Advertisement See how Folsom Prison inmates churn out 50K CA license plates a day Inmate: 'We want all the customers happy on the street'

Behind the thick granite walls at Folsom State Prison lies a factory where inmates take pride in their hard work as they manufacture every single license plate used in the state of California.Just over 120 employees make up the inmate workforce at the California Prison Industry Authority's license plate factory -- the only place license plates are made in the state.The factory operates from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Monday through Thursday and produces between 45,000 and 50,000 plates a day, making it the largest producer of license plates in the United States.Inmates go through 15,000 pounds of aluminum and 27,000 linear feet of sheeting -- the cover that attaches to the aluminum to determine the plate design -- each day.The California Department of Motor Vehicles contracts out the license plate manufacturing to the Cal PIA, which prides itself on having very few defective plates returned. As an example of the high quality produced at the prison, Cal PIA officials said they were notified a couple years ago that the DMV had accumulated about 160 bad plates -- between standard auto, commercial and trailer -- that were rejected due to incorrect alpha/numeric configuration or bad painting.During that time period, it was discovered prison inmates produced 2.3 million plates -- that equals only about .007 percent of plates sent to the DMV with defections.HOW LICENSE PLATES ARE MADEEach and every license plate manufactured in the state of California starts at Folsom State Prison as bare metal aluminum. Inmates go through about 10 giant rolls of the aluminum each day.During the first phase, the metal is attached to sheeting -- the front of the plate that determines whether it's a standard California plate, a firefighter plate, a legacy plate, etc. -- and then it is blanked out to the size of each license plate.The newly cut plates are loaded onto carts and distributed to different presses in the shop. Most of the presses work only with standard California plates, but there is at least one press in the factory at any given time that rolls out specialty plates, including customized plate numbers.++The history behind the walls of Folsom State PrisonInmates working each press are notified what type of configuration will be on each plate.It takes about four and a half to five years to go through all the possible sequences using the same number on the very left. For instance, the factory is on the number sequence starting with 7 right now, meaning the factory will only produce license plates with characters in this order: 7XXXXXX.Once the letters and numbers are punched on the plates, carts are loaded up and the plates are taken to the die shop where the characters are painted.Lastly, each license plate is checked over by inmates for quality to make sure it is flawless. If there are any issues with it, the workers add it to a redo list and the license plate is completely redone from scratch.++50 years later, Johnny Cash's Folsom Prison legacyInmates like Ashsish Prasad are proud of the work they do for the public and said it makes them feel good to know the work their doing gets used across the state."The main thing we check is the quality of it because we want all the customers happy on the street," Prasad said. "We do this like we would want our license plate on the car, so we try not to let defective ones go through."INMATES ARE EAGER TO LEARN AND WORKFor many inmates, the pay is not the main benefit of working at the factory -- they learn life skills that will help them once they have completed their sentences."I've learned how to use the machines; I've never worked with computers before," Prasad said. "I'm working on getting my degree in college right now. I'm five classes away from getting my AA."Prasad, who works as a clerk in the office and is in charge of quality control, is appreciative of all the programs the Cal PIA has that will help him going forward."Taking all the programs the prison offers over here, it gives you a chance (to learn) how to deal with people, how to deal with your emotions and think before you act or do anything," Prasad said. "Everything comes with a price. Look at me -- I ended up in prison because I never thought of the consequences. Now I learned. Now I got to pay the hard way."As is often the case in many prisons across the country, inmates tend to segregate themselves into groups based on race or other commonalities. But here at the factory, it's all about working together."We all get along really well," said Gilbert Anthony Romero, an inmate who works as a machine apprentice at the factory's tool and die shop. "We are a team in here. There's no color lines, no racial tensions here. Everybody gets along with everybody. It's good when you can have a real comraderie with your coworkers."Alan Alger, Cal PIA superintendent at the license plate factory, said they rarely have issues with inmates not getting along because they take pride in what they do and are held to a high standard."We require that we have a quality standard, of course, for DMV, and that they work together," Alger said. "We organize them with a lead man who is in charge of the machine, so they have training responsibilities and leadership responsibilities. That lead man is also responsible for all the safety on that equipment and notifies the supervisor if there are any issues."++Tales from behind the walls of Folsom State PrisonIn addition to the work they do in the factory, inmates like Prasad and Romero are required to take educational classes. Those include substance abuse programs and college classes."I'm hogging it, as much as I can take," Prasad said. "I participate in all the classes to knock time off our sentences. I'm a full-time employee and then go to school and participate in the self-help groups on the yard. I'm busy every day of the week."Romero is eager to take the skills he's learned in the prison with him once he's released."I worked in fast-food restaurants and stuff before that wasn't going to get me anywhere," Romero said. "This is something that can take me somewhere and can keep me doing something positive. I plan on looking deep into this (job) when I get out as far as trying to get into a machine shop. I actually have a person in a machine shop who is willing to hire me when I got out."Romero added that it's hard work in the factory and they all really have to stay focused."You can't just take a day off, work has to be done," Romero said. "Responsibility, teamwork, communication, listening, making decisions -- all that comes into play right here because if you don't pay attention to what you're doing, you can actually severely injure yourself in this situation and it can't happen."