California Prison Industry Authority
California Prison Industry Authority (CALPIA) is a self-supporting state entity that reduces recidivism, increases prison safety, and enhances public safety by providing offenders productive work and training opportunities. It was formerly California Correctional Industries which started in 1947 and reconstituted CALPIA in 1982. CALPIA manages over 100 manufacturing, service, and consumable industries within the 34 California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR) institutions and provides over 7,000 offender assignments.
CALPIA is overseen by the Prison Industry Board, which acts much like a corporate board of directors. The Board is composed of 11 members. The Secretary of CDCR serves as a Member and Chair of the Board. The Governor appoints four members (two to represent organized labor and two to represent industry). The Speaker of the Assembly appoints two members (representing the general public). The Senate Rules Committee appoints two members (representing the general public). The Secretary of Transportation or designee and the Director of General Services or designee also serve on the Board.
CALPIA’s program goal is to support the CDCR mission, by producing trained offenders who have job skills, good work habits, basic education and job support in the community, so when they parole they never return to prison. CALPIA offenders receive industry-accredited certifications that employers desire. CALPIA offender participants must achieve a General Education Development (GED) degree within two years to continue participating in CALPIA.
CALPIA has three statutory objectives (Under the Penal Code Sections 2800-2818) : 1) To develop and operate industrial, agricultural and service enterprises that provide work opportunities for offenders under the jurisdiction of CDCR and serve government agencies with products and services to commensurate with their needs. 2) To create and maintain working conditions within CALPIA enterprises as much like those which prevail in private industry as possible, to assure offenders assigned therein the opportunity to work productively to earn funds, and to acquire or improve effective work habits or occupational skills. 3) Operate work programs for offenders that are self-supporting through the generation of sufficient funds from the sale of products and services to pay all its expenses, thereby avoiding the cost of alternative offender programming by CDCR. CALPIA receives no annual appropriation from the Legislature.
The goods and services produced by CALPIA’s enterprises are sold predominately to departments of the State of California, as well as other government entities. CDCR is CALPIA’s largest customer and accounted for 59.6% percent of all sales in FY 2014-15. Other major State customers include Other major State customers include the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV), the Department of State Hospitals (DSH), the Department of Healthcare Services (DHS), the Department of Transportation (Caltrans), the Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE), the California Highway Patrol (CHP), the Department of Veteran Affairs (CDVA), the Department of General Services (DGS), the Department of Military, and the Department of Parks and Recreation (DPR).
Joint and Free Venture Programs
On behalf of CDCR, CALPIA manages California’s Joint and Free Venture Program. The Joint and Free Venture Program was established in 1990 upon passage of Proposition 139, The Prison Inmate Labor Initiative. This created rehabilitative opportunities for offenders to gain valuable work experience and job skills training. Offenders work for private companies in prison and earn a comparable industry wage. The program is available to businesses that are planning to expand, open a new enterprise or division, returning from offshore or relocating to California from another state.
The Joint Venture Program (JVP) operates in California’s adult correctional institutions and the Free Venture Program (FVP) operates within California’s juvenile facilities. Both programs prepare offenders for successful reintegration into the community.
Offenders are paid wages that are subject to deductions for room and board, crime victim restitution, prisoner family support, trust account, and mandatory offender savings for release. In addition, offender-employees pay federal and state taxes. State and Federal law mandates the deduction of 20 percent of the offenders’ net wages to compensate victims of crime. The JVP disbursed more than $91,422 for crime victim restitution in FY 2014-15. As of October 2012, local government correctional facilities may also participate in the JVP.
Industry Employment Program
CALPIA developed the Industry Employment Program (IEP) to enhance the ability of offender workers to obtain meaningful jobs upon release and successfully transition from prison to the community and the workforce. This effort supports CALPIA’s goal to reduce recidivism and contribute to safer communities.
Through the IEP, CALPIA offender workers are evaluated for improvement in job skills, education, experience and work habits. The IEP provides offenders access to nationally accredited certifications and internal skill proficiency certificates.
All CALPIA offenders must have a high school diploma or GED within two years to continue participating in CALPIA programs.
The IEP provides transition to employment services and information. An appointment at the DMV is arranged to provide valid identification, within a week after parole. Information and request forms are provided for a social security card, birth certificate, child support and veteran’s benefits. The IEP also provides access to a statewide resource guide for paroling offenders.
Career Technical Education
The CALPIA CTE program was established in 2006. The program began as a pre-apprenticeship program with instruction being administered by journeyman instructors under contract from local trade labor unions representing Carpentry, Construction Labor, and Iron Working. Program graduates, upon parole are able to obtain employment in their specific apprenticeship with trade tools and their first year of union dues provided by CALPIA. The program also includes Marine Technology (Commercial Diving), Facilities Maintenance and in 2014, CALPIA added a technology component to their CTE portfolio with Autodesk Computer-Aided Design (CAD) and Code.7370, or Computer Coding.
To date, the CALPIA CTE program has been one of the most effective rehabilitation programs in California. In 2012, the Prison Industry Board approved an assessment report of the CALPIA CTE program from FYs 2007-08 through 2010-11. The report shows that cumulatively, CALPIA CTE graduates have a recidivism rate of 7.13%. Additionally, the recidivism cost avoidance from the CALPIA CTE program is over $10 million during the period. The full study is available at.
The CALPIA CTE program offers the following training: 1. Pre-Apprentice Carpentry 2. Pre-Apprentice Construction Labor 3. Iron Working 4. Commercial Diving 5. Facilities Maintenance 6. AutoCAD (Computer-Aided Design) 7. Computer Coding