Prison Labor: Outsourcing's "Best Kept Secret" CIO.com

Prison Labor: Outsourcing's "Best Kept Secret" CIO.com: "CIO — When word spread earlier this month that an Indian IT services company planned to set up a 200-person business process outsourcing unit in an Andhra Pradesh jail , it wasn't long before the snark began flying. Are captive centers on the rebound? Imagine the low attrition rates! Inmates working for banks—what could possibly go wrong?
When Phil Fersht, founder of outsourcing analyst firm Horses for Sources, first heard about it, he says, 'I thought it was a joke.'
Meanwhile, in the U.S., prisoners have been handling a variety of business services for private corporations since 1999. In 2002, they began taking on call center work. Nearly 1,100 inmates locked up in eight federal prisons from Dublin, Calif. to Morgantown, West Va. man tier-one help desks, handle outbound business-to-business calls, and provide directory assistance for Federal Prison Industries (FPI)."