Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 9, 1990 TAG: 9003081516
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV5 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By NEAL THOMPSON NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
He's still a plumber and a welder, but now Nixon works for the county. And for each day he works, he gets one day shaved off his 42-month sentence.
"By doing things here, it keeps me so I have the ability to do them when I get out. This way, I don't lose the talent," Nixon said. "Also, there's a lot who come here with no work skills and they get them here. So it helps because they learn something for when they get out."
On a recent Tuesday morning, Nixon had finished fixing the jail's backup generator and was freely roaming around the stark corridors of the old jail. Meanwhile, most inmates who weren't allowed to work sat in cramped cells watching television, sleeping, smoking cigarettes, reading or playing cards.
"It keeps me busy," said Nixon, who was convicted of being a habitual offender and expects to be free again in June 1992.
He was one of about a dozen inmates working for the county. The number varies, but there usually are at least 10 released each day to a county worker who supervises them for the day.
They pick up trash for the county Public Service Authority, maintain some of the county's buildings and properties, work for the dog warden's office and the county maintenance shop. Some do janitorial work for the schools and others tend to the jail's five-acre garden, which supplies vegetables for inmates' meals.
Some of the food grown by the inmates is donated to charitable organizations for the elderly or poor, such as the Fairview District Home and Our Daily Bread.
"It's good for the county and it's also good for the inmate," said Sheriff Frank Conner, who started the inmate work program after he became sheriff 10 years ago.
The program helps the county because it saves money that would otherwise be spent to hire workers. It helps the inmates cut time off their sentences and keeps them occupied.
County Administrator Joe Morgan said one of the three men on each of the county's seven garbage trucks usually is a jail inmate, and he doesn't get paid.
"So even at minimum wage, if you calculate that out, that's a fair expense we save," Morgan said.
He said the program also helps some inmates develop good work habits.
Most of the inmates in the program are those who, like Nixon, have been charged with relatively minor offenses, such as driving a car after being declared a habitual offender, driving under the influence of alcohol or larceny.
Conner said many are people who want to find jobs when they get out and want to keep their noses clean.
"They're people that live here and they're going to get out shortly anyhow," he said.
Only once did an inmate escape from a work crew. He went to Roanoke to visit his girlfriend, but after they got in a fight she called police and he was arrested, Conner said.
Although no one convicted of a violent crime is in the program and there has been only one escape, Conner said the risk of escape is always there.
"And if anything goes wrong, I'm the one that's on the firing line," he said.
Conner is proud of the program. One aspect he is especially proud of is the jail's farm, where watermelons, beans, broccoli, corn and potatoes are grown on the five acres behind the Pulaski County Corporate Center off U.S. 11.
What do they do with it all?
"They eat it," Conner said. "We get enough potatoes to last all year."
This year, though, the supply is a little short because many sacks of potatoes were burned in the courthouse fire in December.
On a recent tour of the jail, Conner lifted the lids off boiling pots of corn and beans on the cast iron stove in the kitchen. It was nearly lunchtime and the vegetables were to accompany chicken a la king.
by CNB