Call centre careers for crims

Joe Hildebrand

Convicted criminals are being employed as telemarketers to cold-call people as part of a radical new prison employment program.

But those called will have no idea they are talking to an inmate and the State Government will not say which organisations are using the convicts as part of a confidentiality deal.

The program is designed to prepare women prisoners from Windsor’s low and medium-security Dillwynia Correctional Centre for life on the outside, training them for work and stopping them from reoffending.

However it is also being used as a low-cost way for companies to get cheap telemarketing work and for the Government to boost its coffers.

Even with bonuses and target incentives, prisoners get no more than $67 for a 30-hour week — barely $2 an hour compared to the standard minimum wage of $14.31 an hour.

Prisoners are not allowed to ask for or handle any credit card details or other financial records and every call is recorded and monitored by both a telemarketing professional and a corrective services officer.

The Australian Teleservices Association, the peak body for telemarketers, is promoting the call centre to its members and also hires the inmates itself. It is understood the prisoners do data collection for businesses and also directly call private consumers on behalf of charities.

ATA chief executive Michael Meredith refused to say exactly how much cheaper the prison service was, except that it was “less than half'”.

“It’s very low cost for us of course,” he said. “But to be honest we do it because we think it’s the right thing to do.”

About 15 prisoners are in the program but that number is expected to soon double and the centre is being upgraded.

The prison’s call centre was originally set up just to receive and direct calls to Government agencies. The Daily Telegraph has been told it now does nothing but outbound calls.