Apr 8, 2020 2 min read

Pennsylvania Department of Corrections officials said on Tuesday that almost 500 state prison inmates are working 12-hour shifts for a fraction of minimum wage to produce protective equipment for their guards and themselves in a bid to prevent new cases of COVID-19 in the state system.

That workforce includes 22 inmates from SCI-Greene outside Waynesburg who are making masks, like their counterparts at most other facilities in the state system. They work for Pennsylvania Correctional Industries, a bureau of DOC, and have been making the protective items – which include gowns, soap and cleaning supplies produced at some other facilities – since March 17.

The prisoners are working six days a week, officials said.

Prisoners and staff at DOC facilities are under orders to wear masks.

Eleven staff at various facilities and four prisoners at SCI-Phoenix, which is in Montgomery County, tested positive so far for coronavirus. None of those cases have been reported at SCI-Greene.

DOC spokesperson Susan McNaughton said the people who are making those products represent about a third of the total PCI workforce of 1,500. They’re paid at most $1.23 an hour.

The agency said more than 185,000 masks have been made so far so they could be supplied to all its facilities and offices, including parole agents and other parole supervision staff. Department employees were provided with three masks each. Every inmate was provided with two.

“As part of the Department of Corrections preparedness planning, in mid-March, I directed all of our employees and inmates to wear masks,” said Corrections Secretary John Wetzel. “We didn’t want to take from the community supply, so we began making the masks in-house at several of our state prisons.”

Prison workers are exempt from the minimum wage, which is $7.25 in Pennsylvania.