A plan presented to the Guthrie County Board of Supervisors Thursday would allow inmates from the minimum security North Central Correctional Facility, in Rockwell City, to be transported nearly 60 miles south to work daily shifts at Rose Acres’ egg farm near Guthrie Center.
The plan, presented by correctional facility Warden Cornell Smith, Iowa Prison Industries Director Dan Clark, Rose Acres Complex Manager Mike Clayton and Sheriff Marty Arganbright, could take at least four months to implement.
Clark says the program has never been done in Guthrie County, but many inmates around the state participate in it. “There is a program that allows inmates, while incarcerated, to work for private companies. Every day across the state, offenders are out working for the DOT and DNR, they work at the Governor’s mansion, they work for the Department of Correction’s office answering phones, so they do a lot of things for various government agencies. The program that allows them to work for private companies, like Rose Acres, is the Prison Industries Enhancement Program, and in that program the company has to show that they’ve been unable to hire enough civilians.”
Clayton says hiring an adequate number of civilians to operate the plant at capacity is harder than it’s ever been. “I’ve never seen it this bad, with not being able to get labor. When we do get people in, they’re usually just there for a day or a few hours because it’s just too hard of work.”
Clark adds that inmates participating in the program and generating income are benefiting Iowa taxpayers. “They have to get paid the going wage, whether that’s $8, $10 or $13 an hour, but they only get to keep 20% of that. The other 80% pays state and federal taxes, FICA, any child support they might owe, any court-ordered restitution and then everything that’s left goes to the institution to pay for their own incarceration or it goes into the state’s general fund. The taxpayer’s benefit for sure, because 80% of what that inmate earns goes to pay taxes or child support.”
He adds the program also benefits the inmates by setting them up for success when they get released. “Time after time research shows that somebody that works while incarcerated has a much better success rate when they get released. All of these people participating in this program will be released and they typically are in the last 6 months to a year of their sentence. We’re better off training them to show up to a job, and do that job in a righteous way, earn a paycheck, listen to a supervisor and do all of the things we’re accustomed to doing every day, but some of these folks weren’t raised in an environment where they’ve learned how to do that.”
Smith says part of the long vetting process for the program is ensuring the safety of employees, community members and inmates in the workplace. “I have my staff come out to that community to look around and go to that plant. We also have a safety officer come out and inspect the plant, and we look at security, such as how far are we from Interstate 80, what’s the traffic like and we train every employee that will have interaction with our offenders, so they understand the do’s and dont’s with the inmates.”
He adds that despite a handful of widely publicized cases each year, inmates almost never run away from private sector workplaces. “We probably have less than two-percent of our inmates walk away from private sector jobs.”
Smith says in the rare instance of a problem caused by an inmate, the burden won’t fall onto local law enforcement. “One of the things I discussed with the Sheriff, is if there’s a problem at the plant with a particular inmate, we get a phone call, my staff is deployed and we come and get that inmate, so the burden doesn’t fall onto you. If we need immediate assistance, local law enforcement may sit on them until we get there, but then we take it from there. We’re not asking you to fill your County jail up with our inmates.”
Sheriff Marty Arganbright says the program is a great idea and wishes his jail inmates could participate in something like it. “The inmates we have are on their way to prison, and for the most part they cannot be trusted. As the warden says, his inmates are on their way out. They don’t want to mess up. They want to get out, and I think it’s a great program.”
Raccoon Valley Radio will bring you more information as it becomes official.