The Carbon County Sheriff’s Office weekly update took time to talk about Inmate Work Crews and how that type of program works at our local jail facility.

“So I get asked all the time about inmate work crews and people are like why don’t you have inmates out working doing roads or shoveling snow or doing this or doing that?  The reality is that we do. We actually have inmate work crews that work every day somewhere mostly within the walls of the jail,” explained Sheriff Jeff Wood. Often times community members think that its “free” labor but that is not true. Because when the prisoners leave the jail they are in custody and deputies must accompany them to the job site. Depending on the number of inmates needed for a job determines the number of Correction Officers that will be required to supervise.

Another challenge that the Sheriff’s Office runs into when it comes to Inmate Work Crews is that most individuals are only incarcerated for a short amount of time. “You know a lot of times they’re not committed to jail for very long and so you have people that are on a three to seven-day commitment by the time they get into jail and get clean, sober and assessed then they’re out, so we don’t get to use those for Inmate Work Crews,” stated Sheriff Wood. There have been times that inmates have not been available to work for one reason or another so finding the necessary manpower can be difficult even though inmates are incarcerated.

In the past, the Sheriff’s Office has allowed Inmate Work Crews to work at many community events. “We’ve helped set up the Arts Festival. We’ve helped set up the Greek Festival. We’ve cleaned ball fields before the big tournaments.  We’ve done things like that and if we know in advance that something is coming, we can say, yea, we’ll get our man-power lined up,” said Sheriff Wood. Knowing in advance gives the Sheriff’s Office time to plan on how many corrections officers will be needed to supervise for the particular project.

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