Small Jail Survives The Odds — So Far
Union Correctional Center in Monroe NC is a relic from the 1930s prison road gangs that leaders in Raleigh keep trying to close. Gov. Beverly Perdue wants to shut it down. So does the state Department of Correction. So do the efficiency experts, who say the prison is too small and antiquated to be cost-effective. Report from the News & Observer.
But the Union Correctional Center has survived the budget knife through a combination of insider political connections, local businesses and governments benefiting from cheap inmate labor, and preachers trying to save souls. In the process, the Union Correctional Center serves another purpose. It is an example of how complicated and difficult it can be to cut government spending, even as the state faces a budget deficit of epic proportions …
Ran Coble, a veteran budget watcher, said it can be difficult to kill state programs, because they often have powerful political patrons, would lead to the loss of jobs or because they have well-connected policy advocates. “Every legislator tends to protect programs in his or her own district,” said Coble, executive director of the N.C. Center for Public Policy Research, a nonpartisan Raleigh think tank …
Efforts to close prisons, particularly in rural areas, provoke cries about jobs that will be lost. That’s not the case in Union County, where only 36 people work at the prison, located in a fast-growing Charlotte suburb. But the prison is popular in the business community and with local governments because it provides cheap labor. For the past decade, Union Correctional Center has hosted a work release program, where inmates are transferred in to spend the final two years of their sentences learning a trade. Of the 94 inmates at Union Correctional Center, 65 are in the work release program with private companies, learning to become welders, electricians or other trades. Another eight inmates work for the towns of Monroe and Indian Trail, helping clean parks, mowing, picking up trash and cleaning up after storms.
In some instances, companies can use the state prison system like a job placement agency. They order someone with specific skills — such as a welder — and a search will be made of the entire prison system. If found, the welder will be transferred to the Union Correctional Center, Tarlton said. The inmates, who are paid slightly above minimum wage, typically work for a company for two years. The inmates are required to pay the prison $18 a day for their upkeep, pay for transportation costs to the job and, where appropriate, pay restitution. They can send any money that’s left to help support their families or spend it in the prison canteen …
The Union Correctional Center also has a powerful political patron in former state Sen. Aaron Plyler, a road contractor from Monroe. Plyler was one of the leading Democratic barons of the Senate until he retired in 2002 … “I think it would be an unusual move to close it when these people are out there making money for themselves and helping the area,” Plyler said. “The city of Monroe has saved hundreds of thousands…” So Plyler fired off letters to 20 legislative leaders, arguing that the work release program at Union Correctional Center was effective. He got the attention of the decision-makers in Raleigh. “I don’t have as much effect as I had at one time,” Plyler, 82, said in a recent interview. “But I have a lot of friends” …
The Union County prison has been adopted by many area churches, which have an extensive prison ministry to help inmates redirect their lives. The Rev. Al Lewis Jr., executive director of the Safer Communities Ministries, said he has sent “tons of information” to lawmakers. He said that of the 111 inmates who have gone through the program during the past three years, 90 are still out of prison. “We are building a model that we think could go statewide,” Lewis said …
The budget is now before the House, where Democratic Rep. Pryor Gibson, chairman of the House Finance Committee, represents the district where the Union County prison is located. Gibson said the prison is some of the “lowest hanging fruit,” making it a likely target for budget cutters. But he pledged to use all his power to save it.
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