Power County sheriff’s office talks inmate labor detail protocol

Power County has a “SCLID”, or Sheriff Commissioner’s Inmate Labor Detail, program where inmates can do labor detail a few times a week. They have a van and trailer they take, which holds a maximum of 10 prisoners.

They do public works projects, such as work on cemeteries or clean up roadsides.

Power County Sheriff Jim Jeffries said inmates have to qualify for labor detail. They have to be trusted to be in public working on projects. They also have to be minimum security, no capital or violent crimes are eligible. Security is also assigned to them.

“We usually don’t have that many inmates and so sometimes we’ll have people that want to do community work service that are allowed to come in and join the detail,” Jeffries said. “So I’ll have one officer out with them.”

Lt. Richard Sammons, a former department of corrections officer, said the state protocol is similar.

“Security is a certain amount of inmates per officer,” Sammons said. “It can be quite a few. It can be anywhere from 10 to 15 inmates per officer.”

But inmates on work release are different from labor detail. Work release is assigned by a judge.

“Typically what happens is through their attorney arrangements are made for them to be released for work search where they actually leave the jail and go out and fill out job applications and so let them go to work,” Jeffries said.

Work release inmates do not have assigned security officers, but they are monitored and checked up on to make sure they’re where they’re supposed to be. Those inmates also have to report back to the jail and are searched when coming back.

Inmates on work release also pay a $10 fee for the jail to help transport them to and from work, and to provide a lunch if needed.

Officers say walk-aways on work release do happen but they are not common because they are caught fairly quickly and face a steeper sentence.

“They could get an extended five years, that’s why you don’t have them very often,” Sammons said. “They’ve got such a short amount of time left, that why would they want to add five or more years to that?”

Jeffries said in his whole career, he can only remember two inmates trying to run from a work detail. He said they were both caught within 30 minutes. He said both county and state level prisons have very strict rules for labor detail and work release.

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