Alanya prison earns from handicraft sales

ANTALYA - Anatolia News Agency

Alanya prisoners engage in carpentry and earn wages and insurance. AA photo

A prison in the Antalya province of Turkey’s southern Mediterranean coast has raised 730,551 Turkish Liras from the sale of handmade jewelry from wood, the decoration of zucchini, photography, carpentry, honey production, and various other handicrafts.

The prison also grows its own fruits and vegetables and, since 2011, the L type prison in Alanya has been able to earn revenues of close to 3.4 million liras from the sale of spinach, lettuce, parsley, cabbage, tomatoes, cucumbers, black olives and fruit. Roughly 2.5 million of this turnover has gone towards the cost of production, leaving the prison with 730,551 thousand liras in net profits, according to the Anatolia news agency.

Prison Manager Sabri Karataş explained that the different workshops in the prison produce items on a per order basis, and that furniture and carpentry orders usually go to the public as well as corporations. The prisoners have also begun to produce outdoor furniture to be used in hotels in the area.

“These items are shown to local hotels and if they like them we commence production,” said Karataş. He also explained that after the vegetables and fruits are distributed to the prison kitchens the surplus is sold to the hotels.

The 60 prisoners who produce these products are both insured and receive daily wages, according to Karataş. He says that they plan to increase the number of insured prison workers to 100 and estimate another 700,000-750,000 Turkish Liras in revenues after investments for 2012.