- 2003.01.21
An innovative approach to sentencing has led to charges of cruel and
unusual punishment in the small manufacturing town in Sandusky, Ohio.
Municipal court judge Harvey Birnbaust has been sentencing criminals
convicted of various misdemeanors to sentences involving the repair and
refurbishment of late model Dell computers.
"I figure if Dell can use prison
labor to disassemble old computers, I can use prison labor to
refurbish them," said Birnbaust in a recent interview. The judge even
has a penalty schedule worked out: Spraying graffiti is punished by
having to sign up for Passport services using false identities - each
and every time you're asked - during an install of Windows XP. Stealing
a car buys you the opportunity to upgrade a Windows-98 equipped Dell
Inspiration to Windows XP Home Edition - after installing and removing
Windows Me.
"You have to retain all of the bookmarks and documents or the deal's
off," joked Birnbaust in a recent interview. "Wiping the drive adds to
your sentence."
Chances are the judge isn't laughing now - he's too busy defending
himself from charges of cruel and unusual punishment brought by the
American Civil Liberties Union.
"We consider the penalties he's assigned far beyond the definition
of cruel and unusual punishment," stated Larby Neufeld of the ACLU.
"For instance, no one would say you could punish a prisoner by shoving
burning wood splints under their fingernails, and I'm sure we'd all
agree that wrestling with multiple installs of Windows is more painful
than that."
For his part, the judge is not worried about the legal challenges.
He points out that several of his sentences have led to gainful
employment for the convicted. When asked for examples, he directed us
to the 800 number for Dell support.
Calls to Dell support could not be completed until we purchased a
brand new Dell Confabulation and returned it for repair.
According to "Monty" (name changed to protect privacy), many Dell
employees object to the use of prison labor. "We work hard to keep
these jobs, and he [Dell CEO Michael Dell] just gives our work to the
prisoners. Between you and me," he confided, "we're considerin' forming
a union to represent the fair treatment of our oppressed prison brother
workers. If you know what I mean."
None of this seems to deter Dell from pursuing every savings it can
to undercut the competition.
The next step beyond low-cost prison labor is "negative cost"
student labor. "Negative cost student labor is where schools pay for
the privilege of repairing old computers as a training exercise,"
according to Neufeld. "Instead of paying $1 per computer to get it
disassembled, Dell will now make $25 each time one of its computers is
repaired. If we could charge the schools shipping to participate, we
would. As it is, though, they're just breaking even."
"Now that's clever," says Birnbaust. "Wish I'd thought of that for
our payment of court-appointed attorneys."
