Prison Labor

One hundred minimum security prisoners and fourteen Oregon Department of Corrections staff are assisting with flood relief and clean-up in Vernonia, Oregon.

This year, the Oregon Department of Forestry trained 200 minimum security prisoners, all men, to fight forest fires. So far this summer, 180 prisoners and 24 staff fought the Shelton fire near Fossil. Thirty-five prisoners worked on the Battlecreek fire near Joseph, and forty prisoners are fighting the Ukiah Complex fire in central Oregon.

"I've got several potato warehouses that would love to have a crew of 15 to 20 inmates to offset the labor shortages. We don't have enough inmates." That quote is from Lt. Jim Woolf whose job is to oversee prison labor in Idaho.

Mention the production of license plates to people outside prison, and they’ll often immediately associate that job with prisoners. Prisoners have been making Nevada’s license plates since 1928, but the director of the Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles is requesting that the license plate making facility be moved outside of the prison.

The next bite of fish or mushroom you take might have been grown in a prison. Part of the multi-million dollar expansion of the women’s prison in Lusk, Wyoming, includes the construction of a fish farming facility that will grow tilapia. Live fish will be exported from the prison to Colorado for processing. Sixteen women and two guards will be employed by the project.