The building, of course, came with new furniture. On the first day of class, I noticed that the furniture came with tags, as you can see here:
That's an awfully fancy "do not remove" mattress tag, don't you think?Upon closer inspection, you can read that it is not a "do not remove" mattress tag; but, instead, a proud proclamation of the furniture manufacturer:
In case you can't see, the tag says, "This product is a representative of the quality, dedication and craftsmanship of our inmate work force and staff at our MCE Upholstery Shop, located at the Maryland Correctional Institution -- Hagerstown." MCE stands for Maryland Correctional Enterprises.
The students never quite know what to make of this. The English composition professor who had the class before me wants one of her students to take this on for a research paper.
I think, "How nice that, when teaching about the convict labor system in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, I have a prime example of its descendant right here in my classroom."
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4 comments:
Up until a couple of years, our university system was required to buy all our furniture from Prison Industries -- so there was a built-in market for convict labor. Perhaps Maryland is the same?
(I think some court here finally ruled it illegal, as it was costing the universities way more than they would have paid otherwise.)
Prisoners tell me they print our letterhead, or did at one time. We have inmate labor on campus now, for gardening.
i don't know what the province calls their prison manufacturing arm, but the federal system is called "corcan" for corrections canada. they sew bags for bulk buys, manufacture metal materials and other things. it teaches viable trades to the men in prison that they can actually used out in the community like industrial sewing (there's a demand for experienced industrial sewers) and welding as well as carpentry and a few other things. it brings money into the prison as well. they used to have a farm up at sask pen but they closed it down.
there are so few women (under 800 across the country) in the federal prison that it's an expensive proposition to teach them employment trades. cooking is the only one i can think of offhand. they're not near the men's prisons so they can't even combine the training groups. women get the shit end of that stick big time.
Hey, our library chairs are made by convict labour, too. I'm not sure if it is provincial or federal, but they are lovely pieces of furniture. Just do have a little weird feeling about the sourcing at times, though, yup.
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