McGreevey: Give prisoners 40 hour week

09/01/01

By BETH AUERSWALD Trenton Bureau

If Democrat gubernatorial hopeful Jim McGreevey has it his way, all able prisoners in New Jersey will have to work a 40-hour week, whether cleaning up highways or undergoing drug treatment.

''Prisoners need to learn the value of hard work and I want to make it clear - if you break the law in New Jersey, we're going to make you work,'' said McGreevey in a statement reveling his plan. ''If these prisoners are ever going to return to society, we need to make sure they understand that life demands work, responsibility and productivity.''

McGreevey's plan would require the state Department of Corrections to have all inmates - who are physically and mentally able to do so - work a 40-hour week, whether performing job duties, undergoing educational or work training or participating in drug treatment programs.

The requirement would not be made of inmates that cannot work due to safety reasons - including those restricted to their cell for punitive reasons or subject to security regulations.

The Woodbridge mayor claims that out of 27,750 inmates - 22,750 in prison and 5,000 in halfway houses or county jail - approximately 14,000 work but not a 40-hour week.

While department figures for the number of inmates is close to McGreevey's estimates, it did not have readily available data on the number of prisoners eligible to work or those enrolled in educational, drug treatment or job programs. McGreevey's campaign said the figures were supplied by an employee of corrections.

Although McGreevey claims there are more than 9,000 inmates not working, a majority of prisoners are already actively engaged in one type of program or another, said Chris Carden, spokesman for the department.

Republican gubernatorial candidate Bret Schundler, former mayor of Jersey City, has not had a chance to review McGreevey's proposal and would like to study it more, but it could be something Schundler would support, said spokesman Bill Guhl.

In addition to highway and facility clean-up programs, the department also runs DEPTCOR through which inmates produce furniture, signs, janitorial equipment, clothing, printing services, license plates, baked goods, horticulture work and services for the Division of Tourism. The goods can only be sold to state, county and municipal government agencies, including schools and colleges.

-- Anonymous, September 01, 2001

Answers

Yeah, chain gangs, that's what we need again! Nothing like driving past a bunch of chained together zebra-striped bad guys cutting the grass or keeping the culverts clean along the turnpike. That would send a serious message to potential troublemakers. Go for it!

-- Anonymous, September 02, 2001

Arizona's Maricopa county already does this. Sheriff Arapio (sp?) doesn't believe that prisoners should be coddled. They sleep in tents if the jail is over crowded, they wear pink underwear, no TV and they work. He has been gone after by the ACLU, etc and so far has won them all.

-- Anonymous, September 02, 2001

I saw a special that spotlighted that sheriff you are talking about. Quite a guy. When he got criticized for putting prisoners in tents, in the Arizona heat, with only a fan here and there, he simply asked what is wrong with having prisoners live the same way our own military lives when out on duty in places like Saudi Arabia. Great!

-- Anonymous, September 02, 2001

Isn't that the same one that uses corporal punishment?

-- Anonymous, September 02, 2001

I think it might have been the Orleans Parish Sheriff who started the tent-city thing--sometime in the eighties, I believe. The parish jail had been an embarrassment. So many prisoners had walked off, someone with a great sense of humor had a city-type sign made and put up on the median that said "CAUTION: PRISONERS CROSSING."

The Sheriff had prisoners cooking dinner for the poor at Thanksgiving and Christmas, painting murals all over town, on and on. Great idea.

-- Anonymous, September 03, 2001