017)
Street R o o ts* Jan. 6-12, 2017 News PART I: Exploitation or opportunity? Page 5 Continued from page 4 BY E M ILY GREEN S T A FF W R IT E R here are no private prisons in Oregon, and while protesters hit the streets of downtown Portland on Friday, Sept. 9, by and large, Oregon’s inmates showed up for work like any other day. Two prison officials who oversee inmate work programs within the state both said they received no reports of inmate workers protesting or causing disruptions on the day of the nationwide strike. Several fringe media outlets reported that Oregon State Penitentiary was on lockdown that day and that inmate workers in the kitchen at Deer Creek Correctional Institution in Madras either went on strike ,or were put on pre-emptive lockdown, depending on the source. The Oregon Department of Corrections, however, denied any participation in the strike within the walls of its institutions. “There were not any disturbances related to the national prison work strike in September, or otherwise,” wrote Betty Bernt, DOC spokesperson, in response to an inquiry about those reports. Oregon’s prisoners work in four different capacities: for the Department of Corrections in jobs needed for a prison’s a daily operation, such as in the kitchen or janitorial; in a variety o f work-training programs; on DOC-run work crews that primariLyperform. landscaping or cleaning d u tie s o n publicly o w n ed lan d s; o r for Oregon Corrections Enterprises. Oregon Corrections Enterprises is a semi-independent state agency that was created to help the state’s prisons come into compliance with the requirement that all able-bodied inmates be put to work. It operates a network of 28 businesses inside 11 of Oregon’s 14 state prisons. It operates five laundry facilities and seven “contact centers,” or call centers, as well as a garment factory that makes the blue jeans prisoners wear; welding shops; sign fabrication, printing, scanning and mail service shops; upholstery, sewing and embroidery studios; and a furniture manufacturing business. But more inmates work in the laundries and contact centers than all of Oregon Corrections Enterprise’s other operations combined. Inmate Jon Meyer a t his desk in the contact center a t Oregon State Penitentiary. s e e - t h r o u g h w a lls o f t h e c u b ic le s , it w a s lik e D o d g e i n S a l e m , s a i d h e ’s h i r e d s e v e r a l any o th er office. fo rm e r in m a te s w ho h a d w o rk e d ift th e p riso n ’s call c e n te r. H e sa id th e y ’ve b e e n Like most mornings, inmates were able to transfer the sales skills they learned contacting businesses in an attempt to get telemarketing to selling cars at his the person on the other end of the line to agree to accept an informational email about dealership. Withnell, who describes himself as ultra a business product, such as a software conservative, chairs Oregon Corrections upgrade. -, Enterprises’ Advisory Council. He said he As easy as this sounds, anyone who s ever worked in telemarketing will tell you: It isn’t. believes inmates are learning the soft skills they need to be successful on the outside - Inmates typically get a “yes” just two or skills such as punctuality and work ethic. three times a day. “The past 10, 20, 30 years, there’s been a “There is high turnover,” OSP contact change of philosophy for the end goal of center manager Bruce Potts said. “Not lowering recidivism, and so instead of everybody likes telemarketers, and they can locking someone up and throwing the key be very rude to people. These guys are told away, it’s to teach and to give skill sets ‘no’ on a constant basis, so that’s a inside,” he said. struggle.” But to work, there have to be employers Potts had 85 inmates on staff that day, willing to hire former inmates after their but said he’d like to be at full capacity with release. 110 agents. “To hire re-entry people, I believe you For inmates who are successful, Potts have to build the reason why,” Withnell said. said, a job in the call center is one of the “One is the transformation of an individual, most beneficial career opportunities that Oregon Corrections Enterprises but there is also a hard return on Oregon Corrections Enterprises offers. It’s investment because once a person is hired Street Roots visited Oregon State also one of the best paying, with inmates and rebuilding himself, the recidivism rate Penitentiary in Salem. It’s a maximum- typically earning about $150 to $200 a drops significantly.” security prison housing 2,000 of the 14,700 month. That’s almost enough to buy a When inmate Jimmy Kashi, 37, first came 13-inch TV or acoustic guitar from the , inmates living in Oregon’s state-run to Oregon State Penitentiary, he said he prison commissary after one month of full correctional institutions. worked as a “table wiper ’ in the kitchen for It also houses Oregon Corrections time work. the Department of Corrections. Now, nearly Enterprises’ largest laundry and second- It’s also more than double what many a decade into his life sentence, he’s found other full-time inmate jobs in Oregon’s largest ^contact center. stability and a job he said he enjoys in the In an expansive carpeted room that correctional institutions pay. call center. stretched from one end of the building to “A lot of the skills that they learn in here He said initially the higher pay attracted the other, the contact center’s rows of C3n transition to any kind of job and can him, but he also liked having the help them in their day-today life too. They identical cubicles sat beneath fluorescent opportunity for advancement In the four lighting and exposed air ducts At each desk have to learn how to communicate, how to years he’s worked there, he’s reached the talk and how to take rejection,” Potts said, sat an inmate wearing a navy blue T-shirt, highest position available to inmates as one adding that many call centers on the outside jeans and a headset watching a computer of the six trainers in the center, earning monitor, reciting his personalized sales are “felon-friendly.” about $265 a month. pitch. Aside from the casual dress code and Dick Withnell, former owner of Withnell “B e in g a b le t o r e a c h o u t t o people -in the- o u t s i d e w o r ld f r o m in h e r e is d e f in it e ly a g o d se n d in m y p o sitio n ,” h e said, “b e c a u s e I a m goin g to be in c a rc e ra te d fo r a w h ile. T h e ability to have conversations with people from all over the nation is absolutely exciting.” Before Jon Meyer was incarcerated, he was a manager at Wal-Mart and also worked as a bar manager, a bouncer and a truck driver. He doesn’t plan on finding call center work when he’s released in three years. He said working in the contact center helps him support his kids with the $150 per month he expects to earn. Luckily, he said, the mother of his children is financially stable. , ♦ While prison wages may be enough to buy items from the commissary, inmates we spoke with said it’s difficult to support their children or save enough money to have a substantial nest egg to help them get on their feet after release. But for Meyer, going to work is like leaving'prison. “The environment is really awesome, the staff is really cool, so I enjoy it,” he said. “Outside of a job like this, inside these walls you tend to stick to your people, or people that you’re comfortable being around. So being out here, it expands your mind.” Since the contact center at OSP opened in 2011, its only client has been Advice Brands, a Nashville, Tenn.-based marketing company that previously contracted with overseas call centers. Slowly, it began filling positions at OSP instead - so the call center isn’t competing with local jobs - and that’s important See INMATE JOBS, page 9
