NCJ Number
182018
Journal
CTM - Corrections Technology & Management Volume: 4 Issue: 2 Dated: March/April 2000 Pages: 36-38
Date Published
March 2000
Length
3 pages
Annotation
This article describes a South Dakota program that employs inmates in building houses for the elderly and disabled.
Abstract
Since 1996 Springfield, South Dakota prison inmates have been building 768-square-foot homes for the elderly and disabled. The houses are trucked out of the prison and installed mostly in small rural towns. Inmates at another facility make the cabinets installed in the houses. By mid-1999 the State had produced 438 homes, which came without carpeting or appliances. The most common buyers were elderly farm couples who could no longer take care of their farms, but did not want to move to the city. Prison labor also wired for computers schools throughout the State. Both programs employed local contractors to do jobs that prisoners could not do, e.g., plumbing and electrical work. There were some complaints that the prison labor forces were taking work from local private contractors. But corrections spokesmen were able to demonstrate that the inmates had accomplished projects that would simply never have been done in the outside economy. In addition, the inmates provided the building trades industry with a much-needed and well-trained workforce.