Every day Mike Seward would look up at Bishop Peak from the yard at the California Men’s Colony where he was incarcerated in 2012.
“The first thing I wanted to do when I got out was hike it,” he said.
Back inside the prison, Seward worked in the California Correctional Training and Rehabilitation Authority, or CALCTRA, prison labor program, earning less than a dollar per hour to fabricate hundreds of pieces of apparel a day including socks, uniforms and even an order of unmarked tee shirts he was told were going to the university that borders the Men’s Colony — Cal Poly.
That’s not the only thing that the state’s prison labor program has produced for Cal Poly.
Cal Poly’s 10-year Future Housing Plan is projected to expand housing by up to 4,000 beds through the construction of new buildings and the renovation of existing ones. Much of the furnishing for the expanded housing thus far comes from CALCTRA, fabricated at Avenal State Prison, according to CALCTRA Deputy Director of External Affairs Michele Kane.
CALCTRA is a state agency with a mandate to reduce the rate in which released prisoners return to incarceration and provide annual savings to tax payers by giving incarcerated individuals work, job training and education.
Through over 300 documents obtained by Mustang News, Cal Poly contracted CALCTRA for $3.3 million to fabricate and install 250 furniture sets over summer 2025 in the renovated PCV complex, and to fabricate and install 427 furniture sets to fill many of the 500 housing spaces under construction in “Building A” over summer 2026, in time for the building’s opening in fall 2026.
Items purchased included chairs, beds, wardrobes, chests, pedestals, worksurfaces, loft kits and safety bars. Individual furnishing sets cost Cal Poly between $4,000 and $5,500, with each bed costing over $1,000 (the exact model and CALCTRA catalog can be found here).
CALCTRA has had a controversial history, with critics questioning whether the agency delivers on its stated goals of lowering recidivism, providing meaningful work opportunities for program participants, and saving taxpayers money. Workers have likened their conditions to “slave labor” and have recently organized slowdowns to pressure the agency into addressing their grievances, citing coercive job assignments, degrading strip searches and capped wages. Moreover, a 2011 state audit found that CALCTRA overstated the savings it attributed to lower recidivism rates and used flawed measurements to calculate them.
The wage for individuals who participate in the CALCTRA labor program ranges from roughly $0.50 to $1.15 per hour depending on the labor category, with most categories falling under $1 per hour.
State prison labor programs like CALCTRA are generally considered more effective and safer than their private prison counterparts, and the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has promoted what it calls the “California Model,” which aims to shift the prison environment from punitive to rehabilitative.
CALCTRA offers vocational programs with the goal of preparing incarcerated people for careers after release. A UC Irvine study that CALCTRA contracted in response to a 2019 state audit found that participants had lower recidivism rates than those who did not participate.
University spokesperson Keegan Koberl wrote in an email to Mustang News that Cal Poly has purchased furniture from CALCTRA since the opening of the Cerro Vista apartments 22 years ago.
“The California State University has a list of approved vendors, and [CALCTRA] is one of those approved vendors,” Koberl wrote. “This vendor was selected for the overall quality of the product, including lifespan and durability.”
CALCTRA primarily sells to state entities and purchases by state agencies are tax exempt. Under California state law, state agencies must consider CALCTRA before seeking goods and services from the private sector.
According to the agency’s 2024 report to the legislature, hundreds of incarcerated individuals are assigned to furniture fabrication, with construction services as the largest assignment for incarcerated individuals.
Jacob Hutt, a senior staff attorney at the Prison Law Office who represents incarcerated people in custody at California state prisons, told Mustang News that CALCTRA’s low wages directly contradict the California Model’s stated values, namely treating one another with respect.
“Paying somebody a slave wage is not treating them with respect,” he said.
He added that it is not a meaningful choice for incarcerated people to opt out of work because participation is tied to parole eligibility, refusal can trigger disciplinary action and prison jobs have long waitlists to begin with.
“Basically people have to participate in these jobs, and they should be fairly compensated for it. It doesn’t seem like a complicated question,” he said.
Hutt also pushed back on the argument that CALCTRA saves the state money, suggesting the state could achieve greater savings while also affording incarcerated workers a living wage by reducing the overall prison population.
Nolan Bennett, an assistant professor of political science at Cal Poly who studies the political theory of incarcerated activists, notes that prison labor programs are inherently coercive.
“That doesn’t mean they can’t be meaningful or willingly chosen by the folks living in correctional facilities,’ he said. “The real difficulty is in how we, as an institution, want to rely on those programs.”
Seward, as an incarcerated worker at the Men’s Colony, stated that despite pay similar to a “sweatshop,” prison jobs were highly sought after because they were tied to good behavior eligibility, provided structure and purpose and offered income that could be spent at the canteen or saved for life after release.
When Mustang News reached out to CALCTRA for comment, the Deputy Director of External Affairs, Michele Kane, pushed back on criticisms highlighted in this article and emphasized the voluntary nature of the program.
“We do not run sweatshops, only job training programs,” she wrote.“CALCTRA participants apply to be in our job training programs. They can opt out.”
Kane wrote that students should “take pride knowing that the furniture was made by people who are trying to improve their lives” and that the agency prepares incarcerated workers “so they cannot just get a job, but a career when they leave.”
What Cal Poly students think
Cal Poly students had mixed reactions upon learning that the university’s housing expansion relies on prison labor for its furnishings.
Leah Burnett, a public health junior, said labor abuses in the prison system are widely known and part of a broader societal issue that Cal Poly should not contribute to.
Eden Guelman, a communication studies sophomore, said “Cal Poly stands for a lot of things and that doesn’t sound like something it stands for.”
Markus Chhom, an interdisciplinary studies junior, said he wants Cal Poly to be “as transparent as possible.” He added, “this would have been helpful knowing when I applied to colleges.”