The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Working ‘outside fence’ helps inmates and community
Residents treat them as part of the crew
When Enfield’s Fourth of July Town Celebration Committee plans its annual festivities, there’s a lot of heavy lifting involved. Not to mention electrical work and cleanup.
To get the job done, the committee turns to Enfield’s temporary residents, inmates at the WillardCybulski Correctional Institution who are close to their release or parole dates.
“They’ll do a variety of tasks, from helping lift large speakers and lighting systems onto the stage … to the very menial, picking up trash,” said Scott Kaupin, chairman of the committee and former mayor of Enfield.
The inmates may also install fencing, do electrical work. When Kaupin asks one to move a picnic table, he’ll be at the other end, showing that, for the four days of work, everyone is part of the same crew.
“We’re working alongside the inmates. We feed them well, we hydrate them well so they’re taken care of, and I think they appreciate the interaction as well,” Kaupin said.
Everyone will eat lunch together too. “We try to make it a fun and friendly environment,” he said.
Connecticut residents may be familiar with seeing inmates picking up litter along the state’s highways, but the jobs that lowrisk offenders are given “outside the fence line” are much more diverse, and often involve contact with the public, according to Karen Martucci, spokeswoman for the state Department of Correction.
Inmates have helped set up the book sale for the Friends of the Enfield Library. They’ve brought vegetables from community gardens to local food banks.
“Those jobs outside the secure perimeter are what we would consider outside clearance,” Martucci said. While other inmates may work inside the prison in the kitchen or commissary, as a janitor or barber, those who are within six months of the end of their term, who are participating in inhouse programs, who haven’t had a disciplinary problem and who are not considered a threat to the public will get the chance to work outside the institution.
The pay isn’t much: 75 cents a day, possible $1 or $1.50. But “there’s certainly value and purpose in a hard day’s work,” Martucci said.
The crews will always be accompanied by a corrections officer, who “gives the public that sense of comfort,” Martucci said. Since 2016, because of state budget cuts, organizations like Enfield’s Fourth of July committee have had to pay to have a crew and officer assist them. Kaupin said it costs his committee about $4,000.
“It’s worked very well for us,” he said. “With the work that they do, even though we pay a small cost to them, if we had to do the work ourselves we’d have to pay someone.”
The Fourth of July committee has had the prisoners’ help for 25 years, and “I don’t recall us ever having an issue with one of the inmates on the crews,” Kaupin said.
He helped get them hired for the Travelers Championship golf tournament in Cromwell.
There are safeguards. “When someone’s going outside the fence line and coming back inside the fence line, there’s always a chance of contraband,” Martucci said. Also, “there are levels of offenses that are not eligible,” such as violent crimes, “based on their current offense or even previous offenses,” she said.
The outside jobs complement the program of the Cybulski Community Reintegration Center, which was created in 2015 to help prepare inmates for their eventual release. Working outside helps reorient the inmates to the outside world in a less abrupt way.
“They’re coming out, so how do you want to let them out?” Martucci said.