Published: September 03, 2008 08:59 am      

WCI inmate crews working along Garrett County roads

Prison expands community service detail

KEYSERS RIDGE — The Western Correctional Institution in Cresaptown has expanded its community service inmate details by sending out its first Garrett County road crew. The six-man team began the day at Keysers Ridge, performing cleanup and weeding work.

WCI has three similar crews assigned to Allegany County.

Through its Master Gardening program, WCI has grown thousands of plants this year alone for Let’s Beautify Cumberland! and several other local communities. The prison will supply nearly 600 plants for next week’s Day of Caring and Sharing in Cumberland.

Inmate road crews save taxpayers and communities millions of dollars annually by providing work that, in many cases, simply could not be performed by local and state agencies. The crews are manned by prescreened minimum- and pre-release-security level inmates and supervised by a correctional officer. The local jurisdictions typically pay a small fee for the service.

Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services Secretary Gary Maynard has said he wishes to triple the number of inmates who work jobs throughout the system, as well as greatly expand community partnerships, which allow inmates to “pay society back” a little, which most are happy to do.