The Prison Industries Enhancement Certification Program (PIECP) is a work program created by Congress in 1979 to encourage states and units of local government to establish employment opportunities for incarcerated men and women that approximate private-sector work opportunities. The program is designed to place incarcerated men and women in a realistic work environment, pay them the prevailing local wage for similar work, and enable them to acquire marketable skills to increase their potential for successful rehabilitation and meaningful employment on release.

Since 1987, CSI has been an active participant in the PIECP program. Our emphasis lies in seeking to establish working partnerships with private sector businesses, which provides benefits to the private-sector business and allows CSI to

• generate products and services that enable incarcerated men and women to make a contribution to society
• help offset the cost of their incarceration, compensate crime victims, and support their families
• reduce incarcerated men and women idleness
• increase incarcerated men and women job skills, and
• improve the prospects for successful incarcerated men and women transition to the community upon release

PICEP is a program of the Bureau of Justice Assistance of the US Depratment of Justice. Read more about the program works, its record of success, and its objectives and benefits here. The goods produced by the incarcerated workers help to offset the cost of their incarceration, compensate crime victims, and support incarcerated workers’ families (see a breakdown on the table below). Research shows that parties other than the inmates themselves are the first benefciaries of PIECP inmate incomes: 30 percent is returned in the form of taxpayer savings (through room and board deductions); 11 percent to Social Security and Medicare, and 8 percent to victims of crime (Petersik,T., T. Nayak, and M.K. Foreman, Identifying Benefciaries of PIE Inmate Incomes, The National Correctional Industries Association, July 31, 2003).

In Nebraska, (currently 63 workers are participating in PIECP) the program has produced the following since Inception at CSI in 1987 through Q3 of 2021:

Please email Erika Meyerhoffer call 402-471-1259 for more information.