Between The Lines: Work Release Has Proven Its Worth

Sunday, July 13, 2014

Attitudes change.

The number of prisoners in a Springdale work release program will more than double soon, increasing the number from 42 to 100, apparently without alarm.

Like hundreds of former work-release inmates have before them, they'll come here to live and work until their sentences are served. They'll take up residence in a renovated armory building instead of a state prison and learn again about life without bars.

They will be locked up at night in a secure facility but will go to jobs during the day, working for government and private employers and paying the state for their room and board from the money they earn.

The increase in the number of inmates in the program has just been announced but don't expect the public reaction to be anything like it was when the regional work release center first opened.

Springdale has had a work release center since the 1980s, but it was not all that well received back then. The concept was new, at least to Arkansas, and strong public opposition developed.

An initial site in Lowell that would at first have served maybe a couple of dozen prisoners was rejected after a public uproar. Eventually, a small program was up and running in Springdale, however.

Work-release inmates simply haven't been the threat that some of the area's citizens expected. And local employers readily commit to hiring them.

"Employers like our people because they show up every day on time," Jim Brooks, program supervisor told a reporter for the newspaper. "We deliver them to the door. If they create problems, we send them back to prison."

Brooks, who has been in his position for more than 10 years, said problems with the workers are rare. He cited one "with a smart mouth" and four caught smoking as well as two walk-away inmates among those who have been sent back to prison in recent years.

Obviously, the Department of Correction, which manages the program, keeps a short leash on participants.

Besides, not just any inmate is eligible to participate in work release. They must earn the opportunity with good behavior and no discipline problems in prison and cannot be violent offenders.

Inmates must be within 42 months of being eligible for parole. That, too, is a change from the earliest days, when participants had to be much closer to release.

The argument then was that most of these people were going to be coming back to these communities soon and work release would allow them to reconnect to their families and the work environment.

Inmates come here from around the state now and should fill all the newly available beds by the end of next week, according to a Correction Department spokeswoman.

Four of the new inmates will work for the city of Springdale, along with five others already working for different city departments. Others work for private employers, according to Brooks, doing jobs the employers have a hard time filling, like those in chicken plants and warehouses.

The participating inmates get paid the same as other workers doing the same job and they must repay the state Department of Correction for their room and board.

The city owns the old armory building at 600 W. Sunset, which has been renovated for the expanding program. The state leases it for $1 a year on a long-term contract and used prisoner labor over the past year to do the renovation. The state committed to spend up to $1 million on the project and to pay maintenance and utilities for the center.

These newly available beds are among the 600 the state Legislature recently authorized. The state will add 13 staff members to the program to manage the additional inmate population.

The money for additional staffing here is part of the more than $6 million the Legislature appropriated in a special session to help ease prison overcrowding.

The appropriation should help move prisoners awaiting transfer from local jails into the prison system but it is also allowing other inmates to come here for work release.

Again, these work-release candidates are people who were going to get out of prison in 42 months, if not sooner. Work release provides opportunity for a smoother transition back into the communities, through work and with interaction with the rest of the population.

The program is good for them and good for the state and is, thankfully, more acceptable to the public than it once was.

BRENDA BLAGG IS A FREELANCE COLUMNIST AND LONGTIME JOURNALIST IN NORTHWEST ARKANSAS.

Commentary on 07/13/2014