Through the efforts of the First Selectman’s office and the town’s Sustainable Suffield task force, soon-to-be-released prisoners with low-level offenses are now helping with a variety of town maintenance tasks.
Ray Stoddard supervises three prisoners who help complete town projects. Three days a week, he picks them up at 8 a.m. at Enfield’s Willard-Cybulski prison and returns them before 2 p.m. The state provides the workers with a bag lunch.
You may have seen them Wednesday through Friday picking up trash at the roadside.
Their labor is free to the town. Suffield only pays for their supervisor, Ray Stoddard, a retired 22-year prison guard from Enfield’s Willard-Cybulski prison. One-third of his salary is paid through “nips” funds. Small liquor bottles bought in town are levied a surcharge which is returned to the town semiannually. According to Director of Public Works Lee Corbert, two-thirds of Stoddard’s salary is paid by public works. Stoddard reports to Corbert.
Stoddard said that the town ran the same program for eleven years prior to COVID. The prisoners helped move books during the annual book sale, paint classrooms and install shelving and will be doing the same now.
Commenting on the program, First Selectman Colin Moll said, “We are pleased to bring this program back to our community and the many benefits it will provide. The new workforce acts as a cost-effective force multiplier for our DPW Department and allows that department to focus on larger tasks.” He also thanked Enfield’s Willard-Cybulski prison for making it happen.
Sustainable Suffield chairwoman, Anna-Kristin Daub-Murphy noted, “The program provides reliable and cost-effective environmental clean-up while providing the workers the opportunity to build skills and work habits as they prepare to reintegrate into society.”