Trade Off

[March 5th, 2008]

After 20 years of working at the same metal shop, Mark Klinger has earned a reputation as his shop’s in-house expert on sheetmetal fabrication.

“Oct. 15, 1987, is when I first was employed here as the janitor,” Klinger says. “I got my journeyman’s card in ’94, and now I’m the journeyman of the sheet metal shop.”

The 45-year-old Klinger lives to work, regularly putting in extra hours and working for a wage most Americans would scoff at: $82 a month, or about 50 cents an hour. Why the crappy pay? Because Klinger was convicted of multiple charges of assault and burglary in Douglas County in 1986 and is in the Oregon State Penitentiary in Salem with 13 years left before his release—unless he makes parole.

And like most of Oregon’s 13,500 inmates, Klinger works the equivalent of a full-time job during his incarceration. But unlike most other inmates, Klinger has a job that demands a trained skill set, one that could eventually land him a living-wage career whenever he gets out.

That’s important, because the amount of education and job skills inmates such as Klinger get in prison makes a big difference after they’re released, according to Kat Bachtel, recruitment specialist at a Portland nonprofit that aids ex-felons, Better People.

“Inmates who get out of prison without job skills are much harder to find jobs for,” Bachtel says. “They’ll probably end up with a $9-an-hour job. Unless inmates get more education and training, whatever other help they get is just a Band-Aid.”

Oregon prison officials say they have the job capacity to employ only about 10 percent of the state’s inmates in industry work programs that can lead to a job after a participating inmate’s release—one of the goals of Kevin Mannix’s voter-passed Measure 17 in 1994.

Yet Mannix has an initiative on the November 2008 ballot that would make that confined and competitive job market a whole lot tougher. Mannix’s latest measure would expand mandatory sentencing laws to include nonviolent crimes. If voters pass that proposal, Measure 40, state prison officials estimate it would add 4,000 to 6,000 more criminals in Oregon prisons—a 30 percent increase at least.

Meanwhile, the Democratically controlled state Legislature just last month passed Senate Bill 1087, a measure that the Criminal Justice Commission estimates would add 1,400 more inmates—a 10 percent increase.

Either surge could be a problem for inmate jobs, says Craig Prins, executive director of the Criminal Justice Commission. Prins says Senate Bill 1087 is far more feasible, adding that if Mannix’s Measure 40 passed, Oregon corrections would not be able to build prisons fast enough.

“At some point it’s going to put a pinch on all other programs,” says Prins. “It puts more squeeze on the money, and it means that other things go away.”

As it stands now, competitive work programs, such as computer-aided mapmaking, can generate as many as 120 applications for a single open position, according to Corrections Manager Tony Kowanda. Inmates who don’t get one of these jobs are left with the grunt work that doesn’t translate to a good job after release: mopping cell blocks or toiling in the mess-hall kitchen, among other chores.

In 1994, Oregon voters approved Measure 17, requiring prisons to provide 40 hours a week of work and job training for all inmates. In a statement Mannix submitted to the November 1994 Oregon Voters’ Pamphlet for Measure 17, he wrote that the measure “will help society by giving prisoners work skills so they will have a better chance of becoming law-abiding citizens and taxpayers when they are released.” But this obligation has become increasingly difficult for prison officials—primarily because the prisoner population of Oregon has doubled because of Measure 11, a mandatory sentencing measure also backed by Mannix and approved by voters in 1994.

“Doing the right thing always has its challenges, but it comes down to corrections needing to rethink its dynamics,” Mannix says now. “If their estimates are anywhere near correct, smart administration would call for them to see where they can get more inmate jobs.”

But prison industries would have trouble finding work for thousands more inmates, according to Brad Snodgrass of Oregon Corrections Enterprises, the group that manages prison industries.

“I cannot see how our programs can be expanded to keep up.” Snodgrass says. “Being a self-supported group, we have to add programs that pay for themselves.”

In the late ’90s, Oregon corrections expanded to find more free-market opportunities for inmate labor, such as in-house laundry and printing services, and sending work crews out to do construction and fire-safety jobs.

Labor unions and business leaders soon raised major concerns, griping about dirt-cheap competition from prisoner workers.

Stories of prison crews undercutting temp agencies, construction firms and fire crews were frequent after Measure 17. As Oregon faced growing unemployment during the 2000 recession, newspaper reports pointed out that jobs for prisoners continued to expand. Mounting political pressure from labor eventually led prison officials to greatly reduce promoting prison goods and services on the open market.

With political pressure to meet Measure 17 requirements, correctional officers often have been prompted to assign far more inmates to a job than necessary, or fluff up the hours of inmate work.

“I used to have a kitchen crew of eight to make breakfast—servers, cooks, etc.,” says former correctional officer Randy Ritterbush, who worked nine years at various Oregon penitentiaries. “After Measure 17, I had 15 or 18 inmates. For God’s sake, how many people do you need for each job? You have three people just giving out utensils—and that’s three more people with potential weapons.”

Prison officials say that despite lucrative state contracts to produce, for example, most of the furniture of Oregon universities, many prison workshops are running at a loss.

“Our goal isn’t to make money. Our goal is to train inmates,” says Rob Killgore, administrator of Oregon Corrections Enterprise. “So to do that you purposely stay inefficient from a labor standpoint. For instance, our metal shop averages 50 to 60 inmates. At a regular shop you would have five or six people doing the same work.”

Greg Atkins, manager of inmate work programs, says ultimately Oregon has to decide what kind of future it gives to prisoners.

“Ninety-seven percent of Oregon’s inmates who are incarcerated will get out at some point and be my neighbor, your neighbor, or somebody’s neighbor,” Atkins says. “Do we want to keep them in landscaping and laborer-types of fields, or do we want to give them skills where hopefully they can make a family living wage when they get out?”