Outsourcing to the Prisons

I have an idea. But first a story.

My husband and I volunteered with a Saturday church program for inner city kids. I became especially fond of a young boy named Tony. I use to tell me that he reminded me so much of King David because he had a "heart after God". While visiting Tony one day, he had the biggest smile and was absolutely glowing. He had exciting news for us and could not wait to share. The big, exciting news???? His dad was getting out of prison that weekend. From the pride on Tony's face you would think his dad had just one the nobel peace prize or Pulitzer.

Then take that story with the statistics. Convicted felons are nearly unemployable. They leave prison, return back to the streets that lead them to crime and even if they don't want to, they have little choice but to find a way to feed and take care of their family. With out a job that is impossible to do.

It is easy to see that employing ex-prisoners does not only benefit them but restores families and protects precious little boys like Tony. No matter what his dad did (or didn't do), he will always be Tony's hero.

So now the idea. I would like to start a non-profit company that recruits current prison inmates, that will be eligible for parole within 1 to 5 years, trains these inmates and provides employment when they leave prison. Given the outsourcing of call center and programming jobs to India, why not do that to the United States prison populations? Give them training to make more then minimum wage and manual labor. Use their undivided time\energy while in prison to build core programming, quality assurance, and documentation skills.

So what is wrong with my idea?
* Is training computer testers, writers and coders easy? Will you find potential candidates in an undereducated prison population?
* Would companies trust a felon population to test their applications?
* Could you come up with a financial model so that you pay the employees enough, invest enough in education for future employees, and still make financially advantageous for companies to take the risk?
* Are there specialties this would lend itself to?
* Could I find someone who could sell this id to investors, politicians, prison systems, high tech companies, etc.

So there it is. Documented on a blog. I thought of it first. (Ok probably not, but maybe!)

G