The controversy comes from getting essentially free labor from the inmates. While other employees work there, the inmates do most of the labor, from picking up and delivering furniture to doing restorations. Other used furniture and reclaimed goods businesses compete with Centre Peace but do not get free labor. Many inmates say they won’t work for Centre Peace because it feels like slavery, but when given a chance, they always take it. While the pay is terrible, they at least get to be outside and doing something.
For some reason, during my two months in this block, I was never assigned to any of these jobs. I believe there was a jail policy stating that it would not house anyone with pending charges in the work release block. The stalking charges were pending at the time for me, and I believe I was only assigned to this block because one of the counselors did me a favor. However, this did not mean that I was allowed to work outside the block. Thus, for the last month in this block, I was one of two “trustees.” Each block has two trustees who do all the block’s laundry, pass out meals, and clean the block’s common areas each day after the jail locks down the block for the night. On B2, the trustees were the two wife killers.
The work release blocks–there was also one for the women–were somewhat different from the rest. I suppose you could say they were the “minimum security” blocks. It was more of a dormitory-style of housing in which there were partitioned units, each with four beds and four lockers. These units did not have doors and were much like what you may have seen in Orange Is the New Black but with walls that went all the way to the ceiling. As with all other blocks, there were two levels with a balcony on the second level overlooking the first level. Inmates not assigned a unit on the second level were not allowed to be up there. Somebody had recently tied one end of a sheet to the railing and the other end around his neck. Because he jumped out, away from the barrier, and not straight down, he wound up swinging and did not break his neck. Other inmates successfully lifted him so he could breathe until the guards came. Those inmates were initially issued misconduct for interfering with the guards.
Another big difference between the work release and other blocks is the locations of the guards. There was a single guard in each of the regular blocks and a second guard in a booth that oversaw two blocks and the entrance portals. In the work release blocks, the guards were not in the block itself but had a desk just outside the door in the hallway. One guard oversaw the male and female work release blocks and a third “PRIDE” block. The PRIDE block housed inmates in drug or alcohol rehabilitation programs and mirrored the men’s work release block.
Each minimum security block also had a shared bathroom, such as you would find in most dormitories. They did not have recreational or project areas like the other blocks and no computer for legal research. Each day inmates could go to one of the other blocks for an hour of recreation, and there was a computer in the hallway outside the block to do legal research. Inmates did puzzles on the counter-space near the long tables used for eating, reading, and primarily for playing cards. A final nice thing about the work release blocks was that there were genuine windows on the second floor that let in some natural light if you were allowed to be up there.
Say something about not being able to leave the blocks…
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