The carefully laid mulch, the clean parking lots and the clear, grassy lawns throughout campus are maintained by an unusual crew.Inmates from the Elayn Hunt Correctional Center in St. Gabriel, La. and the Dixon Correctional Institute in Jackson, La. come to the University to help the LSU Landscape Services Department, a division of the Office of Facility Services, with their daily tasks as an alternative to serving their time behind bars.”We have a dire need to use inmates,” said Debbi Coltharp, Landscape Services horticulturist. “With the budget the way it is, we can’t fill positions, and we’re running low on staff. For the campus, the inmates are providing services that would be neglected because we don’t have enough manpower.”The LSU Inmate Labor Program not only provides Landscape Services with the extra hands it needs, but it has also saved the University more than $600,000 a year since 1994 — when the program started. The average cost for one hour of inmate labor for food, the correctional officer’s time and supplies is $3.62, as compared to $15 per hour for the cost of an LSU employee on the job with supplies and services. A total budget of $100,000 is allocated each year to pay the officers, provide meals, fuel for transportation and purchase all the tools and supplies for the Inmate Labor Program. The total LSU labor equivalent cost is $725,497 per year. “Basically, for a small amount of money, we’re buying a large amount of work,” said Fred Fellner, assistant director of Landscape Services. Each dollar spent on inmate labor is equivalent to $7.26 worth of labor, Fellner said in an e-mail.Three separate groups come to the University to help Landscape Services. IMPACT, a strict military-boot-camp-based group of Elayn Hunt Correctional Center, comes to the University at least twice a week. The other group from Hunt works full time every day on South Campus and the group from Dixon Correctional Institute works the second week of every month. Each crew, which consists of nine non-violent offenders, is supervised by a Correctional Officer as well as Landscape Services employees. Most of the inmates in the crews were arrested for drug related crimes, according to Coltharp.Coltharp said the crews stay separated from each other at all times. They are also kept separate from campus life, especially students. Coltharp said inmates are not supposed to speak to students.”The inmates are selected and offered to be in the program,” Coltharp said. “It’s an honor to them because it can reduce their sentence. I’ve heard it’s difficult to attain high-level A status. If they mess up, they lose their privileges and go back to the correctional facility to serve their whole sentence.”Merrill Bankston, mass communication junior, said inmates were making comments about her as she walked by them on campus. She said it made her feel uncomfortable since she was walking to class alone.Coltharp urges students to see the inmates as individuals who made poor decisions and are serving their time to start over.”We do everything within our power, along with the correctional institutes, to assure that no one would ever have any situation where they would be placed in danger,” Coltharp said. “We only have the safety of the student in mind when we are out on the campus working. I say to each group before they come that ‘the only reason you’re here is because of these students, and if you make them uncomfortable, there’s no reason for you to be here.’ Our goal is to be unseen, to stay in the background and get the work done.”Fellner said both of the correctional centers do strip-searches before the inmates leave for work and when they come back. He said those procedures are handled internally by the correctional centers.Catherine Lacour isn’t bothered by the inmate groups as long as she sees the correctional officers.”I’m not totally opposed as long as they are supervised,” said Lacour, communication disorders sophomore. “It’s a lot of hard work, and the campus is really nice.”The inmate crews are responsible for a number of tasks, such as construction, debris cleanup, mulching, trimming, raking, blowing sidewalks, painting, pressure washing, furniture moving, laying sod, irrigation work and football game and stadium cleanup.”The trailers go out with every crew,” Fellner said. “We don’t send an inmate crew without a trailer because they need a bathroom facility, a place to wash their hands and water to drink.” A 2006 submittal for best management practice by Fellner said the trailers have cold water, hand-washing supplies, litter bags, string timers, shovels, rakes, wheel barrows and edgers. The University also provides lunch for the inmates, which is usually fast food. Fellner’s submittal said the change in food may be the main motivation for the inmates to volunteer for the labor crew, but Coltharp disagreed, saying the crews, especially IMPACT, enjoy their time away from the correctional center so much so they ask to work longer hours than the six they are required to work.”It’s good for the inmates to see a life they can aspire to,” Coltharp said. “We teach them work ethic. We’re hoping that they will make something of their lives when they get out.”Before Landscape Services developed this program, the LSU Agricultural Center used inmates from Hunt to work labor-intensive jobs on farm locations around East Baton Rouge Parish. Now, Landscape Services and the inmates work 135 sites monthly, Coltharp said.”They are really nice guys who made some poor choices,” Coltharp said. “The best part is that it has given us the additional manpower to do the jobs that we wouldn’t be able to handle in a timely manner. It’s a good program for us.”—-Contact Mary Walker Baus at [email protected]