The Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program (PIECP) Cost Accounting Center (CAC) management structure consists of three program model options.
Employer Model
In this model, the private sector business owns and operates the CAC by controlling the hiring, firing, training, supervision, and payment of the inmate work force. The correctional agency assumes no major role in industry operations, does not direct production, and exercises minimum control over inmate labor performance. These functions are performed, rather, by the private sector business.
Customer Model
In this model, the private sector business is engaged in a CAC enterprise only to the extent that it purchases all or a significant portion of the output of a prison-based business owned and operated by a governmental entity, political subdivision or an instrumentality thereof. A customer model private sector business assumes no major role in industry operations, does not direct production and has no control over inmate labor. These functions are performed, rather, by the correctional agency.
Manpower Model
In this model, the private sector business will pay a pre-determined fee covering labor, overhead, and profit to the prison industry. This model is essentially a labor-leasing model considered by the Bureau of Justice Assistance to be a sub-type of the customer model. Inmates are employed by the correctional agency.
Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program (PIECP)
CDCR holds the Prison Industry Enhancement certificate on behalf of the JVP. The Prison Industry Enhancement Certification Program (PIECP) was authorized in 1979 to encourage joint ventures between correctional industries and private sector companies and to establish employment opportunities for prisoners that approximate private sector work opportunities. Congress selected the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) of the U.S. Department of Justice to administer the PIECP. BJA is charged with ensuring that these programs are in compliance with federal law and regulations.
BJA selected the National Correctional Industries Association (NCIA) to assist in the administration of PIECP, to provide limited technical assistance, and conduct compliance assessments of cost accounting centers (CACs) or Joint Venture Programs in PIE certified jurisdictions.
Certification by the BJA exempts projects from certain federal restrictions on the marketability of prison-made goods, including the Ashurst-Sumners Act (18 U.S.C. 1761(a) and the Walsh-Healey Act (41 U.S.C. 35). Prison-made goods can be sold across state lines.
The PIECP was first authorized under the Justice System Improvement Act of 1979 (Public Law 96-157, Sec. 827) and later expanded under the Justice Assistance Act of 1984 (Public Law 98-473, Sec. 819). The Crime Control Act of 1990 (Public Law 101-647) authorized continuation of the program indefinitely.
BJA Federal Guidelines require that all projects pay incarcerated individuals a comparable wages defined as that wage rate which is not less than that paid for work of a similar nature in the locality in which the work is to be performed. In no case can the wage be less than the federal minimum wage or the California state minimum wage which ever is higher.
