With the arrival of the spring season, local residents begin turning their thoughts to outdoor activities, and among those activities, “spring cleaning” is one that often comes to mind.

That spring cleaning, in recent years, has spread beyond the property boundaries of private property, spilling over onto public property and most often, picking up trash that has accumulated alongside the roadways throughout Albanyand Clinton County.

While a host of volunteers from the private sector have been getting into the roadside cleaning effort in recent years, another group with a high visibility is also doing its part to help spruce up Clinton County’s overall appearance by working the roads to remove trash.

The Clinton County Jail and it’s inmates are doing their part in keeping the roads in Albany clean.

They have been working for the past couple of months by picking up trash along the roadways and with warmer weather approaching, Clinton County Jailer Gene Ferrell said he wants to inform the public that inmates might be seen picking up ditch lines thoughout the days ahead.

“I just wanted to alert the people that they would be out there picking up trash,” Ferrell said. “We’ve already had one call and people think we are out looking for someone. They see our van parked somewhere on the side of the road with no one around it. We are just making our way to the van by picking up trash. We will go down one side and up the other.”

Utilizing inmates for picking up trash along the side of the road can have it’s advantages. Road workers can focus on other areas of road maintenance while the inmates work on trash pick up.

“It has it’s advantages and disadvantages,” Ferrell said. “Some people don’t want them around their property, but we think it’s a good program.”

The inmates at Clinton County Jail usually work on county roadways, Ferrell said. “Usually on the county roads there is not much traffic, so we have insurance to do that. We did this all of last year.”

Ferrell said there was a couple of years the corrections department didn’t pick up the trash, but since last year, inmates have been seen picking up trash in the rural areas.

“We didn’t do it for a couple of years and back then we use to get the state roads,” Ferrell said. “Hopefully us or someone will get to the state roads. I know I’ve had a lot of calls about it.”

An average day for the inmates usually consists of covering around 11 miles of roadway. Ferrell said the inmates usually get around 50 bags of trash in a days time, but it also depended on where they are working. He said some days it gets up into the 90s as far as number of bags picked up.

“We are kind of skipping around right now and getting the worse spots, but we will get into our routine soon and start with one precinct and continue on to the next one,” Ferrell said. “Usually we follow the mowing machines in the summer. It seems like we’ve had more on account of the snows. It doesn’t seem like its blowed away like it has in the past. Once it gets wet, it probably lays where it’s at.”

Ferrell said he doesn’t let just anybody who is lodged in Clinton County Jail out on the streets and the jailer can’t force anybody to participate in the trash pick up.

Inmates are usually selected if they want to participate and are at a low flight risk.

“We can’t force any of them to do this,” Ferrell said. “We try to let the ones who are ‘short timers’, or the ones who don’t have much time left. They don’t have any reason to mess up that way. On our work program, we’ve only had one to run off and as matter of fact, we have him in jail right now on other charges, a long time later.”

Ferrell said when inmates are out in the community, the biggest problem they have is keeping them from getting drugs and bringing them back into the jail.

“These inmates are carefully supervised. There are two guys out there with them at all times and when they come in they are searched and if they get caught with anything then they are charged with it,” Ferrell said.

Inmates who participate in the work program benefit by getting outside and getting exercise throughout the day.

“They get to get outside for a while and we usually buy them lunch,” Ferrell said. “They kind of like that … getting lunch from one of the restaurants we order from. The biggest portion of them want to. Some of them can’t get out there if they have health problems or an illness.”

Ferrell said when the work program goes out, four to six inmates are usually all they take on one trip.

As of Thursday morning, March, 24, 2011, Ferrell said he had 26 inmates lodged in the Clinton County Jail with 10 to 12 others lodged in other county jails.

“My job is to find space. We will get some people throughout the day when they serve warrants and as times get harder, we have more and more child support cases,” Ferrell said. “Our inspectors will only let us have 26 (inmates). When it gets above that, we have to find someplace else. We can keep more than that overnight by putting them in the drunk tank, but then that day you have to make some room.”

With a deputy jailer working alongside, several inmates from the Clinton County Jail were busy last Thursday morning picking up trash alongside the Lettered Oak Road in south-west Clinton County. Inmates are selected to work the trash detail on a volunteer basis and according to their offense and time remaining on their sentence.

Inmates aren’t the only ones that have been busy picking up trash alongside the highways in recent weeks. Several volunteers were working last week in Clinton County with the local and regional PRIDE effort to spruce up local roads, with special attention given last week to roads that lead to area marinas. This group of volunteers shown below were picking up trash on KY 553, also known as the Wisdom Dock Road. According to PRIDE officials, the multi-county effort resulted in 226 volunteers picking up 615 bags of trash and 13 tires in Clinton and Cumberland Counties.

(Photo above by NEWS Editor Al Gibson – photo below submitted by J. Allen Smith)