THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 21, 1994 TAG: 9408210073
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Long : 102 lines
Residents and City Jail inmates shared a common uniform color - orange - and similar duties Saturday as they swept through Bayview, collecting trash from the streets.
Residents hope the cleanup will make their homes safer.
Inmates hope the cleanup will help get them home sooner.
``It's a win-win situation,'' both John Roger, president of the Bayview Civic League, and Maj. Michael P. O'Toole of the Sheriff's Department said.
While politicians and lobbyists debate issues of crime, punishment, rehabilitation and money - lots of money - in Washington, Norfolk is expanding its low-cost, multiple benefits program of putting inmates to work in community service.
Bayview's is the first civic league in the city to accept an offer of inmate help in a neighborhood street cleanup, ``but probably only the first,'' O'Toole said Saturday as block after block was cleared of litter.
The civilian and inmate crews picked up everything from candy wrappers to boards, soda cans to beer bottles. The 15 or so residents donned orange safety smocks, and the 16 inmates wore orange jumpsuits.
The measure of their success was evident by noon. At the south end of Chesapeake Boulevard, where crews did not work, the wide grassy median and the walkways on the roadsides were littered with debris. But block after block to the north was a sea of bright green grass, picked clean of all debris.
Roger hopes that neighbors will see the cleanup efforts and start pitching in - not just on the special days, but all the time.
That's important because ``we equate filth to the deterioration of the neighborhood and to crime,'' Roger said. ``We don't want to become another East Ocean View.''
The inmates - who worked the main drag of Chesapeake Boulevard - had the idea right from the start. Moments after tumbling out of a packed jail van, they were handed new sets of gloves, still stapled together. As one man pulled his apart, a label dropped to the ground.
``Hey, pick your paper up, brother,'' another inmate told him. ``That's what you're out here for.''
The incentive for the inmates is simple: freedom.
``I just want to get the door,'' said Lorenzo Blackwell, 34, of Norfolk who hopes to end his confinement for unpaid fines earlier by being in the work program. But he's also happy to be out of the jail for a day at a time.
``No question,'' he said. ``It works off my fines and I get fresh air. That can't be beat.''
Generally, for every two days a prisoner works, he is credited with one day off for good behavior.
There are other benefits, too, O'Toole said.
``They are out working so it relieves some pressure for deputies back at the jail watching other inmates,'' said O'Toole, adding that there are 1,390 inmates in the jail. And, for the inmates, the work ``reduces some of the tension of being confined.''
The city benefits because most of the work that inmates do is either low-priority for city workers or something the city would not have done. ``We estimate we'll save the city $350,000 this year,'' O'Toole said.
The use of inmates for such work is not new, but the program has been expanded in Norfolk since Robert J. McCabe took over as sheriff this year, O'Toole said. ``In the past, there were one or two inmates working a month. This month we'll use between 100 and 125.''
Only inmates serving time for nonviolent crimes are eligible for the work program, O'Toole said. ``And we screen them all very carefully.''
The inmates who worked Saturday were under the watchful eye of O'Toole and an armed deputy. But it didn't appear anything like a Georgia chain gang. The men walked free, spread out over a block at a time, and the deputy didn't lug a loaded shotgun over his shoulder.
Yet O'Toole wasn't worried that any of the men would flee.
Each inmate's bright orange jumpsuit was emblazoned on the back with big black letters: ``Sheriff McCabe's Work Force.'' Underneath, some of the men wore T-shirts, but nothing more.
``It cuts down on people walking off,'' O'Toole said. If an inmate were to run, ditching the jail suit would leave him in his birthday suit - either way, not the outfit of success for a would-be escapee.
``We've had only one guy who walked away, and we found him within an hour at his girlfriend's house,'' O'Toole said.
He's a big fan of the program. ``It instills a work ethic,'' O'Toole said. ``A lot of these young guys come from the projects and they're 18 and they've never had a job,'' he said.
Most of the inmates seemed conscientious about their task. Some even poked into bushes and around walls to pick up debris they could have probably easily left behind.
``I don't mind being out here. I just want to get out of jail,'' said Edmond Colden, 29, of Portsmouth. He was sentenced to two years in jail and $1,566 in fines for possession of cocaine.
``I hope I'll knock off a couple months,'' he said.
Colden works daily, usually at the city garage or for the parks and recreation department. ``I hope they'll get me a job when I get out. Then I'll be all right.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
PAUL AIKEN/Staff
Edmond Colden, an inmate at Norfolk City Jail, picks up trash on
Chesapeake Boulevard as part of a program to have inmates do civic
work in exchange for credit toward days off. The Bayview Civic
League sponsored the cleanup, making the group the first city civic
league to do so.
by CNB