When I saw the announcement from Ohio Prison Director Gary Mohr phasing out the prison farms, all I could do was shake my head and smile. Here come the political games again.
You can’t tell me that shutting down the farms, selling everything and then turning to use the funds for your re-entry programs are a fiscally sound decision. Stuart Hudson, money man for the prisons said the goal of it is to be “revenue-neutral.” How is that going to be?
The beef that is raised, slaughtered and fed to the ODRC inmates will no longer be there, just as the milk and vegetable used for food and feeding of the cattle. You want us to believe that the contracts you will go out and get, with I am sure private companies, will be financially approvable?
The inmates that work on the farms across the state take pride in their work and it is skilled work to help when they are released. It is time for Ohioans to wake up and smell the crap that is being spread for us. We have been farming on Ohio’s prison grounds since 1868 and now it’s become an “anachronism?” Something definitely needs changed in Ohio’s prisons and it needs to start in Columbus!
— Sarah Nickles, Lima
