Both sides clean up
Middlesex inmates providing cash-strapped communities with free manual labor
Dressed in the candy-red uniform of the Middlesex House of Correction, Lawrence Lafrennie pointed the sandblaster nozzle at the concrete wall and squeezed the trigger. With a pressurized burst of water and baking soda, he blasted away one of the dozens of spray-painted graffiti tags that covered Columbus Park.
"Takes it off like it's dirt," said Lafrennie, a 25-year-old inmate spending the day with the Middlesex Sheriff's Office Anti-Graffiti Unit, which scrubs graffiti from public parks and buildings at almost no cost to the community - just baking soda and water, plus food for the crew.
The other inmate on the job, John Wickens, also admired the powerful blaster, which snaked from a truck emblazoned with the sheriff's logo and block letters designed to look like they were being erased.
"It just peels it right off," said Wickens, 54, who said he had worked with less forceful models in previous construction work, before his sentence.
But for their unmistakable uniforms, the three men on the job - two inmates and a corrections officer - might have been public works employees out clearing a Medford park of graffiti under the April sun. And that's the point, Middlesex Sheriff James V. DiPaola said. The graffiti unit is part of the wider Community Work Program, which tries to instill responsibility in inmates while helping cities and towns with manual labor that strained municipal departments do not have the time or money to do.
"It's one of the few things that the sheriff's office does that's a win-win," said DiPaola, who has expanded the work program during his 12 years in office. "This is rehabilitation, and the community wins, and the individual inmate wins by getting that work ethic, by getting that structure in their lives."
Most weekdays, the House of Correction in Billerica dispatches 10 supervised crews of up to five inmates. Half are assigned to the Massachusetts Highway Department to spear trash, and the rest are dispersed. Last year inmates in the Community Work Program performed an estimated $1 million worth of work and visited 45 of the 54 Middlesex County communities. Demand is high, and the sheriff's office books inmate labor several months in advance, said Alex Leone, the assistant deputy superintendent who runs the program.
Among other work in recent years, the inmates and the corrections officers who supervise them - trained to be part guard, part life coach, part boss, and part co-worker, bantering with the men and working alongside them - moved thousands of books for a Pepperell library sale, scrubbed and repainted a Hudson public housing apartment that had been tarred by years of heavy cigarette smoke, and hauled sand bags when the Merrimack River flooded its banks in Lowell.
"It's a great program," said Medford Mayor Michael J. McGlynn, whose city has used inmates to perform more than $100,000 worth of labor in the last three years. "When you're looking at the [Proposition 2 1/2] overrides, with Swampscott and Beverly closing schools, saving $100,000 is like a million to us. And we wouldn't have the resources to get this done otherwise."
DiPaola, a labor ally in his previous roles as a state representative and police officer, is careful not to displace paid employees with the Community Work Program, which supplements the work of municipal DPWs but does not perform larger-scale projects that might go out to bid."I don't want to use my prison labor and my program to put somebody out of a job," he said.
For the inmates, the work program is part of the path toward returning to society, something everyone incarcerated in Billerica will do in the near future. In Massachusetts, convicts sentenced to terms of 2 1/2 years or more are typically sent to state prisons, while those with shorter sentences go to county houses of correction.
In Billerica, new inmates meet with case workers to be assessed for different "criminalistic factors" and assigned to treatment and training programs - such as substance-abuse counseling, parenting classes, and computer-skills courses - with a goal of rehabilitation instead of recidivism, DiPaola said. Through good behavior and program completion, inmates are eligible to move from the main medium-security facility to a minimum-security dorm on the grounds, housed in a cannery that once served the inmate farm. Inmates there who have not committed violent or sexual crimes are eligible for the Community Work Program; a typical crew might include people convicted of larceny or drunken driving.
Inmates who demonstrate responsibility and earn trust while working in the supervised work program can be eligible for work release, which means leaving the House of Correction each day in civilian clothes and a monitoring bracelet to earn paychecks in the regular workforce, DiPaola said.
In Medford, Lafrennie, Wickens, and Sergeant James McConnell took turns wielding the heavy blaster, working with evident pride as they erased graffiti from the park wall, softball bleachers, and pavement.
"I try to treat my guys the way I'd want to get treated back," McConnell said.
Lafrennie, on his first day in the program, said he was enjoying himself.
"It feels really good to do something for the community, you know?" he said. "Going back, I have a lot of friends that do this nonsense, writing on pavement, writing on walls. Well, acquaintances - I shouldn't say friends. I'm trying to change who I hang out with a lot better now."
The best part, though, was the prospect of "outside food," Lafrennie said.
"It'll be the first grinder I have in almost a year."
Most communities provide soda and small subs, McConnell said. In Medford, the inmates arrived at the park to find doughnuts, juice, and hot coffee. A few hours later, a DPW foreman pulled up in a truck, carrying an armload of paper bags.
"We appreciate everything they do for us," Mike Nestor said, setting down a spread of subs, fries, mozzarella sticks, and sodas.
"Delicious," Wickens said, taking a bite of steak and cheese. Lafrennie, digging into a chicken cutlet, nodded in agreement.
Eric Moskowitz can be reached at emoskowitz@globe.com.
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