High court overturns key prison labor program

By David Ammons
The Associated Press

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The court, in a 5-4 ruling, overturned its own 2003 ruling, following a rehearing that turned up extensive historical information and scholarship about prison labor practices at the time the state constitution was drafted in the late 1800s.

The ruling eliminates one of the main types of prison work opportunities, Class I Free Venture Industries. About 300 inmates are employed at job sites behind bars at Monroe, Purdy, Airway Heights, and Twin Rivers prisons.

The work places are run by private companies who contract with the state. The companies get factory space, free or inexpensive utilities, and a break on wages and benefits. Inmates learn a marketable skill and earn money that helps pay for their upkeep and for restitution.

"This ruling is very disappointing," said state prison chief Joe Lehman. "This was an opportunity for inmates to work in real-world jobs, to find skills, to pay support to their families, to pay for restitution, to pay for room and board.

"This is exactly what the public wants. They want offenders to be held accountable and they want some responsible behavior."

He said the state will lose about $600,000 from room and board payments from the inmates and that crime victims stand to lose $150,000 in restitution.

The program is one of five classes of institutional industries programs created as part of the state's Corrections Reform Act of 1981. Nine companies, including metal fabricators, a clothing manufacturer, a computer company and a concrete works, operate under contract.

Justice Bobbe Bridge, writing for the majority, said the Department of Corrections "enticed employers with the promise of low overhead costs and a motivated and readily available work force.

"The department's promotional materials presented the allure of a higher profit margin. Businesses were told that they could save the costs of health insurance and other employment-related benefits, and could potentially receive bid preferences on state contracts."

The lawsuit involved a challenge of the program that allowed a water-jet cutting business to use prison labor at the Monroe Corrections Center, free use of 11,000 square feet of industrial space, free security, and free or discounted utilities.
 
In territorial days, the court noted, convicts had to work in logging, coal mining and barrel-making. When the state constitution was drafted, there was "populist distrust of government entanglement with private enterprise" and framers tried to draw a clear line, the majority said.

"The department's interpretation allows private enterprise to choose prison labor over free labor," Bridge wrote. "It also allows the state to favor one private entity over its competitors with the benefits of prison labor. ...

"We conclude that the founders and ratifying public intended convict labor to profit the state, rather than private enterprise."

The constitution "requires the state to engage in one of the public, state-run systems of prison labor, but prohibits the state from engaging in any private system of prison labor," the court concluded.

Bridge stressed that other institutional industries and prison jobs sponsored by the department can remain in place.

"The Legislature intended to avoid inmate idleness, encourage adoption of the work ethic, provide opportunities for inmate self-improvement, and provide a means for payment of restitution," she wrote. "These laudable goals need not be abandoned as a result of our holding today."

The four dissenting justices said the partnership between the prisons and the private sector doesn't run afoul of the constitution.