The warden of the Allegheny County Jail told council members that a proposal requiring inmates to work eight hours daily outside the jail walls would expand on a program already in place on jail grounds.

Ramon Rustin, speaking Wednesday at a County Council public safety committee meeting on the proposal, said four to five inmates, dressed in green jumpsuits, regularly work outside the prison on Second Avenue. Their tasks include picking up trash and doing lawn work. No prisoner assigned to the work crew, known as the "Street Gang," has ever walked away or attempted an escape, he said.

Expanding the program to have prisoners do "deferred maintenance" at county parks or other county property would bring with it some additional expenses, he said. A crew of four to six inmates would need to be overseen most likely by two corrections officers, he said. The county also would need a vehicle to transport crew members and guards to work sites, and tools and equipment for use on the job.

The "deferred maintenance" would be work that otherwise would not get done, council members said.

Councilman James Burn, D-Millvale, chairman of the public safety committee, said it would be weeks or even months before his committee would be ready to make a recommendation on the prisoner employment bill. Additional committee meetings will be scheduled to gather more information, he said.

Councilman Vince Gastgeb, R-Bethel Park, and council Vice President Charles Martoni, D-Swissvale, have co-sponsored the measure.

Potential problems with an off-site work program would include the risk of escape and of inmates bringing contraband, especially illegal drugs, back to the jail, Mr. Rustin said. Inmates would have to be strip-searched when they return to the prison.

Only non-violent offenders would be eligible for the program. Mr. Rustin estimated that no more than 100 prisoners would meet that criterion.

Prisoners would be paid a nominal amount for their work, which they could use to pay fines, child support and victim compensation or buy snacks in the jail commissary.

A similar program operates in Westmoreland County Prison, where inmates do a variety of maintenance, landscaping and construction jobs. They perform their jobs under the direction of maintenance supervisors, not jail guards.Approval of the program also depends on developing "a working relationship and agreement with labor unions within the county" on the use of prisoner labor. Mr. Gastgeb said he had met informally with union leaders over Labor Day to brief them on the proposal.

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