Lawyer Slams Prison Wages

In the prison industries program, in which he and other inmates were required to work, he was assigned to water the prison gardens for five hours a day, 20 days a month, and paid $19 each month, or 19 cents an hour, Serra said. He said other prisoners whose work was much more arduous were paid between 5 cents and $1.65 an hour. "Prison industries is a dirty secret," Serra said, describing a nationwide network of prison camps churning out products made by low-paid inmates for contractors and federal agencies that, he said, might otherwise buy the same goods from unionized private plants. He also sang the praises of "fabulous jailhouse lawyers" and of a multiracial society of inmates at Lompoc, where "white-collar millionaires and people right out of the ghetto were enjoying themselves together," united by their hatred of prison guards. It was vintage Serra. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/03/22/BAGILOPM0K1.DTL

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