MANSFIELD - The state prison farm operated at Mansfield Correctional Institution is among 10 agricultural operations Ohio is shutting down in a move to raise millions of dollars to fund new rehabilitation and job-training programs for inmates through land sales.
The state will continue farming this year, but will prepare to auction off livestock and stop farming by 2017, prisons director Gary Mohr told The Associated Press on Tuesday.
Ohio Civil Service Employees Association officials said the move was announced "without much explanation, rationale or plan" in a conference call to the union shortly before 1 p.m, around the same time it was announced to affected prison employees.
"They have told us it will affect 56 of our bargaining people (who work as farm coordinators), or 72 employees including managers," said OCSEA spokeswoman Sally Meckling, who said union officials believe the decision resulted from lobbying by the food industry.
MANCI is among the prisons where farms will be shut down, she said. She was unsure how many employees would be affected in Mansfield.
The Mansfield prison operates one of the state's larger prison operations, with 1,485 acres of farmland, a beef herd of 350 cows and a beef finishing operation of 500 head.
Other affected prisons include Marion (995 acres), Pickaway (1,200 acres), Chillicothe (1,809 acres) and the Southeastern Correctional Complex (578 acres). The acreage figures include both state owned land and land used through partnerships.
Mohr said about 220 Ohio inmates work on the farms at the height of the season, with few, if any, taking farm jobs afterward, compared with 20,000 inmates released each year in need of help and services as they re-enter the community.
As Ohio struggles to reduce its inmate population and keep offenders from committing new crimes, it makes more sense to look at ways to help thousands of inmates instead of a few hundred, the prison director said.
“We believe that this whole conversion will allow us to look at thousands of inmates and put the focus on them,” Mohr told the AP.
The goal is to take the millions of dollars expected to be raised from the sale or lease of 12,500 acres and direct it to other job-training programs and rehabilitation efforts, including transitional housing and addiction recovery services, he said.
State prison management told union officials that most farm production would be phased out by the end of 2016, including raising cattle and crops, as well as beverage and milk processing.
The OCSEA said the farms have been in existence for over a hundred years "and have been, for the most part, self-sustaining." In a press release, the union said the farm programs have also been centerpieces for inmate programming and skill-building, with inmates being taught how to operate heavy machinery, weld, drive large vehicles, repair equipment and use a variety of farm tools.
“Unfortunately, we believe the impetus for this change is purely political. It has nothing to do with DR&C’s core mission of recidivism or safety. This is about dollars and cents for corporate interests,” OCSEA President Christopher Mabe said.
For years, powerful private food lobbyists, like the meat industry, have been lobbying the Ohio Statehouse in an effort to shut down the prison farms and take over the business, union officials said.
"We knew there are powerful food lobbyists that want to provide this (food) to the prisons," Meckling said.
Aramark, Ohio’s private prison food vendor, which has been cited for food spoilage, has said it wants to ditch real milk for powdered milk that won’t spoil, the OCSEA said. Aramark has complained of a contract provision that requires it to purchase milk and beef from Ohio Prison Industries, union officials said.
While there had been some prior discussion, "they kind of sprang it on us" as a decision, Meckling said.
Meckling said MANCI and other prisons provide a substantial amount of food to the Mid-Ohio Food Bank and other food pantries.
Numerous states still operate prison farms. Oklahoma inmates, for example, raise 3,400 head of beef cattle and 500 dairy cows and grow vegetables for inmate consumption at almost every prison.
But other states have gotten out of the prison farm business, including New York, which closed 12 farms beginning in 2009, concerned about annual operating losses of $3.4 million.
Mohr said he does not anticipate layoffs. He called the announcement to staff Tuesday “a tough day” that represents an end of part of the prison’s culture.
“The public expects people coming out of our prisons to be better coming out than coming in, and they expect not to be crime victims,” Mohr said. “The approach we’re doing is fully aimed at reducing future crime victims in the state.”
The MANCI prison farm is operated with Level 1/minimum security inmates.
Ohio operates beef or cattle farms at eight prisons and raises crops at two others. The Department of Rehabilitation and Correction has about 2,300 beef cattle and 1,000 dairy cows.
Ohio will now have to find other sources for milk and beef for inmates, since the farms produced almost everything needed in the prisons. The farms also grow corn, soybeans, hay and wheat to feed the animals and for sale.
The state will continue to operate a meat-processing plant at Pickaway Correctional Institution as a job training program.
Inmates also raise vegetables at eight facilities for food banks, a program that isn’t affected by the shutdown and which the state hopes to expand.
Shutting down the farms also will reduce opportunities for smuggling contraband into prisons, Mohr said.
As many as 10 counties may see revenues increase as prison farm land currently not subject to taxes is sold and returned to the tax rolls.
Prison officials didn’t have exact numbers, but the goal is to raise millions of dollars through the sale of land, particularly plots near highways that would be eligible for commercial development, said Stuart Hudson, the prison system’s managing director of health care and fiscal operations.
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This story includes information provided by AP.
