A 4-year-old Michigan state law designed to put prison inmates to work in private industry has yet to result in a single job. When it passed, backers predicted up to 1,000 inmates would be making products such as twine, CDs and tennis shoes.
About 2,500 prisoner-employees make products that can be sold only to government agencies and non-profit groups, and last year the agency recorded sales of $47 million and revenues of $6.6 million.
But under the state law adopted in 1997, private employers could also hire inmates for minimum-wage jobs, provided the company’s product is not already made in Michigan and at least 80 percent of the company’s items are manufactured outside the United States.
William Van Regenmorter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, which oversees criminal justice matters, said the legislation intended to increase the number of jobs for state prisoners. And loosening the restrictions on the law is unlikely now, given the slowing of the state economy.
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JWThompson@tribune.com
