Working for the Ingham County Jail -- cut your time in jail in half ce in half

There's lots of work to do at the jail.  They have to feed 700 or so inmates plus jail staff; take care of the inside and outside of the jail and the 55th District Court; clean the cages at the adjacent Animal Shelter; wash all of the police vehicles; clean cells at Lansing's city jail; serve the Drain Commission;  take care of the fairgrounds -- and more.  Over 100 inmates are jail workers.

The familiar term for an inmate worker is "trustee" but it seems ICJ just calls them "jail workers."

If during your incarceration you want to become a jail worker, you need to fill out a kite asking to be considered for worker status.  The incentive to become a worker is huge: you will live in a much nicer dorm, and you will get one extra day off your sentence for each day served, cutting your remaining time in half.

If you're picked to be a worker, you'll move to Post 10.  You'll find this dorm much nicer than the dungeon you came from.  It's brightly lit and has friendly linoleum instead of bare concrete.  The dorm is set up barracks style, with 20 or so people in each room.

You will be given a locker and told to lock it religiously. You will be given two uniforms.  Each night you can have clothes laundered; this allows you to wear fresh clothes -- desirable if you're working the outside world.

Some workers work the night shift -- laundry for instance -- and they have their own dorm area.  The rest start their work day at 6:00 a.m.  The head guard on duty will call out each worker type needed over the intercom:

• Inside maintenance
• Outside maintenance
• Animal Control
• Drain Commission
• Garage
• Etc.

You will have  been assigned a job category.  It's your job to wake up when they call out "Animal Control" or whatever category is starting work.  Make your bed, and get your ass to work.  (The worker post, Post 10, demands that your bed be made military style.)  If you're lucky you'll be assigned to the Garage.  This is by far the easiest job.  Your job is to wash the fleet of sheriff police cars.  Your work day is from 8:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m.  Often you'll be done at lunch time.  Some days you won't even be called to work.  Other workers will mock you for not working a real job.  (On the other hand, you may be loaned out for more onerous work -- like helping Outside Maintenance shovel snow.)

You will find that most of your fellow worker-inmates want to work. You will also find that some of the young inmates are total slackers.  This is something you will have to cope with: young slackers who'd rather goof off instead of actually working.

When you move to Post 10 you'll also discover that they feed you better.  They give a sandwich in addition to the cooked meal, and, for crews that have worked especially hard that day, they will call your crew and give each member an entire extra hot meal.  Obviously someone figured out that if you've got people doing hard physical labor, you have to give them calories to sustain them.

You'll also be given two orange uniforms instead of one.  You have nightly laundry service -- both uniforms and whites. Obviously they want their trustees to look clean when working in public.

All in all, working for the jail is a good deal.  However, there is a huge sword hanging over your head:  screw up, and you may lose all you'd gained.  While I was in jail, a fellow inmate on worker status was assigned to the Lansing jail.  He spied a woman -- an attractive one in a business suit, he said -- deposit a cigarette on the outside receptacle.  He picked up the cigarette -- still smoking -- and puffed on it.

Unfortunately a guard inside saw this, and reported him.  ICJ revoked his worker status and sent him back to the general population.  A few puffs on a cigarette cost this dude 100 days of freedom.