Federal buyers would no longer be required to purchase products from the Bureau of Prisons' Unicor program, under a bill approved by a House panel last week.
On Thursday, the House Judiciary Committee Crime Subcommittee passed H.R. 2558, the Prison Industries Reform Act. The bill would eliminate, over seven years, a rule that requires agencies to buy certain products from Unicor. Unicor employs 20,000 federal prison inmates in a worker training program. Unicor inmates make everything from furniture to clothing to circuit boards.
Federal agencies are currently Unicor's only customers; last year they spent $534.3 million on Unicor products and services. While eliminating the mandatory purchasing requirement, H.R. 2558 would allow Unicor to sell to private companies, in an effort to bring more business to the prisons so that more inmates could be put to work.
Some federal managers and private sector contractors oppose the mandatory purchasing requirement for Unicor products. The Federal Managers Association wants to eliminate the requirement, but FMA President Michael Styles prefers a different bill, H.R. 2551, which would end Unicor's sole source status more quickly. H.R. 2551 would also continue to limit Unicor sales to federal government buyers. The bill is unlikely to be acted upon, however, because H.R. 2558 is advancing.
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