By Alan Johnson
The Columbus Dispatch
COLUMBUS, Ohio — After more than 100 years, Ohio prisons are getting out of the farming business.
Gary Mohr, director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, said today that the agency will phase out farming at 10 prisons around state, covering 12,500 acres, 2,300 beef cattle and 1,000 dairy cattle, by the end of the year.
Mohr said the closings will affect about 70 staff members and 220 inmates during the peak season. They will be moved to different jobs inside the prisons, but no layoffs are planned.
State prisons have been in the farming business a very long time, dating back to 1868 when the first farming operation was proposed for the old Ohio Penitentiary in Columbus.
Prison officials said the reason for shutting down the century-old farm operations is not financial, although the state expects to harvest some revenue by selling 7,000 or more acres of farm land.
Mohr said farming operations, while historically valuable to keep inmates working and provide food for the prison population, are an anachronism today and are no longer in line with the goal of preparing inmates for life after prison. Just as important, he said, farms have become security risks with people dropping off drugs, tobacco and other contraband to be picked up by inmates and smuggled back into prison.
“We’re going to be able to touch a lot more inmates and focus on their reentry,” Mohr said. “Farming has not been an area where we’re placing people when they go out in the community. We want to focus more on prison enterprises inside the walls.”
“It makes a lot of sense to me to do this,” Mohr added. “We owe the taxpayers who are paying our salaries to do the best we can do.”
The Ohio Civil Services Employees Association, the union representing 30,000 state workers including prison employees, criticized the announcement as being done “without much explanation, rationale or plan.” The union said the closings will affect 56 union members who are farm coordinators.
“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,” said union President Christopher Mabe.
The union attributed the move to “powerful private food lobbyists, like the meat industry, which have been lobbying the Ohio Statehouse in an effort to shut down the prison farms and take over the business.”
Aramark Correctional Services, an international private food services company, was hired by the state in September 2013 to handle food services at prisons. The state last year rebuffed the OCSEA bid to win back the contract.
Eight of the ten sites targeted for closing are active farming operations: Allen Correctional, Allen County; Lebanon Correctional, Warren County; London Correctional, Madison County; Mansfield Correctional, Richland County; Marion Correctional Institution, Marion County; Pickaway Correctional, Pickaway County; Chillicothe Correctional, Ross County, and Southeastern Correctional Complex, Fairfield County. Two prisons have crops-only farms that will also close: Grafton Correctional, Lorain County, and Southern Ohio Correctional Facility, Scioto County.
Officials said selling prison farm land to private owners will mean additional tax revenues for affected local governments and schools. The state pays no taxes on the land now.
Stuart Hudson, chief of financial services for the prisons, said the goal of the farm closings is to be “revenue-neutral.” He said the state will have to sign contracts to replace the beef, milk and other food traditionally produced on the farms.
Hudson and Mohr said the state will keep open a 21,000-square-foot meat-processing plant at the Pickaway Correctional Institution in Orient, Ohio. The state may partner with a private company to get more business for the plant. However, a milk-processing plant is expected to close.
Copyright 2016 The Columbus Dispatch