The nation’s unemployment crisis is now reaching far inside prison walls. Since 2008, thousands of inmates have lost their jobs as federal authorities shutter and scale back operations at prison recycling, furniture, cable and electronics assembly factories to try to make up $65 million in losses. Story in the USA Today.

The job cuts, prison officials say, mean a dramatic reduction in job training for inmates preparing for release, lost wages for prisoners to pay down child support and other court-ordered fines, and more tension in already overcrowded institutions.

“Anytime we have a loss of inmate jobs … it becomes more challenging to keep inmates constructively occupied,” federal Bureau of Prisons spokeswoman Traci Billingsley says. Bureau records show the job cuts during the past two years coincide with slight increases in serious inmate assaults on staff and other prisoners.

Slightly more than 7,000 federal prisoners have been cut from the work rolls in the past two years, and up to 800 more are expected to be dropped in the next several months, according to Federal Prison Industries records.

The latest cut, announced last week, will closenine factories scattered from Pennsylvania to California and includes reductions in staff at 11 others, Federal Prison Industries spokeswoman Julie Rozier says.

She says the cuts represent some of the largest reductions in the 75-year history of the federal prison workforce. “We’re feeling the same pressures that are present in the overall economy,” she says. This year, 16,115 of the system’s 211,146 inmates are working in the factory jobs, down from 23,152 in 2008.

Federal Prison Industries is a government corporation established by Congress in 1934 that provides training for federal inmates. The industries generate about 80 products and services for sale to the federal government. In return, inmates are paid up to $1.15 per hour. Much of that goes to child support, fines, restitution and other court-ordered obligations.

Prison guards and others fear the cuts could spark inmate unrest in overcrowded institutions where jobs — however menial — have kept prisoners occupied.

Last year, serious assaults on staffers increased to 105, up from 100 in 2008, while inmate-on-inmate assaults totaled 524, up from 475 in 2008. “This is a big concern for us,” says Bryan Lowry, president of the federal prison employees association. Because of yearly prison population increases, he says, the federal system is running 37% over capacity.

Fewer jobs mean more downtime for inmates and more crowded recreation yards and housing units. In some places, Lowry says, there is only one prison officer for about 150 inmates: “It’s not a good situation.”

jchev Economic Issues, Federal Systems, Inmate Labor

Though using state prison labor may look like a good deal, some members of the Whitfield County Board of Commissioners wonder if the work details are worth the expense. Reported in the Dalton Daily Citizen.

Commissioners on Monday approved 3-1 the county’s annual contract with the Georgia Department of Corrections for inmate labor. Four crews will cost the county $158,000. Each crew can have up to 10 workers. Commissioner Greg Jones voted against the contract, while Chairman Mike Babb only votes to break ties.

Commissioners will revisit whether inmate labor is cost effective. They can cancel or amend the contract, which begins July 1, at any point by giving seven day’s notice. One crew is used for maintenance and light construction, one is used for trash pickup and mowing, while the other two crews are on concrete detail.

Jones suggested only paying for one crew. The concrete work can be bid out cheaper than the inmate labor costs, Commissioner Harold Brooker said. He’s also concerned about the work schedule of the crews because they show up at odd times or sometimes not at all.

Commissioners Mike Cowan and Randy Waskul believe inmate labor is cost effective, referencing a county cost-benefit study several years ago.

“I think four crews is a bargain,” Waskul said.

Public Works Director Alex Barber said he has “mixed feelings” about use of the inmate crews.

jchev Georgia, Inmate Labor

At 7:30 a.m. one recent morning, a group of 10 men was pouring concrete at a quiet corner on the northern edge of this border community.Eight of the men earn just 50 cents an hour, allowing the cash-strapped city of Douglas to stretch its public-works dollars. Reported by the Arizona Republic.

They are inmates from the Arizona State Prison Complex-Douglas 10 miles away – supplemented by one city worker and a detention officer – and they say they savor the chance to get out of prison and do something productive every day.

“It’s an opportunity to get out and do some physical labor,” said Anthony Perez, a 40-year-old Mesa resident serving a five-year sentence on burglary and drug charges. “It allows me to keep my mind focused on my future once I get out of here.”

The benefits to cash-strapped municipalities as well as inmates are reasons Department of Corrections Director Charles Ryan is pushing to take the program to other communities coping with dwindling tax revenues.

The agency has about 1,500 inmates putting in more than 1.8 million hours of labor every year through more than 100 agreements with governmental bodies around Arizona. But with about 13,000 minimum-security inmates in state custody, Ryan said there’s plenty of room to grow.

“Inmate labor, in our estimation, is an underutilized resource,” he said.

All those hours of 50-cent labor add up to significant savings for cities.

“It represents a cost avoidance of $12.1 million,” Ryan said.

Communities like Douglas have come to rely on the labor pool that inmates in nearby prisons provide.

Douglas sits on the Mexican border, about 50 miles west of New Mexico. Its economy struggled after the smelter closed in the late 1980s. City leaders had less revenue to work with.

Michael Ortega saw the potential to fill that void in 1994.

Ortega, who was Douglas’ public-works director at the time, said the relationship began with selling the program to residents who might have been concerned about inmates in orange jumpsuits doing maintenance at city parks and easing concerns of employees who feared the cheap labor pool would take their jobs.

“There were discussions amongst staff and employees, and we told them the reality is this: They’re not taking your job,” Ortega said. “They’re helping you accomplish your job so I don’t have to hire more staff, because I can’t afford it.”

In the 16 years since Ortega struck up a relationship with the prison warden, inmates have helped convert a former retail store into the town’s library and built all the maple furniture in the building.

They have been instrumental in constructing a skate park and aquatic center and done dozens of smaller projects, such as building park bathrooms and performing routine maintenance.

On Thursday morning, a group of 14 inmates was busy demolishing the inside of the former Phelps Dodge Mercantile store in downtown Douglas. The building will eventually house a courtroom, a sheriff’s substation and an arm of the Cochise County Health Department.

For now, it’s another example of the cooperation and trust city employees have developed with the inmates.

“I don’t hire inmates, I hire craft workers,” said Armando Maza, the city employee supervising the demolition in the Phelps Dodge building.

Ortega, now Cochise County administrator, has taken to promoting the benefits of prison laborers to other cities long on projects and short on tax dollars.

In nearby Bisbee, a crew performs maintenance tasks every day at the Queen Mine, one of the area’s major tourist attractions, which draws more than 50,000 visitors each year.

A group of schoolchildren from Tucson were thrilled with the prospect of going down into the mine. They didn’t notice the three inmates clad in orange “ADC” jumpsuits.

That prospect of blending in suits Abel Suniga, a 35-year-old Phoenix resident serving a three-year sentence on drug charges.

“You keep busy, you know?” Suniga said as he finished chopping wood at the mine. “It helps the time go by quicker.”

There are strict requirements for inmates like Suniga to get one of the sought-after jobs outside prison walls. And there is quick punishment for any who act up on the job.

The minimum-custody inmates must be within five years of being released and cannot have a criminal history that includes sex crimes or crimes of violence, such as manslaughter. They also cannot be subject to detainers from other agencies waiting to take custody once their sentence is up.

And they need to be working toward a diploma if they don’t have one already.

Ryan said those factors motivate inmates to use their time behind bars to their advantage.

Research indicates such programs reduce recidivism among inmates, but Ryan said the jobs give convicts a taste of what will be expected after their sentence is up.

“It’s going to be expected of them when they get out of prison,” he said. “We don’t want inmates sitting around idle doing nothing.”

jchev Arizona, Inmate Labor

With a potentially devastating oil spill on their doorstep, even Louisiana’s prison inmates – locked away from nature in their concrete cells – are concerned for its impact, and are being drafted in to help with recovery. Story in the Herald Sun.

Eighty prison inmates were gathered today in an auditorium in suburban New Orleans to be taught, ostensibly, how to clean up birds caught up in the oil slick, although Rebecca Dunne of the local NGO Tri-State Bird Rescue and Research said the actual rescues would be handled by professionals.

“I’ll need them for general contractors’ tasks like carpentry or plumbing,” Ms Dunne said of the inmates who are on a six-month work program while in jail.

Ms Dunne and Michael Carloss, a biologist at the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (DWF), explained to the inmates that the main concern was for pelicans and plovers, whose swamp habitats in the Mississippi Delta is threatened by the gushing oil spill.

An estimated 210,000 gallons of crude a day has been streaming from the wellhead below the Deepwater Horizon rig that sank on April 22, threatening the Gulf coast with environmental catastrophe if the well cannot be capped.

Prisoner Jonathan Boudreaux, jailed for parole violation, identifies strongly with the region, saying the Bayou is his home. “I hate to see wildlife and animals suffer,” he said, adding that he owns three boats and fishes for crab and shrimp on Lake Pontchartrain. “There’s nothing that can survive an oil spill,” he lamented softly. “Oil kills everything. So I guess the spill is going to hit us pretty bad.”

For others, working in any way until they gain freedom is most important.

“Be it cleaning up highways or helping out with the bird clean up, I do whatever I’m told,” said inmate Josh Palmer, who revealed that on the outside, he in fact makes his living on oil rigs.

“I do gas and oil. It’s really well paid. I make like between $US1800 and $US2500 a week. Risks included,” he said.

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal announced last week that prisoners were being enrolled to help face the environmental catastrophe of the Gulf of Mexico oil slick.

The Department of Corrections is actively working with the DWF “to train inmates in oil spill clean-up efforts so they can assist the federal lead agencies”, he said on Saturday.

The spill has sparked fears of an environmental calamity as the region boasts 40 per cent of US wetlands – prime spawning waters for fish, shrimp and crabs and a major stop for migratory birds.

Nearly all migratory birds in the Western Hemisphere stop over in the marshes surrounding the mouth of the Mississippi river and tens of thousands are currently guarding eggs laid along the shores.

jchev Inmate Labor, Louisiana

George Peacock, the coordinator for the Pamlico County Historical Association’s Heritage Village, has nothing but good things to say about work crews that have built a blacksmith shop and old school house on the county museum grounds.  The workers are inmates from Carteret Correctional Facility in Newport, and the future of their Community Work Program is in doubt after the new state budget eliminated 127 supervising officer positions. Report from ENC Today.

“That upsets me, because these folks do a lot of good work, not only here but for towns in the county,” Peacock said. Without the free prison labor, the historical group couldn’t afford the $20,000-plus to build the blacksmith shop.   The elimination of the positions was a $4.7 million cost-cutting measure, although state prison officials are looking at options to salvage the 15-year-old program. It involves more than 1,000 inmates statewide.

Mike Hardee, superintendent of the 300-inmate minimum-custody Carteret County prison, was optimistic that the program can continue in some fashion, and is confident none of his officers will lose their jobs. He said enough vacancies exist in other areas of the prison to absorb the work program officers. As for the non-profit groups and towns that now enjoy the free labor, one possibility is they could pay for the prison labor. “It may be that they (state) would keep some programs in strategic locations throughout the state,” he said. Hardee added that state corrections officials are discussing the matter in Raleigh this week.

While the community work crew program fell to the budget axe, the inmate liter pickup program with the state Department of Transportation was not affected.  Scotty Golden, the work program officer overseeing eight inmates Thursday at the Pamlico Heritage Center, said his crews have done ditch-cleaning, woodworking and painting in a number of Pamlico towns, including Bayboro, Oriental, Minnesott Beach, Arapahoe and Stonewall.   He is one of four Carteret officers, each overseeing an eight-inmate crew that works 10-hour days Monday through Thursday throughout Pamlico, Craven, Jones, Carteret and Onslow counties.   “We’ve done a lot of ditching and cut back trees,” he said. “If they had to pay for it, it would cost them a pretty penny.”    While the labor is tax-payer funded, it does not come as a direct expense to small towns, which normally operate on rather bare budgets.

Inmates Jason Crockett of Virginia Beach and George Jackson of Wilmington said the work program was a positive part of their prison reform.  “It’s better than just spending idle time. It’s a chance to learn to build stuff, and help the community,” said Crockett, who was a car salesman before drawing jail time for a marijuana conviction.   Jackson, who said he was serving time for “driving while drinking,” owns a granite countertop business, which continues to operate while he completes a 14-month sentence.    “It (work) is a chance to use your brain instead of it turning to mush,” he said, while helping Crockett build a large wooden bench.

jakking Economic Issues, Inmate Labor, North Carolina

In what Sheriff Malcolm McMillin called an effort to rehabilitate prisoners, Hinds County MS sent state inmates, including a violent offender, off site to work.  The apparent good deed, though, was in violation of state law, and was discovered during a recent inspection. Story from the Clarion Ledger.

The Sheriff’s Department this year had three female inmates out working: two at local nonprofits and the other at the county jail’s switchboard.  Aside from one inmate being a violent offender, the others were ineligible to perform community service because they had not been approved to do so by the state.   McMillin’s office for years has sent inmates into the community to work in exchange for “good time” credit on their sentences. McMillin has said he was unaware his department was violating the law.   “There’s no answer for it,” McMillin said. “I’m not going to have any problems with it because it’s not happening anymore.”

State inmates should not be working outside the jail unless they are part of a county/state work program, Mississippi Department of Corrections Commissioner Chris Epps said. Epps’ office earlier this month told the Sheriff’s Department to stop sending inmates out – or risk losing the inmates and the $20 per day the state pays the county to house them. MDOC has 23 inmates at the 173-bed detention center in downtown Jackson. Those inmates are classified to work on the jail premises only, Epps said.  The inmates sent out by the Sheriff’s Department worked in various jobs.

• [One felon] did clerical work at the Museum of Art for several weeks earlier this year. [She] is serving six years concurrent on four charges of kidnapping, with four years of probation to follow. She was convicted in Hinds County in 2006.    Museum of Art Director Betsy Bradley said the museum had no trouble with [the inmate]. “She did a good job while she was here.”
• [An inmate] was working as a switchboard operator for the Sheriff’s Department. She was convicted in Hinds County in January and is serving five years on an embezzlement charge.
• [Another inmate] is serving three years for house burglary. She was convicted in March in Hinds County. She was working at Stewpot Community Services but now answers the phones at the jail downtown.

Stewpot Director Frank Spencer could not be reached for comment. He has said it could cost Stewpot $25,000 a year to hire a replacement for [the inmate].    The Sheriff’s Department has had a standing, but not written, policy for years to use state inmates at agencies such as Stewpot, The American Red Cross and the Museum of Art, Chief Deputy Steve Pickett said.  “The sheriff believes in rehabilitation,” Pickett said. But the state first must perform mental, physical and background checks on all inmates it classifies as those who can work, Epps said. Once they pass the checks, inmates can only work on jail grounds, Epps said.   A court order filed at the beginning of June puts an end to sending inmates off site.

Since 1983, the state has renewed a standing agreement with Hinds County to house prisoners downtown without inspection of the facility or its records, prisoners’ rights attorney Ron Welch said.   The state last year changed that policy, and Welch now must inspect each facility every year before the agreement is renewed.  On a recent inspection of the downtown jail, Welch found the unclassified inmates out in the community working.

Hinds County has a joint state/county work center at the penal farm in Raymond, where about 200 male state inmates work regularly in the community doing jobs such as cleaning up garbage beside roads and mowing county rights of way. Those inmates can work at nonprofits, if the sheriff opts to do that, Epps said. He has not done so.

jakking County-State Issues, Inmate Labor, MS Hinds County, Mississippi

Michigan’s prison industries – in which inmates manufacture license plates, furniture and clothing for sale – operated at a net loss of about $8 million over the last four years despite a legislative mandate to be self-supporting, according to an audit released this morning.  Story from the Detroit Free Press.

The Legislative Auditor General reported losses of nearly $3 million in 2005 and 2006, and of $2.2 million in 2008. The program recorded a $352,00 profit in 2007, when a new set of standard license plates was produced, the report said. The audit cited high labor costs for both staff and prisoners; at one prison factory staff costs reached 355% of sales, while nearly a third of prisoner labor costs ($1,051,000) were for “idle time” when there was no work to be done.

Officials at the Bureau of Correctional Industries told auditors they had little flexibility to limit supervisory costs and believed putting “prisoners in work situations” even when there was no work to be done “provid(ed) life skill development.”

The audit also cited prison industries’ lack of a business or marketing plan and inefficient use of its delivery system as contributing factors in the operating losses. The prison industries program operates 28 factories in 14 facilities, employing about 1,900 prisoners a year. It has a professional staff of 176.

Department of Corrections spokesman John Cordell said this morning the agency agrees with the findings and has worked over the last 18 months to improve operations, including the development of a business and marketing plan.

jakking Inmate Labor, Michigan

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.

jakking Economic Issues, Inmate Labor, NC Union County, North Carolina

Budget cuts that would close prisons and eliminate some creative ways of dealing with crime moved a step closer to reality Thursday.  Report from the Asheville Citizen-Times.

House budget writers unveiled a series of proposals for cuts in the justice system, the latest piece in their attempt to deal with a more than $4 billion budget shortfall without raising taxes. They proposed closing eight prisons, including Haywood Correctional Center, which would shut down by Oct. 1 under the plan. Other cuts would end or reduce funding for programs to keep youths and adults from heading to prison, or deal with them in ways other than locking them up. Camp Woodson in Buncombe County and other wilderness camps for troubled youths would shut down …

Another cut would end funding in the corrections budget for the BRIDGE program. The program sends young prison inmates to the mountains to fight forest fires. They do other work, too. Inmates headed out to Madison County on Thursday to repair a footbridge that had washed away in the recent heavy rains, closing off access to an elderly couple’s property, said Keith Suttles, assistant camp director with the state forest service. “People don’t realize that resource won’t be there to do those things,” Suttles said …

Another program that offers troubled youths the chance at wilderness adventures, Spruce Pine-based Project Challenge, would lose $40,000, 25 percent of its annual state funding for administrative costs. The nonprofit takes youths in 34 counties into the woods and into communities to serve at places like churches, food pantries and hospitals.

These are just extracts from a much longer article in the Asheville Citizen-Times.

jakking Community Corrections, Economic Issues, Inmate Labor, Inmate Programs, Juvenile Justice, North Carolina

UN Deputy Envoy, Ms. Henrietta Mensa-Bonsu has described an agricultural pilot project for inmates at the Liberian National Palace of Corrections “as a bold step towards institutionalizing active programs for rehabilitation of inmates.”

Ms. Henrietta Mensa-Bonsu described [the project] “as a bold step towards institutionalizing active programs for rehabilitation of inmates” … The program sets the basis for the development of an efficient and effective rehabilitation and reintegration program for prisoners … Under the pilot phase of this project, prison inmates will be taught farming skills on land inside the National Palace of Corrections (NCP), and the food they will grow will supplement their rations.

Minister [of Justice Philip] Banks expressed his hope that the project would be merely the beginning of rehabilitation projects in correctional facilities in Liberia and that it would prove beneficial for the inmates and the facility and assist in the inmates’ successful rehabilitation into society on their release. The Minister assured corrections officers during the visit that the Ministry of Justice could be called upon for assistance at any time but warned that absence from duty or harassment of inmates would not be tolerated …

Underscoring the need for rehabilitation of inmates as productive citizens, Ms. Mensa-Bonsu urged the communities around the prison to purchase the prison’s excess crops. “This will not only encourage the inmates to grow more, but would provide necessary funds to the Corrections Palace to improve the quality of life of the inmates,” she added. To the inmates, [she] advised: “there is dignity in labor; the sense of achievement and material benefits it will produce will ensure that your stay at this facility would be a watershed in your life.”

Source:  UN Mission in Liberia.

jakking Food Services, INTERNATIONAL, Inmate Labor, Liberia, Re-Entry

The Bartholomew County IN sheriff is utilizing unemployed ex-offenders to help with community cleanup projects, according to the IndyChannel.

Felons on probation or house arrest are being assigned to jail work crews three days a week to help with jobs like picking up roadside trash …  “You know, the economy is bad. They don’t have jobs,” said Bartholomew County Sheriff Mark Gorbett. “They have fines to pay and things like that, but at least they’re out here now doing something. If they can’t find a job, they’re picking up trash, at least helping put back into the community.” Officials said it’s also an effort to help the community and motivate ex-offenders to find jobs.”We have some who would just rather sit at home and do nothing and they’re not out even looking for a job,” said Rob Gaskill with Bartholomew County Community Corrections.

jakking IN Bartholomew County, Inmate Labor

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.

There is more background in the Post-Searchlight article.

jakking Economic Issues, GA Decatur County, Georgia, Inmate Labor

Hundreds of prisoners, evacuated in September ahead of Hurricane Gustav, are scheduled to return next week to the Terrebonne Parish LA jail refurbished after flooding by Hurricane Ike, which occurred during their absence.  This report from The Thibodeaux Daily Comet.

Inmate workers … stuffed soap, toothpaste and other hygiene basics into empty pillow cases Thursday morning, creating hundreds of jail-style welcome bags for Terrebonne’s returning exiled prisoners … The inmate workers, a team of trusties who remained in the parish during the jail’s seven-month closure, have done much of the repair work.  The total cost for repairs is about $730,000.

On Thursday the parish opened the building for public tours, showcasing its newly painted interior, an added 50 beds and security and electronics now placed lifted off the ground, in case of another flood.  The possibility of future flooding was on the minds of many public officials who toured the building, which is just as vulnerable to flooding, they say, as it was a year ago.   “We’re rolling the dice,” said Sheriff Vernon Bourgeois, who staffs the parish-owned building.  Parish President Michel Claudet said an $850,000 ring levee protecting the jail and nearby juvenile detention center will be completed this year, but not before the start of hurricane season …

Hurricane Ike flooded the jail with about a foot of water for two days. Male inmates evacuated to the State Penitentiary in Angola, where they remain. Women prisoners were evacuated to three other prisons in the state.   The Juvenile Justice Center, a parish-owned building, flooded during the storm. It opened in October after repairs, said Jason Hutchinson, its director …

Though inmates will start returning from Angola by bus next week — about 100 at a time — 40 prisoners from the parish Courthouse Jail Annex were shipped to the jail Thursday. The Courthouse Annex Jail has housed many prisoners arrested since the storms before they are ferried to Angola or another detention center.

There is much more detail and background in the article at The Thibodeaux Daily Comet.

jakking Inmate Labor, LA Terrebonne Parish, Louisiana

For years, minimum custody inmates have worked on raising flowers at the Guilford County prison farm near Gibsonville NC.  Story and video from MyFox8.com.

“We do anywhere between $50,000 and $60,000 in April,” said Captain Jack Johnson, with the Guilford Co. Sheriff’s Office. “May is a good month then it falls off and picks back up with our fall flowers.”   Profits from the sale of geraniums, impatients and other flowers go in to the county’s general fund.

jakking Inmate Labor, NC Guilford County, North Carolina

The Alabama Department of Corrections began in October 2007 charging cities, counties and other governing bodies for labor done by prisoners, such as picking up trash along highways.  That price will go up by 50 percent in October as the department seeks to close a gap in funding, according to the Birmingham News.

This year, there is a $43.3 million difference in the funding the corrections department gets from the state of Alabama and the amount it takes to run the system. The department narrows the gap by charging for inmate squad labor, raising revenue through the prison work release program and other steps.   On Oct. 1, the start of fiscal 2010, the rate will increase from $10 per inmate, per day to $15.

For one agency, the Alabama Department of Transportation, the rate has already more than doubled. ALDOT started paying for inmate squads in the spring of 2007, and until recently was paying $20. In February, the rate rose to $50 per inmate per day, Corrections spokesman Brian Corbett said … Corrections Commissioner Richard Allen has estimated that the new rates will bring in about $3 million each year …

[In 2007], according to the department’s annual report, inmate squads from 14 state prison facilities performed 103,000 man-hours per month, “equivalent to a labor savings of almost $6 million to government agencies within the state.”  In the spring of 2007, Allen said he got permission from Gov. Bob Riley to begin charging for the work squad labor. He put his plan into operation in the year’s final quarter, when the department asked the state and local agencies to consider paying. More than $15,000 in fees came in … That $15,000 sum was dwarfed by fees earned in fiscal 2008. In that year, Corbett said, inmate squads worked more than 1.3 million hours and generated nearly $1.2 million in fees. If the inmates had been working for minimum wage, the fees would have amounted to more than $6.9 million, Corbett said.  Unlike inmates in work release, who generally keep 60 percent of what they earn in civilian jobs, those on the work squads earn $2 a day.

jakking Alabama, Inmate Labor

The Becker County MN Board of Commissioners approved renewal of a contract with the Minnesota Department of Corrections for the operation of the county’s Sentence to Service (STS) program. Report from Detroit Lakes Online.

The county will continue to employ two part-time STS crew leaders and a quarter-time shared position with Mahnomen County, which will be more than justified by additional work responsibilities that will be assigned to STS.

As explained by Gordon, in an effort to streamline county operations the STS program will be taking on additional duties for the county’s Parks & Recreation and Environmental Services agencies.   STS will be absorbing grounds maintenance duties for Parks & Recreation that had previously been handled via 12 separate contracts with other businesses. In addition, STS crews will be providing paint separation and paint can crushing duties for Environmental Services.

Altogether, assigning these jobs to STS is expected to save the county nearly $15,000.

jakking Community Corrections, Inmate Labor, MN Becker County

Graham County and the Arizona Department of Forestry have struck an agreement that will see  inmate labor used to cut trees and clear brush, according to the Eastern Arizona Gazette.

Work crews, provided by the Arizona Department of Corrections, will be paid $2 per hour per crew member.   According to the agreement, each crew will be made up of no more than 20 members, and the maximum number of hours worked per week by the crew will be 40.   The agreement covers a two-year period; however, the county reserves the right to cancel the agreement due to funding limitations.  The Arizona Department of Forestry is required to provide the appropriate number of officers to supervise the crew, the agreement states.

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A new audit says Minnesota’s prisons should tighten oversight of arrangements with private companies for inmate labor.

The Legislative Auditor’s office says Minncor Industries does a generally good job of running a profitable business and giving inmates something productive to do. But its report says prisoners’ work for private companies such as 3M Co. is less profitable for the state than their work making license plates and running canteens …  The auditor also recommends standard contracts with the businesses and closer monitoring of the profitability of those contracts.

Inmates do everything from making tractors to packaging balloons for private companies. Minncor had its most profitable year ever in 2008, reporting net income of $3 million.

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Maine DOC has proposed cutting the inmate population at the Bolduc Correctional Facility in Warren in half and cutting about 20 jobs, according to Unit Manager Ray Felt.

Felt said the proposed cuts threaten the very mission of the minimum security facility, which is to rehabilitate and train prisoners before transitioning them back into life outside the prison. He said he and the other employees at the Bolduc Correctional Facility are passionate about this mission.  “We want to try to change behavior so they won’t come back,” he said of the prisoners. “A lot of these guys are going to be your neighbors” …

The Bolduc Correctional Facility provides prisoners with opportunities to work, learn job skills, take classes, and deal with emotional and substance abuse problems. The prison farm is minimum security and many of the prisoners are involved in work release programs. Prisoners work jobs and perform a great deal of community and public service. If the proposed state cuts are made, the prison farm will not be able to provide prison workers for community service programs …

Right now, the facility has about 63 employees and 180 prisoners. It has the capacity to handle up to 224 prisoners. If the cuts are implemented as planned, only about 90 prisoners will be left there.  The state has proposed cutting 10 support staff positions and 10 security officer positions.   The prison farm employs 27 corrections officers, six sergeants and one captain to provide security and keep it in operation 24 hours a day, seven days per week.

Felt said that if the cuts are made, some of the prisoners will be sent to county jails and the Maine State Prison, which he said will start double-bunking prisoners, putting more prisoners in each cell …

“When you think of prisons, everyone thinks about the negative,” Felt said. “We do a lot that’s positive.”

The article in the Warren Village Soup is full of good detail.

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Two new programs that provide additional work opportunities for inmates at the Bradford County PA jail are now up and running, the warden said.  The Daily Review reports:

Last month, the county moved its print shop from the Bradford County Courthouse to the jail.   The print shop is now up and running at its new location, said Warden Donald Stewart … Inmates who work at the print shop are going to have the opportunity to become certified by the National Occupational Competency Testing Institute, Stewart told the prison board at its meeting on Thursday.  “That (certification) will help them hopefully with their job skills,” the warden said.   A few weeks ago, a new program was launched at the jail under which a number of female inmates launder linens that are brought over from the Bradford County Manor, Stewart said …

The warden also said that the jail’s kitchen will be saving approximately $4,000 to $5,000 a year by making a number of food items on its own, rather than purchasing pre-made items.

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