Unless you do not own a television set or you have one but haven't turned it on in months, you have been bombarded with dueling television commercials about luxurious new furniture about to be purchased for Oregon's state capitol building.

A definition of luxurious, according to my dictionary, is "the finest and richest kind." So, if the commercials are accurate, where will Oregon get that "finest and richest" furniture? From a local high-end furniture store? A Southern furniture factory? A far-off land? The commercials don't say, so I will tell you:

That furniture is to come from the oddest of places - our state prisons - and it will be designed and built by some of our state prisoners.

The Oregon Constitution requires that our correctional institutions actively engage inmates in full-time work or on-the-job-training. Some of that work is the design and construction of furniture by prison inmates. The work is managed by Oregon Corrections Enterprises in partnership with the Oregon Department of Corrections. No tax dollars go directly to OCE, a quasi-state agency. Instead, OCE sells the products it designs and builds.

The money from sales pays OCE's overhead expenses and the cost of materials and provides modest salaries to the inmates who are chosen to participate. OCE also provides jobs to more than 100 Oregon citizens who are not in prison. Those employees support families, pay state and federal taxes and contribute to the Oregon economy.

The goal of OCE is to provide inmates with meaningful work experience. The majority of inmates housed in our prisons will ultimately return to our communities. They can return without having honed any meaningful skills other than how to better commit crimes, or they can return having learned new skills that allow them to find jobs and housing and become productive members of our society, with a work ethic they likely didn't have when they entered prison.

OCE inmates don't just design and build furniture. They manufacture clothing, furnishings and many other items for our prisons and other governmental entities - like our state capitol building. They provide printing, laundry, call center, digitized mapping and computer aided design services. Their products and services are high quality, American made and reasonably priced. And their raw materials are purchased from Oregon private sector businesses. About $40 million worth in the past five years.

About 1,000 inmates work for OCE, half of whom will be released back to their communities in the next five years. In addition to being paid modest salaries, they return money to their communities through the payment of taxes, child support, court-imposed fines and restitution to victims. Without the work provided by OCE, they would have no income with which to pay their obligations.

So the next time you see and hear the shouting heads talk about the luxurious new furniture for our Oregon legislators, remember that the dollars exchanged from one agency to another go for more than furniture. They go to private enterprise for the cost of raw materials and to inmates to repay part of their financial debt to society, to complete vocational and apprenticeship programs, to develop work skills and to return to our communities as more productive citizens.

I've seen the furniture in question, by the way, and it is very nice. Is it the richest? That, I think, is doubtful, but the training and experience these prisoners gain is rich.

Benton County Commissioner Jay Dixon is an Oregon Corrections Enterprises Advisory Committee member.