September 28, 1999
Bill would repeal Unicor procurement mandate
                   By Brian Friel
                   letters@govexec.com
Federal buyers would no longer be required to purchase products from the Bureau of Prisons' Unicor program, under a bill approved by a House panel last week.

On Thursday, the House Judiciary Committee Crime Subcommittee passed H.R. 2558, the Prison Industries Reform Act. The bill would eliminate, over seven years, a rule that requires agencies to buy certain products from Unicor. Unicor employs 20,000 federal prison inmates in a worker training program. Unicor inmates make everything from furniture to clothing to circuit boards.

Federal agencies are currently Unicor's only customers; last year they spent $534.3 million on Unicor products and services. While eliminating the mandatory purchasing requirement, H.R. 2558 would allow Unicor to sell to private companies, in an effort to bring more business to the prisons so that more inmates could be put to work..............
HR2558   http://thomas.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/C?c106:./temp/~c1066NLM4n


**Inmates are charged $3.00 (or more) for each medical visit, pay for their own toiletries, have in some states 20% of all funding sent to them by families taken by the state..and are paid between .28 and 1.28 per hour for their work in the Prison Industrial complex.  They have become the new "slave" class in this country.