New inmate transitioning program includes onion packing
‘Transitional’ inmates, who are getting ready to return to the outside world, are packing onions at a Glennville farm.
A part of their paychecks goes to the state to defray incarceration costs.
Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black says the effort differs from a program last year involving people who are on probation.
The state sent probationers to farms after a new law cracking down on illegal workers left thousands of farm jobs unfilled. Few lasted more than a couple of hours.
Black says transitional inmates have worked on prison farms and in poultry plants for years.
“You get a good, motivated worker and then when they get out of prison, many times they have a full time job waiting on them. It cures several problems at once. But it’s never been used in production agriculture.”
A federal judge has blocked parts of the Georgia law pending a ruling expected this month by the U.S. Supreme Court on a similar Arizona law.
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