For inmates, California Prison Industry Authority jobs are one way to sustain a livelihood while behind bars and after release.
CALPIA employs a select group of inmates. Out of California’s 116,000 inmates in 35 prisons, just under 7,000 are employed with CALPIA, according to a report by Lisa Morehouse/NPR for KPBS.
California State Prison-Corcoran in California’s Central Valley is a high-security prison that supplies milk for most California state prisons. Since the dairy operation is located outside the prison’s secure perimeter, only low-risk inmates are utilized.
“Our payoff as an organization is to employ inmates and teach them a job skill, so that when they are released, they can get out there and sustain a living,” said Rob Roehlk, who oversees the dairy and milk processing at Corcoran.
The dairy sits on 30 acres of land. The inmates earn 35 to 95 cents an hour working five days a week at various jobs.
Most inmates coming from urban areas lack experience at working with animals or agriculture.
“They come in and they haven’t really seen a cow before, haven’t milked a cow before.” Some inmates come from a construction background; some have experience operating heavy equipment. “We just build on it,” Roehlk told Morehouse.
The milk processing facility allows inmates to earn a number of licenses used in processing milk. These inmates work in the labs testing milk for bacteria.
“I’ve never been involved in things like this, but I would like to pursue it back in society,” said Corcoran inmate Edward Wilson.
There is no firm data on how many former inmates ultimately get employed in the fields in which they worked while incarcerated.
The PIA agency does suggest that CALPIA inmate employees return to prison about 30 percent less frequently than the general prison population.
The NPR report noted, however, that it’s hard to compare the two estimates since the PIA workers are carefully selected.
Still, no matter what the data says, inmate Wilson maintains a positive outlook about finding a job in his field.
More information about CalPIA can be found at www.calpia.ca.gov.