An Arizona-based framing company has unlocked an unconventional solution to one of the construction industry’s biggest pain points.
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An Arizona-based framing company has unlocked an unconventional solution to one of the construction industry’s biggest pain points.

A few years ago, leaders at Erickson Companies, a provider of construction services in Arizona, Northern California, and the greater Reno, Nev., market, put their heads together to find new ways to source labor in a tight market. The company sells panelized framing systems that help residential builders save time, labor, and money, and needed additional skilled labor to continue to meet customer demand.

With help from Connie Wilhem, president of the Home Builders Association of Central Arizona, they located an unusual source of labor to help build panels in the company’s Chandler, Ariz.-based plant: inmates from an Arizona state prison. Arizona Correctional Industries (ACI) provides private businesses with flexible inmate work forces and sells products made by Arizona inmates. Erickson executives saw an opportunity for a mutually beneficial partnership with ACI, supplying one of its plants with workers while giving inmates marketable skills for their job search upon release.

Erickson leaders had their doubts when they began learning about ACI, says Erickson Framing AZ general manager Larry Butts. “We had a million questions and were a little dismissive at first,” he says. The Erickson team warmed up to the idea after touring Swift Transportation’s operation out of a state prison in Lewis, Ariz., where about 130 inmates work on semi-tractor and trailer repairs each day. “We saw that these guys are really focused, they work, they do their job,” he says.

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ACI determined that the Chandler plant met its security criteria and paired the company with a local facility for non-violent male DUI offenders. Butts’ team conducted interviews with inmates who earned the opportunity to work “outside the wire,” as Butts puts it. “We weren’t deadset that they had to have carpentry experience because we knew we could teach it at our facility,” he explains, although some inmates did come in with relevant experience, and in one case, a mechanical engineering background.

Through the partnership, Erickson Framing has been able to minimize one of its biggest labor challenges: finding workers for its factory's second shift. The inmates are bussed to the facility five or six days a week, and after a security sweep through the facility, they get to work just like any civilian employee would, with the same set of tools and tasks. They are paid minimum wage, Butts says.

ACI employers receive training on interacting with inmates. “It’s mostly common-sense protocol,” Butts explains, “but there’s a lot you have to be made aware of in how you conduct yourself [around inmates]. You don’t sit around and have chitchats. It’s always about work and giving directions and giving praise when they’re doing a great job, and that’s pretty much it.” The plant has a 31:1 ratio of inmates to ACI security personnel has had no security incidents in the two years that it's been involved in the program.

While some of the inmates are better at their job than others, many have a strong work ethic and stand out as potential hires. Butts views the partnership as an opportunity to build a long-term labor pipeline while helping released convicts hurdle one of the biggest obstacles post-release -- securing employment. “It’s like a really long internship,” he says. “We’re able to train these guys, work alongside them, and at some point they’re going to get released. We’ve given them a skill...and a second chance.”

ACI workers’ earnings are divided between child support and restitution obligations, room and board offsets, spending money, and a savings account for after they’re released.
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A study from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics found that half of the inmates released from state prisons in 2005 were back behind bars within three years, either for a new crime or violating the terms of their release. ACI’s rehabilitation programs were structured to combat this rate, and were found in a 2010 study to be the biggest contributor to a 31.6 percent decrease in recidivism in Arizona. At the Chandler plant, ACI workers’ earnings are divided between child support and restitution obligations, room and board offsets, spending money, and a savings account for after they’re released.

Erickson’s ACI team is made up of low-security offenders who show up every day viewing work as a privilege, Butts says. “Most of these guys have been stripped of everything. Financially, they’re probably ruined, and they have a family,” he explains. “This program gives them a head start on life again.”

Although ACI is a state-level program, Butts says its impact is far-reaching for the construction trades. “It’s becoming very difficult to bring that next generation of framers in,” he says, and if the ACI inmates don’t come to Erickson after they’re released, “they have the opportunity to work for some other framer or [tradesman] with a skill that they didn’t have when they were first incarcerated.”