By Bryan Denson
The Oregonian
PORTLAND, Ore. — The Eastern Oregon Correctional Institution, a medium-security prison that once served as a state mental hospital, stands on a grassy hillside about a mile west of the rodeo grounds of the Pendleton Round-Up.
Hundreds of cliff swallows swoop outside the century-old buildings, perching on the sills of barred windows and building mud nests on the institution’s pale yellow walls. Corrections officials have posted fake owls and deployed noisemakers to scare them off, to no avail.
At last count, the prison held 1,629 prisoners inside 23 acres of buildings and bleached grass inside the fences. A series of recent fights on the compound put nearly 50 inmates in “the hole,” a stand-alone disciplinary segregation unit that serves -- as one official put it -- like a prison within a prison.
The buildings went up in 1912, a couple of years after the town’s inaugural rodeo roundup, and were turned into a prison in the mid-1980s. Insiders say the rooms, originally built for the mentally ill, weren’t designed for prison quarters. Some cells hold four bunk beds, and corrections officers say it’s not easy finding four men who can co-exist in such close quarters.
The institution is perhaps best known as the home of Prison Blues, an inmate work program that produces up to 25,000 pairs of jeans a year – including those worn by the 14,632 men and women serving time in theOregon Department of Corrections.
Inmates make the jeans in a 30,000-square-foot warehouse, producing pants for private businesses such as Bailey’s, the maker of Wild Ass logger pants. Several years back, inmates made 2,000 black denim jackets for West Coast Choppers.
The sewing machines and other equipment look like throwbacks to the 1980s. But that’s intentional, prison officials say. While many garment manufacturers use computerized equipment to minimize the number of workers, there’s no shortage of inmates looking for jobs in the factory.
Prisoners maintain the antiquated sewing machines -- Singer, Juki and Union Special models -- and turn scraps of denim into tote bags, place mats, coin purses and potholders.
Inmate workers earn small wages -- up to about $100 a month -- provided their attendance and job performance are good.
The Pendleton lockup also stands out for, surprisingly, its food. Pendleton’s food services manager, Trent Juif, earned his chef’s jacket in the culinary arts program at Johnson & Wales University in Providence, Rhode Island, and in restaurants on the outside.
Juif has won plaudits from inmates and administrators by trying innovative recipes that also cut costs. His kitchen serves more than 5,000 meals a day to prisoners and staffers, with daily per-prisoner food costs of $2.18 – well below the Department of Corrections’ daily average.
Oregon also saves money by having prisoners stitch, build or otherwise assemble much of their own accommodations -- including their mattresses.
While at EOCI, we tested the standard-issue mattress that prisoners sleep on without benefit of bedsprings. It was 3½ inches thick. Not something you’d want to try getting used to.