Prison Labor Used to Build Parts for Patriot Missiles

March 9th, 2011

Via: Wired:

This spring, the United Arab Emirates is expected to close a deal for $7 billion dollars’ worth of American arms. Nearly half of the cash will be spent on Patriot missiles, which cost as much as $5.9 million apiece.

But what makes those eye-popping sums even more shocking is that some of the workers manufacturing parts for those Patriot missiles are prisoners, earning as little as 23 cents an hour. (Credit Justin Rohrlich with the catch.)

The work is done by Unicor, previously known as Federal Prison Industries. It’s a government-owned corporation, established during the Depression, that employs about 20,000 inmates in 70 prisons to make everything from clothing to office furniture to solar panels to military electronics.

One of the company’s high-tech specialties: Patriot missile parts. “UNICOR/FPI supplies numerous electronic components and services for guided missiles, including the Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC-3) missile,” Unicor’s website explains. “We assemble and distribute the Intermediate Frequency Processor (IFP) for the PAC-3s seeker. The IFP receives and filters radio-frequency signals that guide the missile toward its target.”

The missiles are then marketed worldwide — sometimes by Washington’s top officials. Last year, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates pitched the Patriots to the Turkish government last year, a diplomatic cable released by WikiLeaks reveals: “SecDef stressed that ‘nothing can compete with the PAC-3 when it comes to capabilities.’”

Patriot assemblers Raytheon and Lockheed Martin aren’t the only defense contractors relying on prison help. As Rohrlich notes, Unicor “inmates also make cable assemblies for the McDonnell Douglas/Boeing F-15, the General Dynamics/Lockheed Martin F-16, Bell/Textron’s Cobra helicopter, as well as electro-optical equipment for the BAE Systems Bradley Fighting Vehicle’s laser rangefinder.”

Unicor used to make helmets for the military, as well. But that work was suspended when 44,000 helmets were recalled for shoddy quality.

Related: Budget Problems? Just Use Prison Labor

One Response to “Prison Labor Used to Build Parts for Patriot Missiles”

  1. Eileen says:

    Just a few weeks ago a “Judge” in PA was convicted of wrongfully sentencing teens and sending them to jail while all along collecting money from the prisons to which he sent them. Nice racket.
    I’m so totally repulsed by this article’s title I can’t bring myself to read it.
    Have to write out the image that comes to mind though: Dogs drinking water out of a dirty toilet bowl. The dogs are the prison masters and the toilet bowl of water are those in jail who don’t belong there.
    Somewhere down the road I won’t be suprised to read that Bradley Manning is now working on the
    “BAE Systems Bradley Fighting Vehicle’s laser rangefinder.”

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