The Detroit Free Press
Making clothes is a good fit for prison industries. Michigan should try it on.
A bill recently introduced by state Sen. Jason Allen, R-Traverse City, would put more of the state’s inmates to work in the clothing business. As other states have found, prison industries like this are a good way, without using tax dollars, to decrease idleness, teach job skills and a work ethic, and provide a little money for inmates and their families.
Michigan already has some prison factories, called Michigan State Industries, which make license plates, office furniture and cleaning supplies. They employ about 1,500 of the state’s more than 50,000 inmates and pay prisoner workers about $1 an hour.
By law, they can sell products only to government agencies and nonprofits. But Allen’s bill, which Corrections Director Patricia Caruso supports, would allow state prisons to make clothing -- mostly likely dress shirts and khakis — for general sale, provided the product doesn’t compete with a Michigan business.
Michigan prisons already manufacture clothing for inmates, correctional officers and some police agencies. So the machinery is in place.
Allen, who owns a Traverse City men’s store, sells jeans made by Oregon’s successful Prison Blues program as part of an increasingly difficult effort to carry American-made clothing.
Prison Blues, a self-sustaining, $18-million-a-year business, has not put anyone out of work in Oregon. In fact, it has boosted business for suppliers of raw material and equipment.
In tough budget times, the Legislature should support a needed prison industry that works without tax dollars
Copyright 2007 The Detroit Free Press