LETTERS: WORKING INMATES

To the editor:

This letter is in response to the Jan. 13 editorial about chain gangs.

There is no debate whether or not inmates should work. They should. They do. The debate is under what conditions they make reparation. As a matter of departmental policy, the work inmates perform must meet three tests. One, prisoners should be as productive as possible. Two, they should work at the lowest cost to taxpayers. Three, they should present the least risk to public safety.

In 1993 the Missouri prison system was characterized by idleness. Inmates were not required to work. Since then the department has created over 6,900 full-time mandatory assignments for the general population. Today, every bad guy gets his "buns out of bed." Low-security inmates, about 1,000 prisoners whose custody clearance makes work outside the secure perimeter without uniformed supervision feasible, report daily to state agencies such as the Highway Department, the Department of Natural Resources and the National Guard, as well as city and county agencies, to work. They clean up illegal tire dumps, maintain parks and repair trails, pick up trash and cut brush. The rest, high-custody inmates whose current conviction or criminal history or institutional conduct pose substantial public safety concerns, work behind the wall. In secure confinement over 14,000 inmates report to food services, the laundry, maintenance and grounds-keeping to work. They keep the departments operational costs the lowest in the country without compromising public safety.

The proposal that inmates work shackled is fetching but flawed. If the 1,000 low-custody inmates working for us outside the wall now worked shackled, we would reduce their productivity and raise our operational costs. Likewise, if we took any of the 14,000 high-custody inmates who now work behind the wall and put them in the community shackled, we would reduce their productivity, raise our operational costs and expose the public, including our staff who supervise them and local law enforcement, to real risk. To whose benefit would it be? At a time when we are taking every step possible to keep bad guys behind bars by building more hard cells and electrifying perimeter fences, chain gangs make little sense.

Putting a crew here or there as proposed will not work. Deterrence only works when it is applied across the board as is the case now.

DORA B. SCHIRO, Director

Department of CorrectionsJefferson City