How Inmates’ Work Pays For Jail
Decatur County GA Prison Warden Elijah McCoy provided The Post-Searchlight with some insight into how the prison functions and the amount of work being done by its prisoners each day.
The prison is a minimum to medium security facility that on average houses between 280 to 325 prisoners. The prison holds 225 prisoners that are brought in from other parts of the state through a contract Decatur County has with the State of Georgia. The county received $20 a day for each of the non-local prisoners, bringing in more than $1.6 million annually. Last year, the prison operated on a $3.7 million budget provided by Decatur County—the difference between the two figures brings the prison’s cost to Decatur County taxpayers to a little less than $2 million each year, according to McCoy.
He explained that the amount of work done for the county, along with funding brought in from contracts with Decatur County cities, surrounding counties and the Department of Transportation, more than covers the $2 million operational cost—making the facility virtually self sufficient.
Each day, the inmates are awakened at 5 a.m., and by 7, between 150 and 200 are loaded onto buses to go to work at the various locations in Decatur County and the surrounding counties. The majority of inmates do grass mowing and agriculture maintenance, road work, janitorial work, maintenance work and cooking (for the prison). Locations and departments where inmates work include virtually every Bainbridge City and Decatur County facility, from the Bainbridge sewage treatment facility to Memorial Hospital and Manor … Inmates with skills in mechanics are utilized at the county and city’s mechanics shop providing upkeep on various government vehicles, including the school system’s buses …
Inmates have even built an entire building. In addition to doing maintenance and construction work on various Decatur County buildings, inmates actually constructed the entire Blackjack Volunteer Fire Station from the ground up, said McCoy.