The Federal Prison Industries program, whose brand name is Unicor, is a prison labor program meant to rehabilitate inmates, teach them a trade and enable them to earn money while they're locked up. In short, Unicor has prisoners making goods and providing services. Unicor claims they reduce recidivism and increase post-imprisonment employment, but ultimately prison labor is a thorny issue that raises questions well beyond the scope of this blog.

What is within our purview is the range of items the prisoners make—and the services they provide. We all know that prisoners make license plates, but I didn't realize they also make prescription eyewear, apparel and office furniture. As for the services, I was mildly surprised to see they provide strongly competitive call center staffing (Unicor's talking point is that the labor wages are as inexpensive as overseas wages, but with native English speakers).

And I was absolutely stunned to see that they offer CAD services:

They've got a video (unembeddable) showing examples of their CAD animations and such here.

“prison labor is a thorny issue that raises questions well beyond the scope of this blog” Should supply chain be outside of your scope? We’re not Yanko Design here. This is why Papanek said designers are dangerous.

The only question raised is "is this legalized slavery?" and the answer is "yes."

I use a company from time to time in Florida that makes all the marine grade lumber that they use for DOT work.  Its always weird to get, "Hello, this is Inmate Vasquez, how can I help you?" 

I’m a lapsed industrial designer. I was born in NYC and figured I’d die there, but a few years ago I abandoned New York to live on a farm in the countryside with my wife. We have six dogs.

Test it out; it only takes a single click to unsubscribe

Don't have an account? Join Now

Already have an account? Sign In

By creating a Core77 account you confirm that you accept the Terms of Use

Please enter your email and we will send an email to reset your password.

Test it out; it only takes a single click to unsubscribe