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Outsourcing? Try 'Insourcing'

Wired News: "Chris Harry is a model employee for the U.S. call-center industry.

The 25 year-old arrives promptly at his cubicle, speaks courteously on the phone and is never late or absent. He plans to stick with his job for three years, a boon in an industry plagued by high turnover. And he gladly works for money many Americans would scoff at -- $130 or so a month.
After all, he could be back swabbing cell-block floors for a third of that.

'I can't complain about fair,' said Harry, who was sentenced to 10 years and eight months for robbery. 'I did a crime and I'm in prison. At least I'm not wearing a ball and chain.'

Prison inmates like Harry are the reason Perry Johnson Inc., a Southfield, Michigan consulting company, chose to remain in the United States rather than join a host of telemarketing companies moving offshore.

Perry Johnson had intended to move to India. But the company chose instead to open inside the Snake River Correctional Institution, a sprawling razor wire and cinder block state penitentiary a few miles west of the Idaho line."

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