By Eric Litke • Sheboygan Press staff • January 7, 2009:
About one-fourth of the county’s jail inmates have work-release privileges, but with fewer jobs available, jail officials on Tuesday suspended a weekly job search program that has been in place for about 15 years.
“I’ve never ever seen a lack of jobs like there is right now,” said Corporal Roy Kluss of the Sheboygan County Sheriff’s Department, who oversees the work-release program. “Before if a person said they couldn’t find a job in Sheboygan County, it was just because they weren’t looking. Now I believe them.”
Inmates are allowed out to work under the Huber law program, which requires them to pay the jail $18 per day to participate. Judges determine whether an inmate is eligible for Huber, but the sheriff’s department decides which inmates are allowed out.
Kluss said Sheboygan County inmates traditionally were able to find employment, but that has taken a sharp downturn of late.
“We always had more employed (Huber) inmates than unemployed, and I’d say three months ago, four months ago, we were sending out an average of 15 to 20 new people per day to work,” primarily at temporary and one-day jobs, Kluss said. “The last two to three months, if we send out two, three, four people per week to a new job, that would be a lot.”
Sheboygan County unemployment rose to 5.3 percent in November, 1.2 percent above the November 2007 level, according to the latest figures from the Wisconsin Department of Workforce Development. City of Sheboygan unemployment was 7 percent in November, 1.7 percent more than a year prior.
Among the 309 inmates at the downtown Sheboygan County Jail and south-side Sheboygan County Detention Center, Kluss said 75 have Huber privileges and less than 40 have full-time jobs. Inmates through last week were allowed out every Tuesday to fill out applications, but now unemployed Huber inmates can only pursue “serious job prospects,” said Sheriff Mike Helmke.
“(Job centers) are saying they don’t have jobs available … so it doesn’t really make sense for us to send these individuals out,” Helmke said. “If they’re out with nothing to do, they’re doing things they shouldn’t be doing.”
With fewer jobs available, Kluss said inmates had increasingly abused the job search releases.
“We’re sending out 15 to 20 people and 10 of them are coming back late, drinking (or having) unaccounted for time,” he said, explaining that such offenders have their Huber privileges revoked.
But Helmke said the program remains mutually beneficial, and he would like to see inmates returned to the work force soon.
“It’s a (financial) benefit to us to have them working … but also to them because they can support themselves and their families,” Helmke said. “It gives them a good feeling about themselves if they’re productive and they’re working.”
It is this author’s view as to perhaps they ought to give a try to non traditional forms of seeking employment such as online via portals as legalforce, and others.
