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Indiana License Plates To No Longer Be Made By Inmates

Scott
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Hoosier license plates will no longer be produced by Department of Correction inmates.

After a months-long bidding process, the Bureau of Motor Vehicles signed a contract with Intellectual Technology Incorporated for the California-based company to produce the state’s license plates.

That five-year contract began after the state’s contract with 3M, which had previously produced the plates, ended in December.

3M, under its contract, had hired PEN Products, the Department of Correction’s manufacturing program, to make the plates.

ITI will no longer do so beginning in May.

The BMV says the move away from using inmates will save the state $15 million over its contract.

But House Minority Leader Scott Pelath – whose local state prison was responsible for plate production – says the program was about more than dollars and cents.

“Offenders have to stay busy. And the busier they stay, the safer the environment is for correctional officers,” Pelath says.

Pelath says he’s also skeptical that no longer using inmates – who were only paid about a dollar an hour – will save the state money.

Brandon Smith is excited to be working for public radio in Indiana. He has previously worked in public radio as a reporter and anchor in mid-Missouri for KBIA Radio out of Columbia. Prior to that, he worked for WSPY Radio in Plano, Illinois as a show host, reporter, producer and anchor. His first job in radio was in another state capitol, in Jefferson City, Missouri, as a reporter for three radio stations around Missouri. Brandon graduated from the University of Missouri-Columbia with a Bachelor of Journalism in 2010, with minors in political science and history. He was born and raised in Chicago.
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