In their Business Plan for Fiscal Year 1992, Massachusetts Correctional Industries notes in a section titled “Food and Farm Services”:
“The SECC farm has continued to assist the University of Massachusetts Cooperative Extension Service by coordinating on site soil testing activities for students.”
The SECC likely refers to the now defunct Southeastern Correctional Center in Bridgewater, Massachusetts. From the looks of it, it seems that UMass once had a direct partnership with state prisons. The exact relationship between UMass and the state prison system is largely unknown to me, but it’s worthwhile, as the excerpt suggests, to know that UMass benefited from land toiled by convicts.
Thus, more research is needed to fully understand prison labor’s historic and present connection with UMass.
