Looking at the world through rose colored glasses.
Someone may have unrealistic high hopes…
Lamar County may convert a county building into a inmate work center that will help ease crowding at the jail and possibly aid the county’s budget.
Lamar County Administrator Chuck Bennett said residents’ complaints about litter sparked the plan.
Bennett said the center would house prisoners for work crews, with the first 20 inmates to be in the new center no later than next spring.
“When it’s up and running, it should free up about 50 beds and provide the county with free labor,” Sheriff Danny Rigel said
Bennett said about $200,000 had been set aside in the proposed 2011 budget to cover construction costs and purchase fencing, cameras, bedding and other necessities.
“But that $200,000, that investment, has the potential to do really large things, really big things,” Bennett said.
Currently, inmates work outside the jail on a variety of details.
Two seven-man crews pick litter from county roads. Some are used for projects at county-owned buildings and grounds. Others clean high school football stadiums after games or help during the county’s “white goods” collection on the weekends.
Down the road, inmate labor could supplement county workers in areas such as sanitation and building and grounds.
District 5 Supervisor Dale Lucus said he could envision a day when inmate labor was saving the county hundreds of thousands of dollars in salaries, benefits and other costs.
Joe Bounds, president of the Board of Supervisors, said the relatively modest cost to renovate buildings could have a big payoff down the road.
Just wait a minute here. Most people in jail aren’t there because of a high work ethic.
What makes these people think this program is going to be so wildly successful?
I’m dubious about it.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 1st, 2010 at 3:09 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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