City enlists prisoners to clean up Cape's litter

Dressed in orange jumpsuits and wearing work gloves, three Cape Girardeau city prisoners picked up discarded tires, liquor bottles and other trash Wednesday afternoon along Ranney Avenue as a police officer supervised the litter pickup.

The city jail inmates placed the tires and other large debris in piles along the side of the street. The smaller trash was put in large trash bags and placed by the road for public works crews to pick up later. Within an hour, the prisoners had collected enough trash to fill seven trash bags.

The pattern was repeated throughout the afternoon on neighboring south side streets.

The reluctant workers, who were more concerned with working off their fines and jail sentences, are on the front lines of the city's new war on litter.

Mayor Jay Knudtson worries that the city has become too trashy. Whether it's along city-maintained streets or state routes through the city, the scattered trash reflects badly on Cape Girardeau, he said.

"We don't have to tolerate that in our city," the mayor said.

At his urging, the police department on Wednesday began using city prisoners to clean up litter along streets and in vacant lots.

"I happen to believe we need to explore all options to clean this city up," the mayor said. "What better way to start than with our men and women behind bars."

Using the inmates to pick up the litter sends a message to the public that the city won't tolerate littering, he said.

It also may serve as a deterrent to crime by subjecting the prisoners to public scrutiny, Knudtson said.

The city, he said, must combat the littering before the problem gets worse.

"With very little resources, I believe we can clean our city up," he said.

The city used city prisoners to pick up some litter in the past, but it was done only sporadically and never as a permanent program, said police Lt. John Davis.

Only inmates who are working off fines and short jail sentences for non-violent city offenses are allowed on the work detail.

"A vast majority of them are traffic offenders," Davis said. Many are indigent. "These prisoners need work to do anyway so they can pay off their fines," he said.

Working off fines

"Every hour they work takes $5 off the fine owed to the city," Davis said.

City prisoners routinely work off fines at the recycling center and the local animal shelter.

There's no set schedule for litter pickup, although police hope to have prisoners picking up litter at least once a week for now.

Police chief Steve Strong said fewer litter cleanup days may be needed in the future. "Hopefully, we will get it to the point where we don't need them out as often," he said.

But that's not the case now as witnessed by the bags of trash collected Wednesday afternoon.

Ty Metzger, a police officer and nuisance abatement supervisor, directed the cleanup efforts of the three prisoners along Ranney Avenue.

Low-income residents living in the area deserve to have a cleaned-up neighborhood, he said.

"It doesn't mean you have to live in a trashy area just because you are poor," Metzger said while the prisoners filled trash bags a few feet away and tried to steer clear of thorny scrub bushes.

Metzger said the city plans to tackle the litter problem wherever it occurs, not just in the south part of town.

mbliss@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 123