Warden Robert Conner from the Franklin Correctional Institution met with Franklin County Commissioners on Tuesday to discuss why there are fewer inmates to work with county departments.
Historically the state prison has provided a number of inmate crews that have worked with the landfill and road department as well as the Cities of Apalachicola and Carrabelle.
Since Covid, the number of inmates available to work has dropped substantially, which means less manpower for various jobs ranging from roadside maintenance to trash pickup.
Warden Connor said the biggest reason for fewer inmates is that there are just not as many state prisoners as there were pre-covid.
Before the Covid outbreak, there were about 101 thousand inmates in state prisons, as of July the1st there were about 86 thousand.
Of those, about 10 thousand are in private facilities which do not provide inmate labor.
The warden did not know why there was such a big drop in the inmate population but he said the shortage is being felt statewide.
He did assure the commission that the prison in Carrabelle is sending out every inmate it can.
Commission Chairman Ricky Jones said that while it does make things a little more difficult for county departments, at the end of the day – it’s a good thing that there are fewer people in the prisons.
No comments:
Post a Comment