April 18, 2006

Orange Jumpsuit Guys.

Filed under: Uncategorized — Jim @ 9:19 pm

Once in a while, Jersey gets something right.

On my way to work over the past couple days, I’ve seen the Orange Jumpsuit Guys picking up and bagging litter on Route 78.  They are “minimum custody inmates”, and they comprise but one of 108 work details of the Community Labor Assistance Program in the state.

The program involves the use of inmates to perform numerous public service projects, including “the development of the safe play areas for children, building rehabilitation, general maintenance work, landscaping of state parks, emergency/disaster relief and removing litter from highways….”

Having inmates pick up litter on the highways is a cooperative venture between the Department of Corrections and the Department of Transportation.  Over the past couple days, the prisoner detail has picked up enough trash to fill hundreds of trash bags, which are later picked up by a truck.

Given that New Jersey has plenty of prisoners and plenty of work that needs doing, this seems like a rare win-win situation.  I have no doubt that the inmates appreciate not being locked up, but, at the same time, spending the day picking up God-knows-what people toss from their car windows is hard enough work to serve as a disincentive to some of them to return to prison.

Speaking of disincentives, I wish that the pigs who throw the stuff from their car windows could spend a couple weeks working with the Orange Jumpsuit Guys.

8 Comments »

  1. At the state pen in Georgia some of the bad guys in orange farm and raise cattle and hogs for all the other pens in the state. They also raise veggies and can them for a little, or no cost to the taxpayer. They help feed the pens in all of the state.

    Comment by Catfish — April 19, 2006 @ 12:56 am

  2. The folks that throw the crap out on the side of the highway should BE some of the Orange Jumpsuit Guys (and Gals).

    Comment by DMerriman — April 19, 2006 @ 1:36 am

  3. Both Washington & Benton counties do that here on I-540. I think it’s a great program, gives the inmates something productive to do and helps keep I-540 looking a little nicer. Not that it lasts long. It’s unreal how much roadside trash there is. And it’s not so much people throwing things out as it is construction trash blowing out of the backs of trucks.

    My dad talks about back in the day when state inmates worked at the ‘pea patch’. Some type of farming I gather, and rough enough that most didn’t want to return. I’ve heard rumors of more than a few bodies buried in the ‘pea patch’, so it must’ve been pretty bad.

    Comment by rita — April 19, 2006 @ 9:13 am

  4. Jim, how could you..? You’ve let the cat out of the bag. Now all those poor “visitor-workers’ from our friendly neighbor to the South will be clamoring to find their way into NJ prisons so they can “do the jobs that Americans don’t want to do..”, like picking up trash from the side of highways. What will happen to those poor “minimum custody inmates” when their only outlet from the boredom of prison life is taken away from them by invading hordes of chicas and chicos, storming the prison gates like a scene from a Frankenstein movie, demanding that they, too, be issued fancy orange jumpsuits and be allowed to pick up trash along the turnpike? Hey, wait a minute… that would kill two birds with one stone, wouldn’t it? Damn, you might be on to something here. Call the Border Patrol and tell them to back off, we’ve got trash to pick up! Let ’em in and let ’em have at it. It would probably be cheaper for NJ tax payers to foot the bill to house them in the prisons than to hand out the usual “social program” dole.

    Comment by gregor — April 19, 2006 @ 12:41 pm

  5. Somewhat off topic, but I thought Johnny Sacks looked better in his orange jumper than in his tux.

    Comment by Sluggo — April 19, 2006 @ 1:59 pm

  6. Sluggo made me laugh.

    As for litterbugs, and here I’m referring strictly to the people I see tossing stuff out their car windows in front of me as I drive, WITH attitude — would a chain-gang be too harsh?

    Comment by dogette — April 19, 2006 @ 3:15 pm

  7. Speaking of Johnny Sack, I love to watch him smoke. He’s got smokin’ style.

    Comment by Jim — April 19, 2006 @ 7:53 pm

  8. Hey Jim, why not write about the disaster the State of NJ created on the back or front, never
    can get that straight at the Legion. The last time it was cleaned up it was done by labor from
    the SLAP program, Sheriffs Labor Assistance Program. Gives the gentle folk doing time in the
    County Jail a day out in the sun. Rich

    Comment by RWB — April 19, 2006 @ 9:23 pm

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