Monday, December 08, 2025

Since 1968, Ohio Penal Industries (OPI) and the Ohio Department of Transportation (ODOT) have partnered to produce snow plows, and 175 prisoners have carried the load and done the work. It's not like I'm going to give the credit to the prisons or state. They happen to have a lot of innocent people incarcerated too, lets remember.




Inside the Chillicothe Correctional Institution, 175 men are part of the program that builds every ODOT plow and salt truck seen on the roads.

“The trucks come in as nothing but a cab and a rolling chassis,” Foster said. “Everything that goes on – we assemble, 100% of it.”

According to OPI, about 12-14 trucks are assembled and shipped out each month from Chillicothe. Each vehicle is customized to the needs of the area where it will hit the road.

“Our families, our friends, everyone we know, is driving behind these trucks on the street,” Foster said.


Thank you Marc B
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2 comments:

  1. Joe8:12 AM

    When I was younger one of the common brands found in farm implement dealerships was the "Minnesota" brand of trailers, hay balers, field cultivators, etc. The Minnesota brand was a line manufactured in the prisons of Minnesota, and faded away due to societal resistance to potential for slave labor and pushback from other manufacturers who didn't benefit from publicly owned overhead savings in the commercial market.
    I was at a garage sale recently and looked at a 1930's Pennsylvania license plate with the words "Prison Made" embossed on the top in the same size and type as the state name at the bottom. "Making license plates" used to be slang for spending time in prison, but this was the first time I've seen it written right on the plate.

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    1. Jesse3:08 PM

      Never heard of the 1930's Pennsylvania license plate with the words "Prison Made", I'll see if if I can find one to post! But truly, drafted military and prison labor, are slave labor. And NO ONE wants to do anything to fix the problems with the entire American prison and jail systems. My cousin did prison time for hell, who knows how may drunk driving and crashes, he had been ticketed over ten time at speeds over 100, and drunk. He'll never get a drivers license again.
      And I had a girlfriend that got drunk, decided not to sleep the night as planned, at her sisters, and of course was busted by police on her way back. She did a week in local jail, and donated her shoes to another woman there who was arrested without any.
      The white collar criminals all get country club prisons, like that movie director who only had carpentry work during the day, in South Dakota, and had to be in some open door barracks at curfew. John McTiernan, after directing Predator, Die Hard, and Hunt for Red October.
      Blue collar non millionaires get the racist, lifer gang filled, sex assault, rapey type prisons.
      And everyone out here is just struggling to pay the rent, pay the bills, etc. No time to focus on fixing the prison system for the few stuck in those, or heading for them in the future.
      have you seen Orange is the new Black? Excellent show, if you fast forward through all the nonsense about the lead character getting out, going home, then going back to prison.

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