Inmates at the Tulare County Jail are farming their own food, participating in a program that saves taxpayers over $1 million annually.
It is the only program of its type throughout all of California.
The big picture: Tulare County owns the farm that its inmates use to grow their own food, Tulare County Sheriff Mike Boudreaux told Fox News‘ Stepheny Price.
- Tulare County has to cover three meals a day for its inmates, which could number up to 2,200 in the jail at one time.
- The farm has cattle, pigs, chickens and grows alfalfa on 1,100 acres to feed the cattle. Inmates also farm broccoli, cabbage and other produce on the land.
- All the leftover food that doesn’t get used each day is then fed to the pigs.
- The farm saves Tulare County taxpayers around $1.2 million to $1.6 million every year, according to Boudreaux.
- The county also offers a certification program for inmates to learn how to become butchers, giving them an opportunity to join the workforce as butchers when they are released.
What he’s saying: “Other sheriffs have gotten rid of farming operations because of Proposition 47,” Boudreaux told Fox News. “They don’t have a workforce anymore that meets the misdemeanor or low offender status to be able to operate some of the farming operations. We have changed some of our criteria, allowing certain inmates to come out and work on the farm, which has allowed us to keep it up and operating.”
- The sheriff views the farm as a way to keep inmates from committing crimes when they are released.
- “We’d like to reduce our recidivism, and this is one of the ways in which we can really work to make that happen,” Boudreaux told Fox News.
