Prison Work Programs

As of September 1998, about 1,400 inmates in federal and state prisons--out of a population of 1.2 million inmates--had access to personal information through prison work programs, according to prison industry officials. About 1,100 inmates had access to names and dates of birth or Social Security numbers. These inmates were doing work, such as data entry, for the federal, state, or local governments. The Bureau of Prisons and all of the 19 states responding to GAO's survey reported using various safeguards to prevent inmates from misusing the information. The safeguards range from close supervision to selective hiring to security checks at the exits from the work areas. Questionnaire respondents described nine incidents in which inmates misused personal information or names and addresses or telephone numbers obtained through prison work programs. In four of the incidents, inmates either physically removed information from the work areas or memorized material. In five of the incidents, the work programs were discontinued.

GAO noted that: (1) on September 30, 1998, of approximately 1.2 million inmates, about 1,400 in BOP and 19 state prison systems had access to personal information through correctional industry work programs, based on the questionnaire responses from correctional industry officials; (2) of these 1,400 inmates, about 1,100 had access to names and dates of birth or Social Security numbers; (3) these inmates were performing work, such as data entry, for the federal, state, or local governments; (4) BOP and all the 19 states reported using a variety of safeguards to prevent inmates from misusing the information; (5) the safeguards cited by the largest number of states were close supervision, selective hiring (e.g., excluding inmates convicted of sex offenses or fraud), confidentiality agreements, and security checks at the exits from the work areas; (6) the federal government and seven states in which inmates had access to personal information were identified as having either enacted statutes or had bills pending that related to limiting which inmates could perform work involving personal information; (7) less than one-hundredth of 1 percent of BOP's and no more than 22 percent of any state's fiscal year 1998 gross correctional industry income was generated from contracts that resulted in inmates having access to personal information; (8) six states reported that less than 1 percent of their gross correctional industry income was earned from these contracts; (9) about 5,500 inmates in BOP and 31 state prison systems had access to only names and addresses or telephone numbers through correctional industry work program contracts or support work; (10) the three safeguards that the largest number of states and BOP reported using were similar to those used when inmates had access to personal information--close supervision, security checks at the exits from the work areas, and selective hiring; (11) questionnaire respondents described nine incidents in which inmates misused personal information or names and addresses or telephone numbers obtained from correctional industry work programs; (12) in four of the nine incidents, inmates removed information from the work areas, either physically or by memorization; and (13) in five of the incidents, the work programs were discontinued.