Outsourcing Unit To Be Set Up In Indian Jail 249
littlekorea writes "Indian outsourcing firm Radiant Info Systems has found yet another way to lower wages — hiring data entry clerks from a local prison. Some 200 inmates will be paid $2.20 a day to handle manual data entry tasks for Radiant's BPO deals in a pilot for the scheme. Radiant execs told the BBC that the deal will provide skills to inmates when they are released from prison. No doubt they would also be due for a pay raise." They're going to need to cut wages if they want to be competitive with the 100,000 US prisoners who work for 25 cents an hour.
Competitive... (Score:4, Informative)
$.25 an hour x 8 hours a day=$2 a day
Seems fairly competitive to me...
25 cents? Not in the feds... (Score:5, Informative)
I just came home from a lovely four year stay at a fed prison. Yes, you can eventually make $.25 an hour, but you have to work up to that.
See federal (BOP) pay scales [justice.gov] here.
FPI (UNICOR [unicor.gov]) is the prison industries. Read: slave labor for government profit. At the facility I was at there was a data processing factory, fixing bad OCR scans by entering Postscript commands.
However, anyone with any computer skills was forbidden from working there, so my job was Captain's Crew...cleaning the sidealks for half hour every day. Nice use of my MCSE, no?
US Prisons (Score:3, Informative)
Re:scary thought (Score:5, Informative)
Radiant: we're a little short on staff -- think you could raise the penalty for jaywalking?
Congressman: can do!
This exact sort of thing is already happening in the U.S. except rather than keeping people in prison to make them work, the prison lobby wants to keep people in prison for the sake of needing to build more prisons. We've got both the prisons' investors and prison guard unions [talkleft.com] constantly lobbying for harsher punishments for lesser offenses. It's a scary to think that it's profitable for anyone to lock people up and throw away the key...
Re:Skills...and a sat image of FCI Elkton! (Score:3, Informative)
Oh, before anyone comments on the math:
Each unit (building) was made up of two sub-units. Four toilets per sub-unit, 8 per unit.
Wanna see the place? [bing.com]
Re:25 cents? Not in the feds... (Score:5, Informative)
Uh huh. And everyone that ends up in prison:
A) Deserves fully to be there, and
B) Was treated fairly and justly by the US Justice system.
No disrespect intended at all, but you have much to learn. I hope your lesson isn't as difficult as mine was. The justice system in this country is insane and grossly unfair.
The US has 3% of the world's population and 25% of it's prison population. Numerically and per capita, we have the highest prison population on the planet...and that includes China..a tougher regime that is three times our size.
Re:25 cents? Not in the feds... (Score:5, Informative)
Only from people who actually believe what they see on TV. Prison can be very violent, but that stupid "don't bend over for the soap" stuff doesn't happen. In fact, even suggesting it is a good way to get shanked.
CSI, Law and Order, Prison Break, etc are utter propaganda.
Re:25 cents? Not in the feds... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:25 cents? Not in the feds... (Score:4, Informative)
Re:scary thought (Score:1, Informative)
We're already there. See War on Drug.
also, judge(s) too. [philly.com]