A refinished theater chair from the Historic Artcraft Theatre, done by Indiana Correctional Industries, a program of the Indiana Department of Corrections. Offenders are able to work while serving their sentence through the program, which includes everything from printing jobs to creating cleaning products to upholstery and sandblasting. Submitted photo.

The decades-old theater chairs were cracked, worn and lumpy.

Foam was falling out of the seats, and springs pushed through the covering, making sitting through a movie at the Historic Artcraft Theatre a sometimes uncomfortable affair. Metal supports were rusting away. The scent of stale popcorn wafted up every time someone sat down.

Theater officials knew they needed to replace the chairs. They didn’t want to get rid of the historic seating, but had to do the work on a budget, said Rob Shilts, executive director of Franklin Heritage, which operates the Artcraft.

“Some of those chairs have been there since the 1960s, the 1950s, some even older. Depending on where you sat in the theater, you might feel more springy in your posterior, or less springy, so it was time to do that project,” he said.

They found their solution through a novel program of the Indiana Department of Correction. Workers for the Indiana Correctional Industries programs put in new foam cushions, re-upholstered the seats and powder coated the metal supports, giving new life to the 100-year-old chairs.

The Artcraft Theatre got a new look at a price under their budget, while patrons to the theater could relax and focus on the film.

Most importantly, offenders within the program further developed job skills that will be sharpened by the time they are released, decreasing the likelihood that they find themselves back in prison in the future.

“People don’t realize that, on average, half of the prison population in Indiana gets released every year. So if we have 24,000 people incarcerated in the state, about 12,000 of those get released annually,” said Lloyd Arnold, chief operating officer for Indiana Correctional Industries. “The State of Indiana wants to give them a foundation for them to be successful when they get released. The correctional industries side of it is a starting point that we give them.”

Like correction departments in all 50 states and the federal prison system, Indiana has a correctional industries program that provides offenders with real-world training to develop work skills and abilities. Participants are paid for their work, and the program is entirely voluntary.

Upon their release, the offenders can then use the abilities they’ve honed to find employment, which greatly reduces their chances of committing another crime and ending up in prison again, Arnold said.

According to the Department of Correction, 85% of former offenders who commit new crimes are unemployed at the time of their re-arrest.

“We want to help people have the tools they need so that when they get released, they don’t come back to us, because it costs the Indiana taxpayer a lot of money while we have them incarcerated,” he said.

Staff members of the correctional industries programs work alongside the participating offenders, teaching them not only the skills of the industry they’re working in, but basic life skills as well. Participants go through an interview, new-hire orientation, classroom work and job or machine specific training. They also get used to the daily routine of simply having a job.

“If you were in a cell for 18 hours a day, eventually you’d get frustrated. You’re not going to be happy, you’re not going to have a purpose,” Arnold said. “Those guys that go to work every day and work eight hours a day, they go back to their cells and are in a much better mood. They’re healthier.”

In Indiana, offenders do every thing from making cleaning chemicals to embroidering clothing to printing large-scale orders for companies. They make bedding and uniforms for the entire prison system. State park maps and temporary license plates are printed through the program.

Companies also work with the Department of Correction on what’s known as joint-venture partnerships. Manufacturers come to the department to have offenders play a supportive role from within the prisons, such as making tresses or working call centers.

Often, when participants are released from prison, they find jobs with the companies they worked with through the program, Arnold said.

To find these companies and partners, sales representatives go into the community to work with sheriff’s offices, schools and businesses that might have a need that correctional industries can meet.

That is how the program connected with the Artcraft Theater.

“One of our great sales guys heard they were wanting to redo their auditorium seating, met with them and showed them what we could do,” Arnold said.

Correctional industries offered to take a seat and showcase what they offered. The program has a reupholstering shop in one of its facilities, so they could provide new padding and covers for the bright red seats in the theater. A separate sandblasting facility allowed workers to strip old paint off the metal frames of the seats and put a gleaming new coat of paint on them.

The test seat came back in immaculate condition, Shilts said.

“They did it way under budget, and they did a beautiful job of it,” he said.

Over the course of two years, the seats were removed in batches to be redone. Volunteer workers unbolted the seats from the theater, loaded them up and transported them to the Indiana Correctional Industries upholstery shop. There, offenders carefully repaired the wooden seat bottoms, put in fresh cushioning and re-covered the chairs in movie theater red fabric.

The bases of the chairs were taken to another shop, where each was sandblasted and given a fresh coat of paint. Then the pieces were reassembled, and they were installed back into the Artcraft.

The final 2 1/2 rows are being worked on now, Shilts said.

“I’m a champion of people getting a second chance,” he said. “With the correctional industries, if they get another shot at it, find a trade where they can make some money and get back into society, I’m all for that.”

Using the Artcraft as a testimonial, sales representatives are reaching out to other historic theaters around the state to provide work for them, Arnold said.

“We’re providing that service at a fraction of the cost of what it would be to buy new seats,” he said. “And they can keep the historical significance with the original frames and building them back up.”