Federal Prison Industries (UNICOR) FPI

Congress authorized Federal Prison Industries in a law signed on June 23, 1934, and President Franklin Roosevelt incorporated it by executive order on December 11, 1934, to provide work and job training in federal prisons while limiting competition with private industry. It is a wholly owned government corporation within the Justice Department's Federal Bureau of Prisons, operating under the trade name UNICOR, and is governed by a presidentially appointed board of directors.

UNICOR factories and service centers in federal prisons produce office furniture, clothing and textiles, electronics, vehicle components, signs, and military gear, and run services such as recycling and call centers. Most of its sales are to federal agencies, especially the Defense Department, and it is meant to be self-supporting, receiving no annual appropriations. Inmate workers earn well below the minimum wage, from under a dollar to just over a dollar an hour, and only a small share of federal prisoners hold UNICOR jobs, which are in high demand. Studies have found that participants are less likely to return to prison.

Federal law long required agencies to buy from UNICOR when it offered a product, a mandatory-source rule that Congress has narrowed in response to complaints from private manufacturers. Its sales and number of inmate workers have declined from their peaks. Supporters say prison work teaches skills and discipline that reduce reoffending, while critics object to the low wages and argue that prison labor takes contracts and jobs from private companies and their workers.