Prisoners work for low pay, and a chance

COXSACKIE -- Approaching the sprawling brick prison on a late weekday morning, correction officer Jerome Brantley detected the pleasing aroma of fish fry wafting down toward the chain link and razor wire fence: Lunch, and according to Brantley, the best food in Greene County. All of it courtesy of inmates.

The eight men wearing kitchen whites on the daily shift in the employee cafeteria are paid pennies, but it's a sought-after job. They eat better than the other 1,000 prisoners in the maximum-security Coxsackie Correctional Facility and learn a trade they can take home, enough of a start to maybe keep them from coming back.

"The pay stinks, but the food makes up for it," Edward Pietro said from the prison in the Hudson Valley, about 20 miles south of Albany.

The 42-year-old from Schenectady, who makes 18 cents an hour, worked in construction before his 2007 robbery conviction. He could be released in 2015.

"People always got to eat. This right here would be something I could always fall back on."

New York prisons instituted a mandatory work program in the early 1990s and most of their 56,000 inmates have jobs, earning as little as 10 cents an hour for work like routine cleaning.

Prisoners who take calls for the Department of Motor Vehicles can earn up to the top wage of $1.14 hourly for answering basic customer questions like office hours, locations and DMV transaction requirements.

Inmate advocates say the pay, set in 1993, is far too low, though they acknowledge the overriding issue is providing meaningful work for prisoners, keeping them out of trouble and teaching vocational skills: For some, it's their first legal job and experience on the clock.

"That's what really controls recidivism," said Cesar Loarca, a senior counselor at Coxsackie. Studies consistently show those who get jobs on the outside don't return, he said.

A 2007 report by the National Research Council said informal social controls, such as work and marriage, are more effective than formal controls like parole supervision and rearrest in reducing criminal behavior.

Prison jobs that pay more or teach vocational skills have far more applicants than openings, inmates said. Those who are capable are required to work, go to school or have another program.