Inmates eyed for road work

March 17, 1998|By DON AINES

Inmates eyed for road work

CHAMBERSBURG, Pa. - Franklin County Prison inmates might begin cleaning some county roads next month, according to Warden Raymond Rosenberry.

"It's still in the planning stage. We're shooting for an April 15 start-up," he said Monday.

"It's strictly a volunteer situation. They get to get away from the prison for a bit," Rosenberry said of the prisoners. He said the program would be open to inmates eligible for work-release.

Not every nonviolent offender who is eligible for work release has a job to go to, Rosenberry said.

Inmates would work on roads not being cleaned up through the Adopt-A-Highway program, the warden said. Initially, volunteers would be limited to road cleanup.

"We're going to do it in stages. I can see sometime in the future going to the townships and municipalities to see if they need volunteer help," Rosenberry said.

"We're going to contact municipalities and have them identify areas that need to be cleaned," said County Planning Director Philip Tarquino.

Rosenberry said inmates have been pulling weeds, spreading mulch and doing other jobs around county buildings for years.

Tarquino said he expects that work-release prisoners will be involved in a project to turn a section of county-owned land along Falling Spring into an environmental park.

Rosenberry said there won't be any worker shortage for these community service projects.

"I've never had any problems getting an inmate to volunteer to do something," he said.

|

|

|