Our Taxe Dollars Hard At Work -Toxic Metals Tied to Work in Prisons

Nice. Our taxes pay to create long term health problems so in the future, we can spend even more tax money on medical treatment. Meanwhile, corporate/government entities pocket profits coming and going. How is this helping REHABILITATE anyone? Why are we forced to pay out of our hard earned money to fund this crap and these programs that DO NOT benefit either society or the prisoners we have to house.

 Excerpt from the NY TIMES...

“We have said all along that prisoners should not be managing toxic waste, and the federal government should never allow the export of such wastes to developing countries,” said Jim Puckett, executive director of the Basel Action Network, a group that advocates for rigorous standards for recycling electronic waste.

“Now we are finding out that not only did the federal government continue to allow it,” Mr. Puckett said, “they were doing it themselves and may still be doing it to this day.”
The recycling work is overseen by Unicor, a unit of the Federal Bureau of Prisons that employs inmates to manufacture items like furniture and license plates. Since 1997, it has accepted contracts for recycling computer monitors, televisions, printers and other electronic waste. 



Although the study covered 10 prisons that recycled electronic waste, two — the Federal Correctional Institution in Dublin, Calif., and La Tuna in Anthony, Tex. — had ended those operations by the time the inspector general’s field investigation opened in 2006.
As of 2009, Unicor employed 1,000 workers at seven prisons processing 39 million pounds of electronic materials. The Federal Correctional Institution in Elkton, Ohio, stopped recycling electronic waste in 2008. Operations continue at the federal prisons in Fort Dix, N.J.; Marianna, Fla.; Texarkana, Tex.; Atwater, Calif.; Leavenworth, Kan.; Lewisburg, Pa.; and Tucson. 

After complaints arose several years ago that the work was making prisoners sick, the inspector general, working with several other federal agencies, conducted 200 interviews, reviewed 10,000 pages of documents and inspected the computer records of Unicor personnel. 

While the inquiry did not definitively link any long-term health effects to recycling work, it found evidence of wrongdoing, like exposing prisoners to lead and cadmium. The inspector general’s office said that it referred the evidence to the Justice Department’s environmental crimes section but that ultimately no prosecutions were pursued. 

The report, which totaled more than 400 pages, noted that Unicor had halted the most dangerous of the recycling activities, smashing glass, in 2009. 

Criminal charges were pursued for some other offenses uncovered in the investigation of Unicor’s recycling, including theft and wire fraud. 

Unicor cast the report not as an indictment but as a bill of clean health. 

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