Lancaster County Jail inmates dredge chicken before frying it during a cooking class in 2016. Prior to a November vote outlawing banning slavery, county inmates who worked in the kitchen through a food preparation skills program were the only ones receiving compensation.
More than 100 Lancaster County jail inmates now receive $20 to $30 a week for their work laundering sheets, landscaping and cleaning bathrooms, jailhouse jobs that before the 2020 election they performed without pay.
Jail Director Brad Johnson said the vote to amend Nebraska's constitution and outlaw slavery and involuntary servitude as criminal punishment now compels the jail to pay for labor it had historically received for free.
Prior to the election, all inmates serving a jail sentence and physically able to work were required to through the disciplinary process, Johnson said. Inmates capable but refusing to work risked losing "good time," and thus served longer sentences.
The jail has relied on inmates' sentencing orders to give it the legal authority to require inmates to work, he said.
"Don't get me wrong: They wanted something to do," Johnson said.
The Lancaster County Board recently repealed a 1983 county policy that allowed involuntary servitude at the Lancaster County jail, a response to the amendment approved by 68% of voters in November.
Johnson, who oversees a $23 million annual budget, projects the new wages will add $150,000 to his yearly expenses.
Whether other jails in Nebraska follow suit remains an open question. The Nebraska Jail Standards Board has yet to take up the questions arising from the new amendment, said board member and Saunders County Sheriff Kevin Stukenholtz.
State Sen. Justin Wayne of Omaha proposed the constitutional amendment in 2019 as a measure to remove obsolete language from the Nebraska constitution and express the state's opposition to slavery.
Nebraska leased its convicts to businesses to provide free labor until 1913, Wayne said during a legislative hearing, noting the state Capitol was built effectively using slave labor.
One man testified in opposition during a legislative hearing on the bill and said the state prisons already had hiring challenges and the amendment could hinder their operations if prisoners weren't forced to do chores.
At the time, 23 states had already enacted similar amendments, and those states continued to operate prisons, Wayne said in response.
Wayne didn't respond to a request for comment Friday. In his public statements since proposing the amendment, Wayne has not made it clear whether he intended for jail or prison inmates to be paid.
Stukenholtz said the amendment raises similar questions about what work jails can require of their inmates.
"Does that (amendment) apply to the simplest of housekeeping rules?" Stukenholtz asked.
His 155-bed jail in Wahoo houses inmates from both Saunders and Dodge counties.
Unlike Johnson, Stukenholtz has not begun paying the sentenced inmates who help clean and cook at the jail, but he noted those inmates often receive extra privileges such as extra food or visitation time.
Before the vote, Lancaster County inmates who worked in the kitchen through a food preparation skills program received compensation, Johnson said.
Under the new measure, Lancaster County inmates won't receive minimum wage, said Johnson, who also sits on the state Jail Standards Board.
The 2018 passage of a similar constitutional amendment in Colorado prompted state prisoners there to sue seeking minimum wage. That lawsuit is still undecided.
A Nebraska prisoner in 2014 filed a federal lawsuit seeking to be paid minimum wage for work serving food, tending the yard and washing windows, jobs that he received only up to $2.25 a day to perform, the Associated Press reported.
A federal judge dismissed that lawsuit, saying state law allowed prison officials to set working hours and wages for inmates. The state's minimum wage statutes consider inmates separate from other workers.
Jail jobs break up the monotony of serving a sentence, both Stukenholtz and Johnson said.
When Saunders County jail staff lead roadside clean-up, everyone volunteers, Stukenholtz said.
But the sheriff wonders whether the new law could lead to more inmates opting not to work in instances where they are not required.
If they are paid, he said, jails may have to garnish their wages to pay restitution or victim's compensation, which in turn may lead inmates to sit out.
"It’s kind of like 'careful what you wish for,'" Stukenholtz said.
"Idle hands are normally things of mischief."
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Reach the writer at 402-473-2657 or rjohnson@journalstar.com.
On Twitter @LJSRileyJohnson.
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December 12, 2020 at 12:40PM
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Lancaster County jail inmates now paid for work after Nebraska voters passed slavery ban - Lincoln Journal Star
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