Louisville Mayor Greg Fischer says the city is working to correct problems with using inmates from Dismas Charities’ halfway houses.Earlier this month, an internal audit showed there was no written contract for using ex-convicts for volunteer in various city departments. The report said the lack of a signed agreement puts the city at risk, and also found that inmates were not consistently signing in at their work assignments and aren't being properly monitored by supervisors.
Fischer says the partnership with Dismas is a worthy cause that helps rehabilitate inmates, and a corrective action plan is in the works."Remember, these folks are in halfway houses and they’re re-integrating into society as well. So that’s part of the issue. But from my perspective what we need is a uniform policy from the city and that’s what you’ll be seeing," he says.The Fischer administration has defended the partnership mainly as a cost savings measure to the city, arguing that Dismas workers do jobs for little to no pay that most are unwilling to do. The state's corrections department houses inmates at Dismas' various halfway houses, who work for around .62 cents a day.But as LEO Weekly's Joe Sonka reported this month, union leaders continue to raise concerns about safetyafter learning the continued use of violent offenders without backgroudn checks at city agencies despite previous assurances from the mayor's office that the practice would stop.Another troubling statistic is that over a dozen Dismas inmates have either escaped or walked away from their work assignments this year, including one who was working at Fischer's town hall meetings and another who is still at-large.From LEO:
