Inmates Work to Remove Graffiti

BY RUTH LIAO
Statesman Journal

February 18, 2007

Salem native Ken McPherson hates seeing graffiti in his community. As an inmate, he can do something about it.

"I'm glad to be out here doing something for the community," he said.

McPherson was a member of an inmate work crew checking for graffiti under the Center Street bridge in Salem recently. The effort is a result of a partnership between the Oregon Department of Corrections and Salem Police Department.

The work crews handle any graffiti reported on state and city-owned property, said Kim Nelson of the police department's Graffiti Abatement program. Interstate 5 sound walls, freeway overpasses, bridges -- all are concrete spaces usually tagged by spray paint and needing constant painting, she said. Nelson keeps a list of 15 to 20 most-targeted locations.

The program originally began three years ago, but has been on hold for the past few months, Nelson said. It was relaunched with inmate work crews out of the Santiam Correctional Institution.

When the program was at a standstill, the response time to clean up graffiti on Nelson's hot list was about two weeks, she said. Now the response time is down to a day or two. If graffiti reoccurs in the same spot, which often happens, the crews are available for touch-ups.

"For the community, it's an obvious benefit," Hodgin said. "It's costly for the city or anyone else to pay for it to have it done."

The crew's labor is a volunteer service to the city, said Dan Bielenberg, an inmate work program coordinator. To be assigned to a work crew is an earned privilege, but it also gives inmates benefits, such as learning work skills and the ability to reintegrate back into the community, he said.

"These are community service dollars working," Bielenberg said.

rliao@StatesmanJournal.com or (503) 589-6941