Prisoners Ferried in to Maintain Island for Washington’s Sex Offenders
Prisoners Ferried in to Maintain Island for Washington’s Sex Offenders
by Joe Watson
Washington’s Department of Corrections has begun ferrying in mainland prisoners to clean up and maintain an old island lockup, while the sex offenders who have been exiled there are prohibited by state lawmakers from work crews.
Since September 2013, prisoners from the minimum-security Cedar Creek Corrections Center have been ferried from Steilacoom to McNeil Island—where a prison was closed in 2011 because of state budget cuts—to clear weeds, fix roofs and windows and perform other jobs that will pay them between 55 cents and $1.60 an hour minus any legal debts.
About 300 sex offenders, however, who remain incarcerated on the island at the Department of Social and Health Services-run Special Commitment Center (SCC), are banned from such jobs.
Washington legislators voted in June 2013 as part of the state budget to keep the SCC on McNeil Island, rather than make the politically unpopular decision of moving the SCC to the mainland. Keeping the SCC on McNeil Island, it turns out, would be far more expensive without using the slave labor of prison work crews.
A state report estimated the prison crews – which will employ up to 40 prisoners – will cost $200,000 a year. Other state workers from both ADOC and DSHS also run a wastewater treatment plant and water system on the island, as well as work as SCC security staff and firefighters.
Source: www.thenewstribune.com
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