--:-- Sarah Gonzalez: Welcome to Planet Money. I'm Sarah Gonzalez.
--:-- Susan Sharon: Thanks for having me on the show.
--:-- Sarah Gonzalez: Today, we're talking about a new experiment in prisons: remote jobs paying fair market wages for people who are incarcerated. Susan Sharon from Maine Public Radio has been reporting on this story. Susan, tell me, who is this Darlene George and how did she make all this stuff happen?
--:-- Susan Sharon: Well, Darlene George is a regular young lady from Brooklyn, New York. She's talking to me, Susan Sharon, a local public radio reporter at Maine Public Radio, who interviewed Darlene recently.
--:-- Susan Sharon: How old are you?
--:-- Darlene George: I'll tell you that off the record.
--:-- Susan Sharon: Okay, thanks.
--:-- Susan Sharon: Darlene is talking to me because she has kind of a remarkable work situation right now. She's a grants program coordinator at a local health center in Maine.
--:-- Darlene George: So I monitor, scout, and look for grants, making sure we stay within regulations, guidelines of each grant.
--:-- Susan Sharon: She gets paid a salary. She's not hourly, but she generally tries to work seven to five-ish.
--:-- Darlene George: But if I am needed before the fact, I'm there. If I'm needed after the fact, I'm there. If I have a project I'm working on and it entails me working on a Saturday or Sunday, guess what? I'm doing it. That's my job.
--:-- Susan Sharon: Is it hard to do your job, you know, with those distractions and the noise around you and that sort of thing?
--:-- Darlene George: Well, what I will say is that I couldn't be more supported if I was on the outside.
--:-- Susan Sharon: This September would make two years I've been working completely full-time. From your cell?
--:-- Darlene George: Yeah, from my room.
--:-- Susan Sharon: Right, because we don't have, like, slamming doors.
--:-- Susan Sharon: Darlene works remotely from prison. She is currently incarcerated. I have a 40-year sentence. I have been in here for 16 years. And I think my earliest release date is in 2040. 2040.
--:-- Susan Sharon: So with good time, I'm quite sure that'll dwindle down a little bit.
--:-- Susan Sharon: Darlene is serving 40 years for murder. And Darlene's job, it is not a prison job, like, you know, working in the prison library, though she has done that too.
--:-- Susan Sharon: Do your colleagues that you interact with at the job, do they know that you're...?
--:-- Darlene George: Absolutely. Absolutely. 100%. Yes, they do.
--:-- Susan Sharon: Darlene does her job remotely from the main correctional center, where there may not be a lot of slamming doors, but there are still prison guards and prisoners and all the regular prison rules.
--:-- Darlene George: I literally, I work from my room. So I have all my equipment in my room. There's a sign that I put out on the thing that lets people know I'm Zooming, I'm in meetings. Please don't, you know, don't knock.
--:-- Susan Sharon: Like, of course, if they do their checks, they walk by, they know exactly what I'm doing. They can see me, I can see them.
--:-- Susan Sharon: And now Darlene's pay in this job, it is not the like 63 cents per hour you get for working as a prison cook or the $7 an hour that incarcerated people get for fighting active fires in California.
--:-- Susan Sharon: Darlene doesn't work for free like prisoners do in seven states. She's not paid minimum wage.
--:-- Susan Sharon: Can I ask you how much how much do you earn for your job? Are you comfortable telling me that?
--:-- Darlene George: Um, I'll tell you off the record because I don't want the people in the unit to feel some type of way.
--:-- Susan Sharon: So I'll definitely tell you.
--:-- Susan Sharon: Darlene gets paid enough that she would rather the other people in the prison not find out how much exactly.
--:-- Susan Sharon: And Darlene is not the only pretty well-paid remote worker behind bars in Maine.
--:-- Susan Sharon: My name is Preston Thorpe. Can you share anything about what you're getting paid?
--:-- Preston Thorpe: I'd prefer to keep my salary private, but I can say that it's definitely like what you would expect to see for like a senior level software engineer in the U.S.
--:-- Sarah Gonzalez: Is that okay to report?
--:-- Preston Thorpe: Yeah, that's okay. Yeah, he makes six figures.
--:-- Sarah Gonzalez: Hello and welcome to Planet Money. I'm Sarah Gonzalez.
--:-- Sarah Gonzalez: And today on the show, we have this great reporting from Maine Public Radio's Susan Sharon about a new experiment in prisons, remote jobs paying fair market wages.
--:-- Sarah Gonzalez: Maine was the first to do it and three other states have followed.
--:-- Susan Sharon: So today, how this kind of standard thing of having a job and getting a paycheck works in a restricted place like prison.
--:-- Susan Sharon: What it's like for the workers, what it's like for the employers who choose to hire them, and how the prison system is handling this new prison economy that has emerged.
--:-- Sarah Gonzalez: Experience AI that proactively helps you go from to-do to done faster. Unleash your superhuman potential today. Learn more at superhuman.com slash podcast.
--:-- Susan Sharon: Susan, thank you so much for joining us, for sharing the story with us.
--:-- Susan Sharon: Well, thank you so much for your interest in the story and for having me.
--:-- Susan Sharon: You did the thing that we love at Planet Money, which is you followed the whole thread.
--:-- Sarah Gonzalez: Such great reporting.
--:-- Susan Sharon: Susan Sharon is the local public radio reporter in Maine who spent time in prisons interviewing remote workers and the people who choose to hire them while they're incarcerated.
--:-- Susan Sharon: And she says this whole remote work thing all started because of the pandemic.
--:-- Susan Sharon: The growth of remote work happened kind of as a result of COVID.
--:-- Susan Sharon: Some people in prison were taking college classes. The educational classes they were taking suddenly moved online, and that sparked this idea.
--:-- Susan Sharon: It sparked this idea that maybe incarcerated people enrolled in college could, you know, take laptops into their cells with them and do their college classes online, like all the other students in the world on the outside were doing, right?
--:-- Susan Sharon: And things kind of expanded from there.
--:-- Susan Sharon: The remote work is an outgrowth of prison education.
--:-- Susan Sharon: There are people in main prisons that have gotten their bachelor's degrees, masters. I think there are several PhD candidates now.
--:-- Susan Sharon: So what are you gonna do with these people?
--:-- Susan Sharon: It like yes they get their they get their education but some of them may be serving several years
--:-- Susan Sharon: So what next?
--:-- Susan Sharon: Well how about some better work opportunities
--:-- Susan Sharon: The thinking was kind of like if a person in prison is allowed to have a laptop in their cells all day and night to do homework and take online classes, couldn't they have a laptop in their cells to do real outside world jobs too and get real outside world wages?
--:-- Susan Sharon: Now, not that many people have gotten this opportunity.
--:-- Susan Sharon: In all, since this whole thing started, just 45 people in main prisons have been able to get remote jobs.
--:-- Susan Sharon: Typically, you would not get a job because you're incarcerated, so.
--:-- Susan Sharon: Preston Thorpe is the one making six figures, which, by the way, is double what the corrections officers who guard him make.
--:-- Susan Sharon: And it's been a game changer for Preston.
--:-- Susan Sharon: And he said it's hard enough to get a job when you have a criminal record, let alone while you're still inside.
--:-- Susan Sharon: And now I feel like my life has a purpose.
--:-- Susan Sharon: Like, there's no situation right now that would cause me to do something where I would risk losing, like, my job, my computer.
--:-- Susan Sharon: Preston is 33 years old, and he told me that he's always been a computer guy, a computer nerd, he said, since he was 13 years old.
--:-- Susan Sharon: It's kind of what got him in trouble later in life.
--:-- Susan Sharon: He talked to me about buying drugs on the dark web and selling them.
--:-- Susan Sharon: And I think the second time he was convicted because he had a powerful synthetic opioid, much more deadly than fentanyl, capable of killing lots of people.
--:-- Susan Sharon: Preston is about nine years into his 20-ish year sentence.
--:-- Susan Sharon: He used to be in a different prison in a different state.
--:-- Susan Sharon: And he says he got in a lot of trouble there.
--:-- Susan Sharon: So much so that they transferred him to Maine.
--:-- Susan Sharon: Like, we need this person out of our custody.
--:-- Susan Sharon: And when he got to Maine, Preston started seeing possibilities.
--:-- Susan Sharon: School. Picking up coding again.
--:-- Susan Sharon: And he did super well.
--:-- Susan Sharon: So well.
--:-- Susan Sharon: No issues.
--:-- Susan Sharon: And eventually, he got a remote job as a lead principal engineer for this nonprofit that pushes for education in prisons.
--:-- Susan Sharon: And because Preston had a laptop, you know, in his cell all day and all night that he could use for certain approved things, Preston started contributing to this big open source coding project.
--:-- Susan Sharon: Basically, this company was going to attempt to rewrite this database called SQLite in Preston's favorite programming language.
--:-- Susan Sharon: Those that understand what that is will understand, right?
--:-- Susan Sharon: It's the most prevalent database on the planet.
--:-- Susan Sharon: It's on every cell phone, every computer.
--:-- Susan Sharon: Anyone could contribute to this open source project.
--:-- Susan Sharon: And Preston became a top contributor over and over again.
--:-- Susan Sharon: Preston was one of around four or five people who was in this very exclusive category of people who both stayed and did very high quality work.
--:-- Susan Sharon: Glauber Costa is the CEO of Terso, which was the company attempting this big rewrite.
--:-- Susan Sharon: And when he saw what Preston was contributing, he was like, who is this Preston dude?
--:-- Susan Sharon: So he looks him up on GitHub.
--:-- Susan Sharon: And that's how we found out, hold on a minute, this guy is in prison.
--:-- Susan Sharon: So eye-popping for sure.
--:-- Susan Sharon: When I read his profile, I couldn't believe it was real.
--:-- Susan Sharon: I mean, I couldn't believe it was real.
--:-- Susan Sharon: And then two weeks later, I just sent him a message.
--:-- Susan Sharon: Glauber assumed that communication with Preston would be impossible, but it turned out that Preston could do video calls.
--:-- Susan Sharon: I then find out that he is part of a program that would allow him to have a job even in prison now.
--:-- Susan Sharon: I don't offer him anything.
--:-- Susan Sharon: It's one of those things where you don't want to date your friend because you're afraid of destroying the friendship.
--:-- Susan Sharon: So I leave him be.
--:-- Susan Sharon: But over time, all the engineers at Tursault were like, we need to hire Preston.
--:-- Susan Sharon: When can we hire Preston?
--:-- Susan Sharon: And eventually Glauber's like, you know what?
--:-- Susan Sharon: Yeah. We knew the prison thing was the only thing stopping us.
--:-- Susan Sharon: And when I found out that we could actually work around it, I said, look, why wait?
--:-- Susan Sharon: Why wait?
--:-- Susan Sharon: Let's just do it now.
--:-- Susan Sharon: Glauber actually opened a position for Preston specifically.
--:-- Susan Sharon: But there was one big hurdle to clear.
--:-- Susan Sharon: Glauber's company, Terso, is a tech company.
--:-- Susan Sharon: They deal with confidential data, so they have all these data security compliance rules.
--:-- Susan Sharon: So Preston had to pass a background check.
--:-- Susan Sharon: This would be the hardest part of the process.
--:-- Susan Sharon: This is like, OK, we're going to run a background check on Preston, and obviously it will come, you know, he's in prison.
--:-- Susan Sharon: And he's done something.
--:-- Susan Sharon: Glauber's asking their security consultants, like, how do I work around this?
--:-- Susan Sharon: I'm about to hire a guy in prison.
--:-- Susan Sharon: He said, you're about to what?
--:-- Susan Sharon: Like, I'm about to hire a person in prison.
--:-- Susan Sharon: We're going to run a background check.
--:-- Susan Sharon: What do we do?
--:-- Susan Sharon: Turns out that the background check only checks the last seven years.
--:-- Susan Sharon: And Preston has been in prison for nine years.
--:-- Susan Sharon: So he is actually our cleanest background check.
--:-- Susan Sharon: He doesn't have a parking ticket.
--:-- Susan Sharon: And his background check is cleaner than mine.
--:-- Susan Sharon: Out of the fact that, you know, I have a parking ticket, he does not.
--:-- Susan Sharon: Preston is now a senior level software engineer at Terso.
--:-- Susan Sharon: And Glauber has gotten a lot of pushback for hiring Preston at all over anyone else.
--:-- Susan Sharon: Oh, this is a job that could have been given to another person in America.
--:-- Susan Sharon: And for me, it's like, look, I'm not giving a job to a person.
--:-- Susan Sharon: Like, I actually opened the position for Preston, right?
--:-- Susan Sharon: People have accused Glauber of turning to prison labor because it must be cheap.
--:-- Susan Sharon: We were accused the other day of just exploiting prison labor.
--:-- Susan Sharon: So that means they're exploiting.
--:-- Susan Sharon: Look, Preston is paid market rates.
--:-- Susan Sharon: Yeah, but Preston does put in a lot of hours.
--:-- Susan Sharon: The two things that he has that other software developers don't have, one of them, a lot of free time, right?
--:-- Susan Sharon: Because he has no other form of entertainment.
--:-- Susan Sharon: And I think the other thing that he has that is very fantastic is like this will to do better.
--:-- Susan Sharon: Preston says he works constantly, but it is self-imposed.
--:-- Susan Sharon: I kind of made a promise to myself that I would take advantage of, you know, of every hour that I had here and started looking at it like an opportunity to make something of myself.
--:-- Susan Sharon: And Preston has done something kind of remarkable with some of his earnings.
--:-- Susan Sharon: He bought a house.
--:-- Susan Sharon: From prison.
--:-- Susan Sharon: I did.
--:-- Susan Sharon: Yeah, it's not super glamorous, right?
--:-- Susan Sharon: It's a manufactured home.
--:-- Susan Sharon: But yeah, it's across the street from my parents.
--:-- Susan Sharon: So when I'm able to get out, I should be able to live across the street with my family.
--:-- Susan Sharon: After the break, what people in prison get to spend their salary on, on the inside, and of course, what they have to spend it on.
--:-- Susan Sharon: There's a list.
--:-- Sarah Gonzalez: This message comes from NPR sponsor Zendesk.
--:-- Sarah Gonzalez: Introducing the next generation of AI agents built to deliver resolutions for everyone.
--:-- Sarah Gonzalez: With an easy setup that can be completed in minutes, not months, Zendesk AI agents resolve 30% of interactions instantly, quickly giving your customers what they need.
--:-- Sarah Gonzalez: Loved by over 10 companies Zendesk AI makes service teams more efficient businesses run better and your customers happier
--:-- Sarah Gonzalez: That the Zendesk AI effect
--:-- Sarah Gonzalez: Find out more at zendesk
--:-- Randall Liberty: Sure.
--:-- Sarah Gonzalez: Randall Liberty, Commissioner of the Maine Department of Corrections.
--:-- Randall Liberty: Yeah.
--:-- Sarah Gonzalez: Liberty?
--:-- Randall Liberty: Yes.
--:-- Sarah Gonzalez: Really?
--:-- Randall Liberty: Yeah.
--:-- Sarah Gonzalez: I mean, like I run prisons and my last name is Freedom.
--:-- Randall Liberty: And I was a soldier too.
--:-- Randall Liberty: And yeah, so that's a topic of discussion sometimes.
--:-- Randall Liberty: Are you over it?
--:-- Randall Liberty: Yeah.
--:-- Sarah Gonzalez: Okay, let's move on.
--:-- Randall Liberty: Randall Liberty runs prisons in Maine, and it was his decision to allow incarcerated people to have remote jobs.
--:-- Susan Sharon: Susan Sharon also spoke with Randall, but we called him up ourselves, too, to talk about the economics here.
--:-- Randall Liberty: Now, Randall says remote work all started when this college in Maine called Colby College reached out to Randall.
--:-- Randall Liberty: They asked me if one of my residents that was incarcerated at the Maine State Prison could be an adjunct professor from the prison.
--:-- Randall Liberty: This person was getting his master's degree.
--:-- Randall Liberty: He was a hospice worker working with people who were dying in prison.
--:-- Randall Liberty: He was a canine trainer.
--:-- Randall Liberty: He was discipline-free.
--:-- Randall Liberty: And so after some consideration, Randall allowed it.
--:-- Randall Liberty: Yeah.
--:-- Sarah Gonzalez: What was this inmate's name?
--:-- Randall Liberty: This is a—
--:-- Randall Liberty: Do you not like to say?
--:-- Randall Liberty: Well, the challenge of that is there are victims.
--:-- Randall Liberty: And it was a serious crime.
--:-- Randall Liberty: We got a 40-year bid.
--:-- Randall Liberty: It was a home invasion.
--:-- Randall Liberty: And serious bodily injury happened to a young person and to her parent.
--:-- Randall Liberty: Like with a gun?
--:-- Randall Liberty: Machete.
--:-- Randall Liberty: Okay.
--:-- Randall Liberty: That's why we don't talk about it.
--:-- Randall Liberty: Yeah.
--:-- Randall Liberty: Randall has decided that the opportunity to do remote work is on the table for anyone, regardless of how serious their crime is, as long as they have no issues in prison and have at least a GED.
--:-- Randall Liberty: Maybe a backstory to note here is that before Randall was a soldier and a sheriff and a prison commissioner, Randall grew up with a dad who was in and out of prison for burglaries, arsons, other things.
--:-- Randall Liberty: As a result, we all suffered.
--:-- Randall Liberty: I mean, we grew up in a very difficult environment, my brothers and I.
--:-- Randall Liberty: So Randall has personal experience with incarceration and visiting his dad in prison in Maine.
--:-- Randall Liberty: Not only was I the incarcerator, but I guarded him at Somerset County Jail for three months.
--:-- Randall Liberty: I was the corrections officer.
--:-- Randall Liberty: I was 21 years old.
--:-- Randall Liberty: And I was in the same jail with him as an officer.
--:-- Randall Liberty: I was in the same unit.
--:-- Randall Liberty: So I'd go upstairs, and there were 15 people in that unit, and Dad was there.
--:-- Randall Liberty: And it'd be, good morning, Dad.
--:-- Randall Liberty: Good morning, Randy.
--:-- Randall Liberty: Could you hug him?
--:-- Randall Liberty: I wouldn't hug him because it wouldn't be appropriate.
--:-- Randall Liberty: But it was always good small talk.
--:-- Randall Liberty: Have you been in secret, like one time?
--:-- Randall Liberty: No, no, no, no.
--:-- Randall Liberty: You're a role follower, Randy.
--:-- Randall Liberty: Have to be.
--:-- Randall Liberty: And frankly, there was no training at the time.
--:-- Randall Liberty: And so I would literally ask him, what do we do now?
--:-- Randall Liberty: And he'd say, it's time for count.
--:-- Randall Liberty: I'd say, OK, line up for count.
--:-- Randall Liberty: I know it's ridiculous.
--:-- Randall Liberty: Very father-son.
--:-- Randall Liberty: That's my story, you know.
--:-- Randall Liberty: Randall is the first to say that those experiences shaped the kind of prison commissioner he ended up becoming.
--:-- Randall Liberty: And in thinking about allowing remote work in prison, Randall thought about how this would affect the victims of crimes, if there were victims involved.
--:-- Randall Liberty: He thought about how it could affect the people incarcerated, the people they left on the outside, like their children, their aging parents, and how this whole new prison economy would even work.
--:-- Randall Liberty: The first person to get this opportunity, the adjunct professor, ended up making $27,000.
--:-- Randall Liberty: And he had donated $1,000 to his local church in tithing in the community.
--:-- Randall Liberty: He paid for breaks for his mother so he could get the car inspected.
--:-- Randall Liberty: He paid for tuition for his nephew to go to college.
--:-- Randall Liberty: How do you know how he spends his money?
--:-- Randall Liberty: Do you have access to his bank account?
--:-- Randall Liberty: Yes.
--:-- Randall Liberty: All monies that are earned by residents, they all go to their internal accounts at the main Department of Corrections.
--:-- Randall Liberty: Yeah, the employer does a direct deposit to not the employee, but to the Department of Corrections.
--:-- Randall Liberty: So if they want to use their money, they put in a request to the finance department at the Department of Corrections saying like, I want to buy a house, I guess, or pay my child's college tuition.
--:-- Randall Liberty: And then a check is sent out to the outside.
--:-- Randall Liberty: It can take like a week to release the money.
--:-- Randall Liberty: Now, in terms of how people can use the money inside prison, they can't buy access to much except better snacks, better food in their cells, a few other perks.
--:-- Randall Liberty: Can they buy, like, you know, a TV?
--:-- Randall Liberty: Yes.
--:-- Randall Liberty: They can buy a game station.
--:-- Randall Liberty: They can buy, you know, any of those sorts of things.
--:-- Randall Liberty: So Preston Thorpe, who's making six figures, is his cell just like game console, TV, all the best snacks?
--:-- Randall Liberty: Preston would certainly have those things in his cell, in his room, and he has a laptop.
--:-- Randall Liberty: And Randall really gets pushback over all of this.
--:-- Randall Liberty: Some people say that prison should be punitive, that people shouldn't get these perks or all this money.
--:-- Randall Liberty: To those tougher on crime people, Randall says, well, what if they owe victims money?
--:-- Randall Liberty: There are times when somebody that has an addiction issue has done 30 or 40 burglars before they're caught, and they owe $100,000 in restitution to the victims of crime.
--:-- Randall Liberty: If somebody's doing the time and they have the opportunity to do remote work and make fair market wages, they can pay that debt down.
--:-- Randall Liberty: Victim restitution.
--:-- Randall Liberty: If a person in prison has a remote job, they need to pay off whatever debt they owe to victims.
--:-- Randall Liberty: Randall made a list of priorities for where the money was going to go, and victim restitution is number one.
--:-- Randall Liberty: There's also court fees and fines.
--:-- Randall Liberty: So usually when people all over the country are arrested and put in jail or prison, when they walk out, they walk out with a bill.
--:-- Randall Liberty: They might have to pay for the stenographer, the judge, the arrest itself.
--:-- Randall Liberty: If they have a job, they can chip away at that debt.
--:-- Randall Liberty: While they're still in prison, 25% of their salary goes to victim restitution.
--:-- Randall Liberty: And once that's paid off, then 25% goes to court fees and fines.
--:-- Randall Liberty: You know, so we don't capture the whole paycheck and make it a frustrating experience for them.
--:-- Randall Liberty: If people have children and owe any child support, that comes out of their paycheck too, automatically, before it even gets into the hands of the Department of Corrections.
--:-- Randall Liberty: Same with all the state and federal taxes.
--:-- Randall Liberty: Taxes come out.
--:-- Randall Liberty: And then they also pay 10% of their salary to room and board.
--:-- Randall Liberty: And then 10% goes to like a savings account for when they get out.
--:-- Randall Liberty: And then the remaining money sits in the account of the residents to do as they wish.
--:-- Randall Liberty: Last year, Randall says people working remote jobs behind bars earned about $400,000.
--:-- Randall Liberty: That's gross income.
--:-- Randall Liberty: The Department of Corrections says full-time workers earned between $40,000 a year to more than $90,000.
--:-- Randall Liberty: But then some get a full benefits package too, medical, dental.
--:-- Randall Liberty: I have individuals that are receiving health care for their families while they're incarcerated.
--:-- Randall Liberty: I have some that have a retirement, 401K, tuition reimbursement, paid sick, paid vacation.
--:-- Randall Liberty: Randall feels like he's been really thoughtful about how he's prioritized everything.
--:-- Randall Liberty: You know, obviously I have to talk to both sides of the aisle.
--:-- Randall Liberty: We have to have a conversation about the benefit to the community the benefit to survivors of crimes you know victims of crimes that are owed money
--:-- Randall Liberty: And I say to them if you a fiscal conservative do you have any opposition to Preston or anyone else you know paying for their families, feeding their children, paying their mortgages, or would you rather have them be on the state?
--:-- Randall Liberty: On the state.
--:-- Randall Liberty: So remember that room and board thing.
--:-- Randall Liberty: The Department of Corrections takes 10% off everyone's salary.
--:-- Randall Liberty: So letting people in prison work generates revenue for the prisons.
--:-- Randall Liberty: Some advocates argue that there are too many prison fees and that the state shouldn't take so much of their salary because people are already paying for their crimes with incarceration.
--:-- Randall Liberty: Some lawmakers in Maine recently said that they want to study the impact that these fees can have on prisoners.
--:-- Randall Liberty: Like, could this new economic model create some weird incentives?
--:-- Randall Liberty: Last year, Maine prisons collected about $40,000 in room and board fees off of these remote workers.
--:-- Randall Liberty: That's good.
--:-- Randall Liberty: It's not like phenomenal, right?
--:-- Randall Liberty: Or what is it?
--:-- Randall Liberty: No, but it's a contribution.
--:-- Randall Liberty: Randall had to ask for permission to charge room and board, and the legislature landed on 10%.
--:-- Randall Liberty: Can you see a future where so many inmates or residents are doing remote work and people over time go, let's take 20 percent of their salary, 30 percent, 40 percent?
--:-- Randall Liberty: Do you think about whether that could happen?
--:-- Randall Liberty: Yeah, I'm not, you know, it could happen.
--:-- Randall Liberty: That is what's happening in Alabama, for example.
--:-- Randall Liberty: In Alabama, certain people in prison are allowed to leave the prison every day to go to work in person at McDonald's, Burger King.
--:-- Randall Liberty: And in general, the workers from prison there get like $7 an hour.
--:-- Randall Liberty: But the Alabama Department of Corrections takes 40% of their salary.
--:-- Randall Liberty: Alabama makes hundreds of millions of dollars in the cut they take from workers in prison.
--:-- Randall Liberty: Actually, about $450 million a year.
--:-- Randall Liberty: So some people and some economists argue that there is like a half a billion dollar incentive to keep people in prison working.
--:-- Randall Liberty: And maybe a disincentive to grant people parole if they're up for release.
--:-- Randall Liberty: So with that context in mind, I'm just curious if like for those who might hear this and go like, I can see a version where, you know, it becomes more, I don't know, exploitative potentially.
--:-- Randall Liberty: Not on my watch, you know, not on my watch.
--:-- Randall Liberty: We have no interest in balancing the budget on the backs of residents.
--:-- Randall Liberty: We know that the people in our care are there for mental health issues, for substance use disorder, poverty, neglect, trauma, learning disabilities.
--:-- Randall Liberty: And in my opinion, those are not the people we should balance on their backs.
--:-- Randall Liberty: Okay.
--:-- Randall Liberty: There were a couple of bills in the main legislature where the Department of Corrections is asking to increase the fees that you're allowed to charge people in prison who do remote work, right?
--:-- Randall Liberty: So what are just, okay, do you want to just tell me what you're asking for?
--:-- Randall Liberty: Yeah, so we currently have no funds for technology.
--:-- Randall Liberty: Okay, basically the Department of Corrections asked the legislature to let them charge a fee if people want a laptop in prison.
--:-- Randall Liberty: We believe that if people have access to remote work, there should be some ability for them to pay for that, like we do.
--:-- Randall Liberty: On the outside, all of us pay our technology fee, right?
--:-- Randall Liberty: And internet fee.
--:-- Randall Liberty: What kind of fee are we talking?
--:-- Randall Liberty: Yeah, I don't have the bill in front of me, but it's a small amount.
--:-- Randall Liberty: It's like hundreds of dollars or like $1,000 or multiple thousands?
--:-- Randall Liberty: No, no, I think it's $10.
--:-- Randall Liberty: It's a very small money.
--:-- Randall Liberty: Oh, like a small fee.
--:-- Randall Liberty: Yeah, very small money.
--:-- Randall Liberty: Well, it could be $10, but it could be up to $35.
--:-- Randall Liberty: And this is per month, okay?
--:-- Randall Liberty: So the fees, even in Maine, are growing.
--:-- Randall Liberty: But Randall was adamant that his Department of Corrections is not going to tack on a bunch of other new fees for remote workers, that it's just that laptop fee.
--:-- Randall Liberty: But what if once you're not the commissioner of the Department of Corrections, like, do you worry about like, oh, am I opening the door to?
--:-- Randall Liberty: That's the challenge.
--:-- Randall Liberty: I have 14 months.
--:-- Randall Liberty: In 14 months, a new prison commissioner comes in.
--:-- Randall Liberty: See, this is what I mean, Randall.
--:-- Randall Liberty: This is what I was talking about when I was like, but then you leave and then what happens?
--:-- Randall Liberty: What we try to do is try to create programs and have proof of concept with data.
--:-- Randall Liberty: And when we have 65% of individuals returning to custody, we need to do better.
--:-- Randall Liberty: You know, the taxpayers need a better return on investment.
--:-- Randall Liberty: And in Maine, we currently have a 21% return to custody rate.
--:-- Randall Liberty: This works.
--:-- Randall Liberty: Sure.
--:-- Randall Liberty: I could see that the next person would say like, oh, this is working well.
--:-- Randall Liberty: We're going to continue it.
--:-- Randall Liberty: But like, we're going to charge way more.
--:-- Randall Liberty: We're going to charge what Alabama charges, a 40% fee.
--:-- Randall Liberty: And then people walk out with nothing again.
--:-- Randall Liberty: Yeah.
--:-- Randall Liberty: And it's like the same thing.
--:-- Randall Liberty: Like that's the perverse incentive structure that I think about.
--:-- Randall Liberty: Yeah, so I do get that.
--:-- Randall Liberty: I can tell that to people locally here in Maine and try to set that example of maybe a better way of doing corrections.
--:-- Randall Liberty: And, you know, for me, it's what we're doing is consistent with treating people that are incarcerated with dignity and respect.
--:-- Randall Liberty: Currently, there are just 27 people in Maine prisons with remote jobs.
--:-- Randall Liberty: And it tends to be people with degrees like Darlene or unique skills like Preston.
--:-- Randall Liberty: So some say Maine will never be like Alabama, where thousands and thousands of prisoners generate revenue for the state, because not everyone will have the skills and not every employer will want to hire people who are incarcerated.
--:-- Randall Liberty: However, Randall can see a future where maybe incarcerated people without a super special skill can have a good paying remote job too, like working at a call center.
--:-- Sarah Gonzalez: If you're interested in other episodes about the cost of incarceration, the economics of prisons, we have linked to a bunch of episodes in our show notes.
--:-- Sarah Gonzalez: Go check them out.
--:-- Sarah Gonzalez: And if you're a fan of Planet Money, consider leaving us a review on the podcast app of your choice.
--:-- Sarah Gonzalez: Ratings and reviews really help other people find this show.
--:-- Sarah Gonzalez: Listener Traven Adventure recently left us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts.
--:-- Sarah Gonzalez: I'm going to read it now.
--:-- Sarah Gonzalez: Traven wrote, Thank you so much for continuing to host this excellent podcast.
--:-- Sarah Gonzalez: I've been a listener to NPR for a long time and thoroughly enjoy them.
--:-- Sarah Gonzalez: This podcast is particularly enlightening as well as entertaining.
--:-- Sarah Gonzalez: Traven, we love to hear it.
--:-- Sarah Gonzalez: Thanks for the nice words.
--:-- Sarah Gonzalez: Today's episode of Planet Money was produced by Sam Yellow Horse Kessler with some reporting help from Vito Emanuel.
--:-- Sarah Gonzalez: It was edited by Jess Jiang, fact-checked by Sierra Juarez, and engineered by Robert Rodriguez with help from Patrick Murray.
--:-- Sarah Gonzalez: Our executive producer is Alex Goldmark.
--:-- Sarah Gonzalez: Special thanks to Mara Sanchez at Alliance for Higher Education in Prison.
--:-- Sarah Gonzalez: And of course, extra special thanks to Susan Sharon for sharing all of her reporting with us.
--:-- Sarah Gonzalez: I'm Sarah Gonzalez.
--:-- Sarah Gonzalez: This is NPR.
--:-- Sarah Gonzalez: Thanks for listening.
--:-- Sarah Gonzalez: This message comes from Osea.
--:-- Sarah Gonzalez: Their Andaria Algae Body Butter is a hit for everyone on your holiday list.
--:-- Sarah Gonzalez: Osea's Black Friday offer is on.
--:-- Sarah Gonzalez: Earn up to seven free gifts, including full sizes and exclusive merch.
--:-- Sarah Gonzalez: No code needed.
--:-- Sarah Gonzalez: More at oseamalibu.com.
