A Joint Message from Federal Prison Industries’ Board of Directors and CEO

click here to download 2001 Annual Report pdf

Federal Prison Industries’ (FPI) Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer are pleased to present FPI’s Fiscal Year 2001 Annual Report to the Congress of the United States. This year’s report, titled "Securing the Future," focuses on the inherent value of work.

"UNICOR has been the best way to keep my mind focused in a positive way. I have learned that there are opportunities to improve myself as a person, regardless of the environment." MALE INMATE UNICOR Business Office, Cut & Sew Factory, FCI Yazoo City, Mississippi

Our country places great emphasis on work; it is considered the "key to success." In fact, so ingrained is the work ethic, criminal defendants are often sentenced to other forms of incarceration such as home confinement, electronic monitoring, and shorter alternatives, such as weekend service, to preclude removing them from the work force altogether. Likewise, if released through a halfway house, inmates are required to find work within a few weeks and use a portion of their earnings toward the payment of room and board. What perplexes this Board is why our society places such great importance on work force participation before and after imprisonment, yet often opposes inmates engaging in meaningful work opportunities while incarcerated?

The typical profile of an inmate entering the prison system is "a 37-year-old high school dropout, serving a 10-year sentence for a drug-related offense, having never held a steady job." If nothing were done to improve the offender’s profile during incarceration, the prospect of becoming legally and gainfully employed upon completion of his/her sentence would be dim.

FPI teaches inmates the most marketable skill of all--how to work. No matter what the job, employers seek candidates who possess a basic work ethic, and FPI’s program fosters a work environment in which inmate workers learn to be dependable, responsible team players, who take direction from their supervisors and have pride in their accomplishments.

The success of FPI’s program is evident by the vignettes you will read throughout this year’s Annual Report--unedited and provided voluntarily by inmates currently incarcerated and by those who have obtained employment after release from custody. The hope and realization of securing a real future is heartwarming, not only for the inmates themselves, but for their families, who are often devastated financially and must rely on public assistance when a household member is incarcerated. Providing inmates a source of income while working in prison helps lessen these family burdens while helping inmates accept responsibility for their actions.

FPI is not really about the business of manufacturing products or providing services; instead, FPI is an integral component of the Federal criminal justice system, with the express mission to provide job training and work skills to improve inmates’ prospects for success upon release from prison. The production of items and provision of services are merely by-products of those efforts. The bottom line is that FPI increases the odds that ex-offenders will find worthwhile employment and become law-abiding, tax-paying citizens.

The extent to which future criminal activity is prevented and the impact of lower crime on potential crime victims, families, and our neighborhoods cannot be precisely quantified. The benefits to society, however, are immeasurable when ex-offenders make a successful reintegration and when "securing the future" not only holds promise for them, but for all of us as well.

Kathleen Hawk Sawyer
Joseph M. Aragon
Deidre A. Lee
Susan A. Loewenburg
Arthur H. White
Richard G. Womack

FPI RECEIVES UNQUALIFIED AUDIT OPINION
The Board is very pleased to announce that Federal Prison Industries, Inc. has received an unqualified audit opinion from its independent auditors on its fiscal year (FY) 2001 and restated FY 2000 financial statements. FY 2001 marks the first full year that FPI has operated under a new management information system. Launched in May 2000, the new enterprise resource planning system replaced the corporation’s 10-year-old manufacturing database.