Colorado prison inmates may soon help the state’s farmers plant onions and pick melons under a program being developed by corrections officials and lawmakers.
The project is aimed at helping strapped farmers deal with a shortage of farm laborers caused by a crackdown on illegal immigration.
“When you have a crop sitting in the field and you have no one to harvest it, you’ll try anything,” said Pueblo County farmer Phil Prutch. “I’m willing to try it.”
Prutch, who grows tomatoes, peppers, corn and squash, said tougher immigration laws passed by the legislature last year chased away most of his reliable help from Mexico and other countries.
State legislators and Department of Corrections Executive Director Ari Zavaras are developing the program. Zavaras said it will take time to work out details, but officials hope to launch the program on a limited basis before the summer growing season.
“We don’t see any legal obstacle to having prisoners work on the farms,” said Zavaras. The prisoners can plant crops and, in the fall, pick vegetables, he said.
Pumpkins, peppers and other crops rotted in the fields last fall because farmers couldn’t find workers to harvest them, said Frank Sobolik, Pueblo County director of the Colorado State University Cooperative Extension. Most migrant farmworkers stayed out of Colorado, he said.
Zavaras – along with state Rep. Dorothy Butcher, D-Pueblo, who first proposed using inmates to work on farms, and House Speaker Andrew Romanoff, D-Denver – spoke with farmers Monday in Romanoff’s office about the inmate-farm program.
“I think it is an interesting stopgap measure,” Romanoff said. “It may fill a need and give some inmates some skills.”
The program – which would be voluntary for inmates – would keep prisoners occupied and they could learn hard work, responsibility and some skills they could use when they are released from prison, Zavaras said.
Security officers would have to watch the prisoners while they worked, he said. Farmers would pay an amount to cover the state’s costs, and inmate workers would earn only a few dollars a day, he added.
Sobolik said prison inmates have already been working at the Pueblo County Fair, but there have been some administrative problems.
Because only the most well-behaved inmates can participate, they often end up being those who are ready for discharge, he said, so turnover is a problem.
He said work schedules also are a challenge.
“Will the inmates be available to work when they are needed?” Sobolik said. “There’s merit in looking at it, but if it doesn’t work, who takes the hit for the loss?”
Staff writer Kirk Mitchell can be reached at 303-954-1206 or kmitchell@denverpost.com.
