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| Inmates saving money for Palm Beach County cities |
| By palmbeachpost.com - Willie Howard |
| Published: 12/03/2013 |
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Those crews you see cleaning city parks, mowing cemeteries and picking up trash along streets and drainage canals might not be what you think. In four Palm Beach County cities, they’re not municipal employees. They are prison inmates. They report to work in nondescript vans wearing light blue jumpsuits with white stripes down the legs and orange safety vests with the letters “DC” on the back, and they are under the control of the Florida Department of Corrections. And some work for free. Dominic Calabro, president and CEO of Florida TaxWatch, the Tallahassee-based nonprofit, nonpartisan taxpayer research group, sees inmate work programs providing a public benefit while training inmates to work. Even though having inmates work in public involves some risk, Calabro said, it’s better to put inmates to work than to hold them idle inside prisons. Not everyone agrees, however. Prisoner rights advocate Paul Wright, editor of Lake Worth-based “Prison Legal News,” disagrees. “That sounds like plain old exploitative slavery to me,” Wright said, noting that inmates should have a choice about working and should be paid. “I don’t think exploiting people makes any kind of work ethic.” Read More. |
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