Prisoners’ Work Program May Grow

Ventura County Jail inmates performed an estimated $2 million worth of work last year. On Tuesday, the Board of Supervisors launched a program that could triple that production, putting even more prisoners to work in jail kitchens, laundries and vegetable gardens.

The county already leads the state in the percentage of inmates involved in formal work programs, said Sheriff’s Cmdr. Donald R. Lanquist. Some of the cattle raised by inmates wind up on the jail menu.

As payment, the 400 of the county’s 1,400 prisoners involved in the program are able to reduce their sentences by one day for every six days worked.

To expand the program, the supervisors ordered the Sheriff’s Department to form a Jail Industries Task Force made up of representatives of business, labor and law-enforcement agencies.

“I’m confident we will expand the program. But at this point I can’t say how large an expansion it will be,” Lanquist said after the supervisors’ meeting.

“We have to be careful not to take jobs away from taxpayers. On the other hand, we feel the working inmate serves both himself and the taxpayer.”

Supervisors’ Chairwoman Madge L. Schaefer supported the approach, declaring: “We’ve got 1,000 prisoners in that jail having three squares a day and watching TV all day. Let’s get them off their bunks.”

Supervisor Maggie E. Erickson pointed out that Rod Miller, a specialist in inmate work programs who studied the county’s program, found that the county uses nearly 650,000 hours of inmate labor annually. That could be increased as much as 1.3 million hours, according to Miller.