8 Inmates Being Put To Work In Community

James Schumacher spent nearly eight hours Tuesday plucking batteries from garbage bins for the city’s recycling program. He worked for free.

Schumacher, who is serving an eight-month sentence at the Spokane County Jail for driving while intoxicated, considered the job a privilege.

“I’m outside, in the sun, away from my cell,” said Schumacher, 34. “It’s refreshing.”

Tuesday was the first day Spokane County Jail inmates ever have been put to work in the community. The work crew program is small, with only eight inmates participating, but jail officials already are hailing it as the future in corrections.

“Nobody loses here,” said Bev Mickelson, who helped launch the program. “Everyone gets something out of it.”

“I see a day when judges will sentence people to work crews here, not community service,” said Bill Kelley, a corrections officer who supervises inmates. “They won’t have to sit in jail but will go home at night, after they’ve worked a full day for the community.”

For now, though, the inmates will spend three days a week working for the city’s Solid Waste Department - either separating discarded batteries from garbage or pulling weeds at the transfer station. Some days, crew members will pick up litter along city streets.

Then they’ll return to their reserved seats in jail.

Their labor is well worth the $350 the Solid Waste Department will spend each work day to pay for the inmates’ uniforms, transportation and supervisor, said coordinator Monica Hairston. The inmates do not get paid for their work.

“Some of the work they’re doing only gets done now whenever someone can get around to it,” Hairston said. “But this program will change that. And who can complain about cleaner roadways?”

Mickelson said all eight inmates on the work crew had to apply for the job and were chosen carefully, based on prior behavior, an interview with jail officials and the severity of their crimes.

Inmates cannot participate in the work crew until they are sentenced for a crime, she said. Those found guilty of violent crimes, or those who may pose a risk to the community, are not considered.

Like Schumacher, most of the inmates working Tuesday found themselves behind bars after getting caught drinking and driving.

With rubber gloves stretched over their hands, they sat on buckets and hunched over garbage bins. They said little. A few remarked about the sunshine.

“It’s hard to do time when it’s nice out,” said Reed Fueston, 38, who will finish his DWI sentence in August.

“That is so true,” Schumacher said. “Being out here like this, it doesn’t matter what we’re doing. We’re the lucky ones.”