Tripod Home | New | TriTeca | Work/Money | Politics/Community | Living/Travel | Planet T | Daily ScoopWORK & MONEY
Charles Denight
interviewed by Emma Taylor on October 25, 1995
"I've talked to inmates who've saved several thousand dollars."
Charles Denight is one of the owners of Big House, a contractor with the state of Oregon Department of Corrections. He markets Prison Blues -- blue jeans made in the Oregon prison system by inmates.
Tripod: Inmates in Oregon's prisons have been making their own clothes for over a hundred years. When did this become a business?
CD: Practically every state prison in the United States has some kind of work program to keep the inmates busy and to get some work done around the prison. In Oregon, it was decided, just a little over four years ago, to put together a program that would employ the inmates and expand the jobs by having them produce products that could be sold to the public.
By federal law, if they do that, then they have to pay the inmates minimum wage. They decided it would be worth it, because the goal here was to create more jobs for inmates. So with state lottery funds, a large manufacturing building was put up inside one of our state prisons.
Before they decided on which products, they took a look at something that they could teach the inmates to do, and they also took a look at whether they'd be competing with private firms that were in the same business. That was something they wanted to avoid ... and they discovered that nobody was actually making [garments] here, so they went into the business of making blue jeans.
Tripod: Some of the advertising is very shocking. Do the inmates know how you are marketing their jeans? I'm thinking of the poster of an electric chair, with the caption, "Sometimes our jeans last longer than the guys who make them." Have you received any complaints?
CD: Nope. I have to tell you that they had very little money for advertising. Those posters have appeared in small stores where the jeans are sold, but they have not appeared as ads with one exception. And so, I suppose that if they had a lot of exposure, we would probably be hearing from people who were upset about the approach. We've shown them to lots of inmates and they like the posters. ... As far as advertising goes, we've run very little ... what we've depended on is publicity. There's been tremendous interest in the story.
Tripod: Is every position in the company held by an inmate?
CD: Oh no. The inmates manufacture the jeans. They handle the packaging and shipping. The Department of Corrections for the state of Oregon has several staff ... who manage the marketing program and to some degree supervise the production, although production's really supervised within the prison. There are some inmate clerks, and some of the incoming calls for sales, when a store calls and wants to talk about ordering jeans, they're usually talking to an inmate. And those clerks are trustees. They get outside the prison, as the office building's right outside the prison.
The inmates handle all the manufacturing. We get these huge rolls of denim which we buy from some mills in North Carolina, the denim comes in, the inmates have patterns that they use to cut the different pieces that go into making up a pair of jeans or a jacket or a shirt. They cut up all the pieces and then they handle all the sewing, all the riveting, buttons, and do clean up, folding, packaging, putting the package together for shipment -- all that is done by the inmates.
Tripod: So they're paid minimum wage. What happens to the wages?
CD: They start out at minimum wage, but most of them go on a piece-rate incentive after about six months because they make more that way. The minimum wage in Oregon is about five bucks, but after about six months -- if they stay in it that long, and most of them do -- they become fast enough that they can make more on a piece-rate incentive, because they're paid by the piece, and it's an incentive for them to work harder, faster.
Tripod: When do the inmates see any of the money?
CD: Well, the money is sort of divided up this way: A portion goes back to the prison for room and board. If the court has required that the inmate pay victim's restitution, or if the inmate has a family outside and is paying some sort of family support -- some of the money covers that. The rest of it the inmate puts in a savings account, although he can take out a little bit, which he can spend on cigarettes or something like that, but most of the rest goes into a savings account which he can't get to until he gets out of prison.
In fact, he not only has to get out of prison, he has to get out of prison and get a job, and then he gets his savings account. And I've talked to inmates who've saved several thousand dollars, which is a sad commentary because it probably means they've been in there for several years. But they can save money that way, and when they get out of prison, they're not stuck in the position a lot of inmates are, where they hand them a bus ticket and say "bye." Instead they've got money to get started again once they're out of prison.
So it's a good program. Conservatives like it because they see the inmates working and helping to pay their way within the prison system, and liberals like it because they see the inmates learning a trade, learning job skills, and being given some money to help them once they get outside the prison. The job skills that they learn -- well, a lot of people say, "Well, maybe they don't want to go and sew when they get out of prison," which is true for most inmates. But over 50 percent of the inmates that have come in have never held a full-time job in their lives, and they don't have the kind of work habits that you need in order to hold a full-time job. So one of the benefits of this program is that they hold a full-time job. They come to work for eight hours a day just like everybody else. They have to get up in the morning, listen to the supervisor, follow instructions, become a good worker, and otherwise learn the kinds of habits that anybody has to learn in order to hold a job. So that's probably the biggest benefit for the inmates. It's learning how to work in a work environment and getting along with team members, so they can take those traits outside the prison when they get out. And hopefully get a job.
Tripod: Have you seen any results yet?
CD: Anecdotally -- I keep pushing the prison system to do some kind of a study and they haven't done it -- I've talked to a number of inmates who've gotten out and are doing well.
Tripod: And what about the actual product? Are the jeans popular, or is that not so much of an issue?
CD: Oh, yes, it is an issue. Because this program is supposed to be self-supporting. When it was originally established by the legislature, they gave us funding, but at a certain point the funding stopped, and from there on it's on its own. The program has to make enough profit so that the money comes back to pay all the expenses. And expenses include everything from the materials, to the wages of the inmates, wages of the staff and supervisors, wages of the guards that are required for that manufacturing facility, the toilet paper in the bathroom. And so, yes, it has to do well. And so far it's done pretty well. Three years ago when we began working with them -- this was early '92 -- they had sales the previous year of $221,000. And this fiscal year, which ended last June, the sales were a little over two million. And we expect at least three million this year.
Tripod: So does the novelty aspect help sales?
CD: I think that's the only thing they can point to, really, is the novelty aspect. Because there are tons of jean manufacturers, and tons of jeans out there, and they're all pretty similar, and so to sell it, you've got to have something different going for you. The thing that we have different going for us is that these jeans are made in prison. There's nothing else we can really say about them that's different. We're not into styling them, so they don't have silver buckles or whatever. They're basic five pocket jeans, a lot like a lot other jeans you'll see. They're good, they're well made -- this program has spent a lot of time improving the product, to where it's as good as any other jeans, as far as the manufacturing quality goes, and as far as the style goes.
Tripod: What about the Prison Blues Web site?
CD: I do that ... The Department of Corrections was not involved in the development of the Web site, although we did have them take a look at it, make sure there were no serious objections. But one of the challenges in working with the Department of Corrections is that there are a lot of people there who are not very sympathetic to this whole program.
Tripod: Why is that?
CD: Well, there are people in Corrections who are more liberal and think that inmates should be rehabilitated and that work programs like this are a way to do it, and there are other people in Corrections who think that inmates should be punished and treated as the prisoners which they are. And those people don't particularly care for these programs.
Tripod: The Web site seems to go beyond the realm of advertising, by promoting awareness of prison issues, linking to Prison Life Magazine, etc.
CD: Exactly. Well, I think that my personal interest, and the interest of some of the people in the program, is to see that inmates get a benefit out of this. So I'm kind of sympathetic to some of the causes espoused by some of the sites that I'm linked to, which are causes for inmate rights, or getting more attention paid to inmate rehabilitation.
Tripod: How many people are employed by Prison Blues?
CD: Right now about sixty inmates.
Tripod: Is the program voluntary?
CD: Oh completely. But they do want to participate. In the movie "Shawshank Redemption," one of the inmates says that anything you can find to keep the time passing, without noticing it, is something you want in prison. We've got about two hundred inmates on the waiting list right now who want these jobs. It's just we've got to make more jeans, sell more jeans to create the jobs, because the program can't just hire inmates without having work for them to do. It has to remain profitable. It's not a profit as a business would normally think of it -- it's not making money so much as putting money back into the program.
Tripod: Is Oregon the only place in the country that lets prisoners earn money?
CD: Yes ... and now we're really pushing the Department to give us an ad budget, because with an ad budget we could really ramp up and sell a lot more jeans. The jeans business is a label business -- people don't buy jeans because of a particular look, so much as they buy them for the label. ... [Prison Blues] already has the image, but trying to convince these guys that run prisons about advertising is like talking to ducks or something, they really don't understand what you are talking about. So it's been a challenge, but we're getting close. We decided to do some advertising in Prison Life magazine -- a magazine by and for inmates -- and I'm trying to open up a page on our Web site about some issues relating to the death penalty. I'm not trying to get too far away from selling clothes, but it all relates.
Go directly to jail: visit the Prison Blues home page at http://www.teleport.com/~jailjean/
Map | Search | Help | Send Us Comments
