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| Prison work crews cut in cost-savings move |
| By usatoday.com - Kevin Pieper |
| Published: 09/14/2011 |
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Prison inmate labor programs, long considered a lower-cost option for needed public work projects such as clearing debris and cutting weeds on highways, are increasingly facing elimination or reduction because of budget issues. Michigan and North Carolina are the latest to completely eliminate their programs, and Florida reduced its program by nearly 40% this year. Michigan lawmakers stopped funding the Michigan Department of Corrections' 15 crews this year, even as more requests for inmate labor poured in from communities. "We actually stopped all but one work crew (which the requester fully funded) in September 2010," according to Michigan Department of Corrections spokesman John Cordell. It cost Michigan taxpayers $10 million last year to operate the crews. Most of that cost was for transportation and supervision of the inmates, he said. Cordell said there are plans to reinstate inmate crews Oct. 1, but with a major difference. "We will have to charge the entities who use the crews," Cordell said. "We just can't subsidize the program anymore." Elsewhere: •Florida lawmakers cut $24 million from the Florida Department of Corrections 2010-11 budget, which resulted in the elimination of 71 of state's 184 public work squads, state DOC spokeswoman Jo Ellyn Rackleff said. •North Carolina, which cut funding for all 127 of the Department of Corrections' Community Work Program crews in 2009, added back 39 crews last year, only to cut them again in a new round of budget cuts, according to Keith Acree, Department of Corrections public affairs director. Acree said North Carolina spent $4.78 million operating the crews during the 2008 fiscal year, the last period when the Community Work Program was in full swing. •New York lawmakers are in the midst of closing seven minimum to medium security prisons, which may result in a reduction of its inmate work crews. "That's where the work crews come from," said Peter Cutler, director of public relations for New York Department of Corrections. "And, yes, there has been some discussion of scaling back the crews." The closures are cause for concern in some municipalities that are used to the availability of prison labor. "There was a massive uproar across the state," North Carolina's Acree said. "Communities relied on the crews." Read More. |
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