Nevada prisoners may get break with reality TV show

Friday, July 29, 2005 | 10:50 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- Inmates who work in a car restoration program at the Southern Desert Correctional Center at Indian Springs may soon be starring in their own reality TV series. And other inmates will soon begin building a line of custom motorcycles that they want to call "The Shank."

Howard Skolnik, deputy state director of corrections, on Thursday told the Legislative Committee on Prison Industrial Programs that he is negotiating with a film producer who wants to do a weekly show on the program that restores classic and custom vehicles and then follow the inmates after they are paroled. The legislative committee, led by Assemblyman John Marvel, R-Battle Mountain, gave Skolnik permission to negotiate with the film production company.

The company, R.C. Entertainment Inc., has shot a pilot and is shopping it to television networks. Skolnik said the cable channel A&E offered to broadcast it as a one-time special, but R.C. Entertainment wants to work a deal for a weekly show.

If a weekly TV spot is landed, Skolnik said the film producers would pay the industrial program and the inmates. He said the TV exposure would help to increase its market to gain new business and expand the industrial program.

The plan is to film the inmates restoring vehicles and then follow the inmates when they are released, as they seek employment, to document the obstacles and successes they encounter.

Marvel said he was "very impressed" with the pilot in which inmates talk about their jobs and how, in many cases, this is the first training they have ever had.

They earn Nevada's minimum wage of $5.15 an hour for restoring vehicles in the program called "InCARceration." The inmates have to buy their own tools.

Inmates interviewed on the pilot said they like working at the auto shop because it gets them out of prison during the day and they are learning a trade.

One inmate said they take a lot of time on each restoration job.

"We have got plenty of time," he said.

The car-limousine restoration program employed anywhere from 21 to 33 prisoners in fiscal 2004.

The committee also gave Skolnik the authority to go forward with plans to start to build custom motorcycles at Indian Springs. This program would not only repair motorcycles but also manufacture them, a la the successful Orange County Choppers company.

Inmates want to call their motorcycle line "The Shank." "Shank" is prison slang for any improvised stabbing instrument made clandestinely in prison. It is also used as a verb for any prison stabbing.

The committee also authorized Skolnik to negotiate with a company called Credit Sovereign Group of Atlanta about starting a building material operation at the High Desert State Prison in Clark County.

Sovereign Group wants to manufacture lightweight concretelike materials for walls, floors, ceilings or roofs of residential and commercial structures. The company estimates it could hire 150 inmates if a deal is completed.