The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

Sen. Scott Fitzgerald, R-Juneau, asked the state Department of Corrections to look into concerns of nearby residents about possibly violent inmates from the Fox Lake Correctional Institution. Prison guards drop the inmates off at the site and pick them up after work, but they are supervised by the employer at the work site, authorities said.

"I am asking the Department of Corrections to ... ensure that no inmate convicted of a violent or drug-related crime is being permitted to work in such close proximity to a residential area," Fitzgerald said Wednesday. He had not yet received a response to his Tuesday letter.

John Dipko, a spokesman for Corrections, said that about 130 of Fox Lake's 1,330 total inmates participate in work release - an important way of preparing them for life outside prison walls. He said they are chosen from minimum security inmates with less serious offenses who are getting closer to release time.

Inmates at the site do jobs such as moving items, hauling tools and working on the roof and doors, Dipko said.

Numbers of inmates at the Wal-Mart site vary by day, he said, and a few have been removed from the site because their work did not meet the demands of the job, he said. However, some of those removed appear to fit Fitzgerald's criteria for concern.

The placements started in October and were scheduled to end in December. There were originally seven inmates working at the Wal-Mart site, but four were removed. Daily numbers appear to vary from five to eight.

Those who were removed were serving sentences for burglary, battery, armed burglary/battery and the manufacture and delivery of cocaine, Dipko said. Those at the site since have convictions for operating a vehicle under the influence, operating a vehicle without the owner's consent, and criminal damage to property/resisting arrest, he said.

The average wage for Fox Lake inmates is about $9 per hour, depending on the type of work, Dipko said. The earnings go toward room, board and transportation reimbursement for the institution, and for child support payments, restitution and fines. Inmates can refuse to work.

"When wages are worked out, they are based on what the employer would pay somebody hired off the street," Dipko said. "They are having a tough time hiring enough people from the general public to get the job done."

But Ann Breuer, who lives near the site and was part of a group that sued Beaver Dam and Wal-Mart about annexation procedures for the project - and then settled in return for Wal-Mart's agreement to highway and landscaping improvements to lessen the impact of heavy truck traffic - said she did not recall ads for such jobs. She also said that a corrections officer told her that one of the inmates involved had committed a very serious violent offense in the past, but the officer denied that.

Mike Grater, business agent for Laborers Local 330 based in Menasha, said that he would prefer that local residents be hired to do the work that the inmates are doing - for a good wages with benefits.

The building contractor that hired the inmates is Hansen-Rice, a nationwide general contracting company based in Idaho. Lafe Herrick, the project manager for the company at the site, said that Hansen-Rice was the only company using inmates there, but that he could not comment further without getting an OK from Wal-Mart, which is its own general contractor for the project. After doing so, he said that Wal-Mart had instructed him not to speak to reporters.

Calls to Wal-Mart headquarters in Arkansas were not returned.

Rose Lynch, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Workforce Development, said prevailing wage rules do not apply to privately done projects.

"A private entity such as Wal-Mart is not covered," she explained.

But city of Beaver Dam projects around the site such as sewer and water connections are covered, because they are being done by a public entity and cost more than $200,000.

Most work release inmates work at food plants or do assembly work in factories, Dipko said. The total number of state inmates on work release is more than 1,100, he said.

"These offenders gain valuable work experience. They can build good work habits and learn what it takes to be successful on a job. The ultimate goal is being gainfully employed, productive members of the community upon release from prison," he said. "Stable employment is directly linked to a lower likelihood of re-offending, so it ultimately helps promote public safety."

Questions were raised last spring by the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign about the level of Wal-Mart contributions to candidates for state political offices, and the fact that the company has received $2.2 million in state commerce and transportation aid and $7.8 million in local aid and tax breaks since 1999 to open facilities in Tomah and Beaver Dam.

Wal-Mart Stores employees and the Wal-Pac political action committee have given a total of $87,775 to Wisconsin legislative candidates, party committees and Gov. Jim Doyle during the past two fiscal years, from July 1, 2003 to June 30, 2005, according to Democracy Campaign files.

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