Inside Iowa State: Iowa State University

September 27, 2002

Low-risk offenders give ISU a helping hand

by Debra Gibson
A rumor floating around Ames this summer had convicts working within yards of State Gym and its Swim America youth program.

The truth? For the past several years, inmates have traveled to campus to perform short-term manual labor tasks. And to date, the arrangement has been "win-win," according to university administrators.

But murderers, sex offenders or armed robbers, the inmates are not. They are residents of medium-security institutions like the North Central Correctional Facility in Rockwell City. Their convictions more likely are for writing bad checks or driving while intoxicated, and they typically are three to five months away from being released into the general population.

Their every move while on campus also is monitored continuously by both trained Department of Corrections staff and corrections officers, more commonly known as guards.

Their presence here is a result of the state of Iowa's push for its entities to better use each other's services. While the Iowa Department of Correction's Prison Industries program provides the university with temporary laborers, its major contribution has been the thousands of furniture pieces created and installed in residence halls across campus the last few years.

It took 55 semi-truck loads to deliver all the furniture Iowa inmates built for the Frederiksen Court residences, said Roger Baysden, director of Prison Industries. Baysden has been at the helm of countless furniture assembly and installation projects on campus during the recent construction and renovations of residence buildings.

"I suppose we have built furniture for 2,000 to 3,000 dorm rooms at Iowa State," Baysden said in a telephone interview from his Des Moines office. "That's a lot of furniture. There is a real feel for craftsmanship and attention to detail that has gone into these work programs."

Those work programs are part of Corrections' emphasis on rehabilitation, Baysden said. "Our focus is to teach work skills, a work ethic, discipline and craftsmanship."

The actual creation of the dormitory and cafeteria furniture takes place in the state's maximum-security facility, the Iowa State Penitentiary in Fort Madison. For many of these furniture builders, a photo is as close as they'll ever come to seeing their work installed.

"Our lifers, our men who never get out, they will not ever be on the campuses to view their work," Baysden said. "Only our lowest-level offenders go out on the jobs."

According to Baysden, the average incarceration at Rockwell City is nine months, "and the next step is home." Inmates undergo intensive screening to be selected for the work programs. ("We really pull them through the eye of the needle," Baysden said.) And he has yet to receive a complaint about their performances on campus.

"The last thing we can afford is to have a problem," Baysden said. "If we err, it's on the side of too much security around these men, rather than not enough. And that's the way it should be."

Norm Hill, stores and materials manager for Central Stores, oversaw a crew of Rockwell City inmates that moved contents from one university warehouse to another this summer. Like Baysden, he thinks hiring low-risk offenders "is the right thing to do."

"I was so impressed by these guys," Hill said. "They were hard-working, well-mannered and very well-behaved. They provided some necessary manpower on very short notice. They always showed up, and they were always on time. I was impressed by their willingness to take on almost anything."

Dennis Ethington, the department of residence manager of materials, has contracted with Prison Industries for many years, and shares others' positive reactions to the professional relationship.

"Each year, as we enter into the summer conference housing season, we hire Rockwell City prisoners to come in and take apart the bunk beds in Maple Hall," he explained. "It's a job that requires quite a bit of labor in a very tight time frame. They then return in August to set the bunks back up. The quality of their worksmanship, in providing labor as well as building our furniture, is as good or better than anything else in the general marketplace. I think it's been a very positive situation for the university. We can accomplish what we need and keep the dollars within the state."

According to Warren Madden, vice president for business and finance, "We estimate a savings of hundreds of thousands of dollars" over the years furniture and labor have been purchased from Prison Industries. "We view it as 'win-win' -- we get the high-quality product we need at a competitive price, and the inmates like the work."

Madden admits the idea of hiring convicted offenders to work at Iowa State took a bit of selling in the early years. "There certainly were concerns about prisoners on campus," he recalled, "especially about exposing the university community to situations that may not be appropriate. But these prisoners are low-risk, and most are trying to create new lives for themselves. We know of some who have returned here and enrolled as students after they finished serving their time.

"It's been a great situation for Iowa State -- but Prison Industries certainly has had to earn the business," he said.