Print and garment workshops make up bulk of prison?s industries program
By Iain Woessner
Rawlins Times
RAWINS, Wyo. (AP) — “The real product is the inmate.”
Those are WY Brand Site Manager Paul Metevier’s words, encapsulating in a sense the overall mission of the Wyoming State Penitentiary: a place where men and women go into as criminals and come out as neighbors.
The process by which that is accomplished might be found amidst the quiet buzzing hum of sewing machines, manned by orange-clad inmates dutifully dedicated to the task of sewing, stitching and cutting cloth. They are all workers at the facility’s garment shop, one of two sizable industrial workshops that serve as the bulk of the Pen’s prison industries program.
“We’re really focusing on the soft skills, the hard skills, teaching them how to come to work, how to act in a work environment, how to act professionally with others, as well as some of the hard skills like working the equipment, the machinery,” Metevier said. “Give them something to go out with.”
Metevier swells with pride as he talks about the Pen’s industries programs, manifest as a pair of print and garment workshops. He showcases two very different, but equally diligent, workplaces. The garment shop is enormous, with numerous stations and rows of tables bearing sewing machines and model clothing. There’s a decent amount of workers — inmates distinct in their orange clothes — sewing and stitching, measuring cloth and making cuts.
If not for the prison uniforms and the presence of uniformed supervisors, it’d be indistinguishable from an ordinary workplace.
“We run it like a business,” Metevier said. “They’re not forced to be there. We’re not going out and saying ‘hey, you’re coming to work in industries.’”
There’s an application process the prisoners must go through in order to be accepted onto the industries’ staff. They have to fill out a form and write a letter explaining why they want to do the work. Metevier said the Pen focuses primarily on high-risk inmates, hoping to target those most likely to repeat their crimes in the hopes of preventing them from doing so.
“We’re giving them real skills that they can take, and the ultimate goal is to reduce recidivism so they don’t come back,” he said, adding that they try to pick inmates with 3-to-5 years remaining on their sentences. “That way we have some time to develop them before they hit the street.”
The benefit is more than practical for the inmates; it also serves to boost their self-worth.
“They take a lot of pride in what they do. In fact, sometimes I have to pull the reigns when we have tours like today, because they’ll want to be involved and even sometimes sell the product that they’re making,” Metevier said. “We are under strict laws and regulation in how and who we deal with, because one of the things we don’t do is compete with the local economy.”
The economic impact of prison industries is determined by an advisory board that consists of business leaders from across the state. Carbon County Economic Development Corporation head Cindy Wallace serves on that board, and it was the leadership class that she’d helped organize that was touring the facility the day Metevier spoke to the Daily Times.
Metevier showcased the various workshops, though the print shop seemed to be the real treat of the tour. Metevier told the leadership class that this was the job that inmates really vied for. The inmates worked quietly there, but they were relaxed, they moved about freely and spoke to each other and Metevier with a mutual respect.
Again, if not for the trappings of incarceration, it’d be easy to think you were touring a commercial workshop. Certainly, the inmates looked rougher, more tattooed than your typical print shop workforce, but Metevier spoke to them as though they were employees. And when a member of the tour asked to see a finished product, several of those employees immediately leapt to fetch materials for Metevier to use.
“You emulate what you want to receive,” Metevier said. “I believe that if you do that enough, they start to emulate what you want them to reflect. When you do that, most of them are very respectful, really polite. They are very proud and happy to be there.”
Metevier said that he will show them positive feedback that their products receive, when he gets it. One of the shops they run is a braille shop, which would create printed materials that blind or visually disabled persons can read, and Metevier said that the workers there appreciate the impact their products have.
“With the braille shop, dealing with one of the girls who is going to the high school, her being successful is something that really motivates them,” he said. “They take ownership in it. I’ve talked to some (of the inmates) and they feel it’s a way they give back to the community.”
The capabilities of these shops are quite comprehensive, and the program is of benefit to the state on a financial level as well as on a correctional one.
“We do jeans, release jeans, khaki pants for the officers, we do the (uniform) tops, we’ve reconditioned seat covers for seat vehicles to save the state some money as well,” Metevier said. “When you think of the inmate population, they are going to work one way or the other. So we’re putting them to work making something with a product. We’re paying them either way and we’re making a product the state can use, and the state was paying that labor anyway, so we’re essentially getting things at cost. So (it saves) tremendous amounts of money.”
Metevier has worked in corrections for some years now, working his way up as a uniformed officer, and has been doing industries work for four years, two of them at the Pen itself.
“You get the largest impact to make a difference (working in industries),” Metevier said. “I do things outside in my private life, like search and rescue and sometimes we go feed people at the nursing homes around the holidays. This is an area in corrections where we can actually make a difference and a contribution not only to the public but to the inmates, who go out and stay out.”
The Wyoming Department of Corrections reported in December that the success rate for felony probationers in 2016 was 66.8 percent, the highest since 2008, and that overall parolee success rates, defined as parolees who complete probation and do not return to the care of the DOC within three years’ of being released was at 71.3 percent. Misdemeanor success was 59.3 percent.
