Behind Bars - Doing Press Time

"We have to be aware that that can happen, and we have to build in a little bit of time in our scheduling to allow for the possibility," Thomas notes.

Another issue that hits prison in-plant managers hard is the loss of their best workers to a prison transfer.

"Inmates are moved throughout the system for custodial reasons," explains Thomas. "A guy we may have put two years of effort into training, all of a sudden, boom, the next day he's gone, and we've got to start from scratch again."