The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

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.

ALDOT officials said they understand the need for increasing the fees.

"We have been talking about it," said ALDOT director Joe McInnes. "But whatever it is, it's going to be about 55 percent savings for us. It's going to be about 45 percent of what we are paying outside contractors now. Obviously they're looking for ways to increase their resources, and we need their help, and ... with this kind of savings, we think it's a good deal if we can get them to do more of this kind of work for us."

Corrections Commissioner Richard Allen has estimated that the new rates will bring in about $3 million each year.

"What we've been trying to do with this is ... raise revenue to meet our operational costs," Corbett said.
Alabama raising rates for inmate work squad labor - Page 2

In fiscal 2007, Corrections took its first step toward raising revenue from the work squads. In that year, 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, and a chunk of that came from ALDOT. .

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.

Prisoners at work:

On a recent chilly morning, some $2-a-day inmates from the Childersburg Work Release/Community Work Center were picking up trash for ALDOT on U.S. 280, just east of the main business district in Chelsea. On the highway's shoulder and median were diamond-shaped orange metal signs bearing the black-lettered advisory, "State prisoners at work."

Wearing day-glo green ALDOT vests and rubber gloves, the prisoners were using a long tool with a retractable claw called a picker to retrieve trash and other debris and put it in a plastic bag. Their supervisor was Leon Maddox, an employee from the ALDOT district office in Calera who took them to the work site in a white van with two flashing strobe lights on its roof.

Two of Maddox's trash pickers were Clay Streetman of Hurtsboro and Samuel Grayson of Bessemer. Their work day would last about six hours, and both said they liked the opportunity to get out in the open.

"It's a better feeling compared to being inside of the prison," Grayson said.

What the inmates usually pick up are bottles, paper wrappers, beer cans, pieces of cardboard and sometimes a dead opossum or the carcass of another animal. Once Grayson found a complete set of female undergarments. Another time, he found a tattered $20 bill.

During a recent week, Maddox said, squad members picked up about 2,300 pounds of roadside trash.

Childersburg warden Rodney Huntley typically has more than 550 inmates in his facility, a majority of whom are eligible for work squad details. The more of them who are out working, the better it is for them and for him and his staff.

"An idle mind is the devil's workshop," Huntley said. "So work in and of itself helps to keep the camp calm and keeps issues down."
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