Work release centers help give prisoners a head start

A jail sentence can be a trying time in one’s life.

It is said that inmates have nothing but time to think about the transgressions they have made and why they are in prison.

But Lafourche and Terrebonne Parishes are giving well-behaved inmates the chance to make good use of their time behind bars by spending time outside of the bars.

The Lafourche Parish Work Release Center opened in 1999 and began working with community businesses to employ trustees in their last three years of imprisonment.

Out of 11 work release centers in the state, Lafourche Parish has the only one that’s accredited by the American Correctional Association.

“We’re very proud of that, and it’s a good accomplishment for the Work Release Center,” said Captain Milfred Zeringue. “We have a very good staff that takes pride in their work.”

The center will seek re-accreditation in August, and Zeringue is confident Lafourche will receive it.

He said the offenders in the Work Release Center really appreciate the opportunities it provides.

“Most of [the inmates] are well mannered and grateful for the privilege to be put into the Work Release Center,” said Zeringue. “I’ve had several of them after they’ve been released call me and thank me or stop in and say hello if they were passing by. There have been some very good success stories over the past 10 years that have really come out.”

One inmate who hopes to add to the center’s success stories is Calvin Dumas.

He is serving a three-year sentence for possession of marijuana, and he is one of 174 prisoners currently earning wages while serving in the Lafourche Parish Work Release Center.

“If you have a positive outlook on life, then there’s your start,” said Dumas. “You have a job that’s available for you while you’re here, and if you stick with it, you can even grow into a retirement plan.”

With four months remaining on his sentence, Dumas has been working offshore as a cook for AMC Liftboats for the past six months. In fact, he could potentially receive a promotion within the company.

“I just recently just go my crane card, so it’s benefiting me in that I’ll be stable when I go out into society,” he said. “It’ll help me on release, because I have a job.”

Dumas said he earns the same salary as a normal worker, and along with a job upon release, he will have a nice nest egg saved as well.

“When you’re released, you have something saved, a foundation, something to start off with,” he added. “[The work release program] kind of shows you how to save your money also. It’s a good program.”

Zeringue said the center manages the inmate’s money for them, and once inmates enter the center, they have to support themselves financially.

“They have to buy their own clothing, their own medication if needed and their room and board to the facility,” he said. “Hopefully they’ve been with us long enough to leave with enough money to help them get a fresh start. It helps them tremendously to have something to get started with so they don’t have to revert back to what might have gotten them in trouble the first time.”

According to Zeringue, the Work Release Center accepts transgressors who are guilty of minor, non-violent and non-sex-related crimes.

“We have about 42 companies that hire our people, and they are skilled and non-skilled workers,” he said.

In order to be eligible to enter the work release program, inmates must be nominated by their jail’s warden.

“So they had to display good mannerisms, good attitudes and good work habits if they were a trustee to be recommended by that warden for work release,” said Zeringue.

Terrebonne Parish offers a Work Release Center as well, but rather than running it in-house, they have contracted the St. Francisville company Louisiana Workforce to run the program for them.

“Sheriffs find it a lot easier to have good, experienced people come in and privatize their facility. That way they don’t have to staff them,” said Louisiana Workforce owner Paul Perkins. “They can focus more on protecting and serving – what they’re really elected to do.”

The retired Angola deputy warden began Louisiana Workforce in 2005. He currently runs work release centers in five parishes, and he opened the Terrebonne facility in January 2009.

“So far it has been a success – putting guys back on the street with some money in their pockets and some skills, and hopefully they don’t come back,” said Terrebonne Parish Sheriff’s Office spokesperson Brent Hidalgo. “It’s a rehabilitation program, and Sheriff [Bourgerois] is big on rehabilitating and trying to change some of these inmates.”

Housing 280 inmates, Perkins said about 220 are currently working at on-site jobs.

The program faced a minor bump in the road in fall 2009 when two Terrebonne Parish Work Release inmates escaped in just more than a one-month span. Both were apprehended quickly thereafter.

“Naturally when something like that happens you take some extra measures to correct it, and it has been corrected,” said Hidalgo.