Thread: State Prisoners Have Acess to Social Security Numbers

I read an interesting report today on the social security administrations website by the Office of The Inspector General that found 4 years after they issued recomendations to 13 states Department of Corrections to stop allowing prisoners access to social security numbers that a current review this year found that 8 states still allowed prisoners access to social security records. This can allow those prisoners to record the info and sell the info to criminal groups that could use it for making false documents such as social security cards and identity cards.

PRISONS IN SOME STATES CONTINUED TO ALLOW INMATES ACCESS TO SSNs
We determined that 8 (62 percent) of the 13 States we identified in our August 2006
report continued to allow prisoners access to SSNs through prison work programs (see
Table 1). Most prisoners had access to SSNs while performing work for Federal, State,
and/or local governments. Specifically, prisoners performed such duties as data entry,
encoding, digital imaging, and records conversion. The types of documents prisoners
viewed included student transcripts, criminal background checks, crime reports, health
records, employee wage statements, Internal Revenue Service forms, and Department
of Labor forms, all of which generally contained personally identifiable information (PII)
(including SSNs).
Although we recognize there may be benefits in allowing prisoners to work while
incarcerated, we question whether prisoners have a need to know other individuals’
SSNs. We continue to believe allowing prisoners access to SSNs increases the risk
that individuals may improperly obtain and misuse SSNs. We believe government
entities can reduce such risk by employing prisoners in jobs that do not involve SSN

These are the 8 states they listed that still allow it.

Table 1: States That Continue to Allow Prisoners Access
to Social Security Numbers
State
Number of
Facilities
Allowing
Access
Type of Work
1 Alabama 1 Data Entry
2 Arkansas 1 Digital Imaging
3 Kansas* 5 Work release, data entry, microfilm and digital imaging
4 Nebraska 1 Data entry
5 Oklahoma 2 Data entry and optical imaging
6 South Dakota 1 Data entry and scanning
7 Tennessee* 4 Test distribution center, call center and work release
8 West Virginia* Unknown Type of service depends on the work release program

Thats crazy!!! The OIG report is titled:

QUICK RESPONSE
EVALUATION
Prisoners’ Access to
Social Security Numbers
A-08-10-11042

Yes, in the interest of getting dollar value out of our inmates we have sacrificed decent paying jobs. Over the years I have even known people who took out student loans for an education for a job they could not get - because the job was filled with an inmate. So there is the good citizen - student loans hanging over their head until they die because an inmate was given the job she trained for. So who is the inmate? She is now a financial prisoner because of the need to create opportunities for a criminal.

Just because your state is not on the list does not mean that your number is not compromised. It is amazing how businesses subcontract out work.

Arizona has had a huge problem for decades with the inmates they put to work at Motor Vehicles taking peoples identities. In one case an elderly neighbor was pulled over and imprisoned because her plates and ID had been given to a recently released felon who was already running afoul of the law. She was pulled over a few doors down from her own house and all the neighbors were peeking through curtains but it was a horrifying experience for this woman who had just recuperated enough from a heart attack to begin living on her own again. More and more police cars came up to inspect the credentials and license plate of this old lady so my husband and I came out and stood with her silently witnessing everything the 4 police cars and 8 officers were doing, which she was extremely grateful for. We were already well aware of this problem with our Motor Vehicle department inmates for years. After she got out of jail she promptly came to my house to tell me that she wasn't supposed to tell me about the inmate problem working at Motor Vehicles. Her jaw dropped because I finished her sentence for her. It was no secret. Yet we have the audacity to complain about Chinas prison labor. And this example shows how trying to save money we run our own law enforcement around in useless circles while terrorizing old ladies.

I think making inmates work is fine. Eliminating janitorial, maintenance and landscaping departments and replacing them with inmates or illegals is stupid, displaces people who loved their jobs and benefits and opens us up to crime and terrorism (even possibly from the displaced citizen workers.) Letting them have access to data is stupid.

Sometimes it just makes you think -- our government is so damn crazy it makes no sense in anyway. The fact that felons have access to all of our social security information is an Obamanation... Almost makes one wish Washington DC would vanish in a cloud of smoke...