CANYON COUNTY, Idaho — It takes a lot of manpower to make sure one of the biggest summer events runs smoothly in Canyon County. From setting up the fair, to tearing it down, to everything in between.
Some of that labor isn’t costing the taxpayer anything. That’s because of a program the county is using which puts people to work instead of behind bars.
It’s all through the sheriff’s inmate labor detail program. For some people who commit lower level crimes this is their sentence compared to serving time in jail.
“You can have a misdemeanor DUI or first time DUI or something of that nature where the judge says yeah, you’re going to have to be held accountable,” Canyon County Sheriff Keiran Donahue said. “You have either plead guilty or been found guilty, but rather than sentence that individual, maybe they have a job or they’re providing for their family, let’s put them in SILD.”
It provides a lot of help to the Canyon County Fair, because more than 100 inmates by the end of the fair will have helped in some way.
“They’re going to be down here helping the people of Canyon County, helping it run smoother and not having any cost to the taxpayer in that regard,” Donahue said.
Taylor Rojas is one of the inmates working at the fair to pay back the county for her crime.
“I’d much rather work with the sheriff then do jail time for sure,” she said.
She was caught driving without a license three times. Instead of jail, where she could have served a three-year sentence, she was sent to this labor program.
“Jail is really scary, I’ve never really been to jail before,” Rojas said. “So, this is probably my first offense so I would much rather do SILD then go to jail.”
It helps keep people out of jail. This is an advantage for Donahue and his department since they are dealing with an overcrowding issue in the facility. It also helps save taxpayers money.
“The judge can sentence a lot of people to SILD and those people do not stay in the jail, that helps out tremendously and that helps out the taxpayer because we’re not paying for those folks,” he said.
For the fair, the inmates are assigned to the maintenance crew. Their task for the weekend is keeping the grounds clean and doing whatever else the maintenance crew might need them to do. It’s a dirty job that includes picking up after the livestock.
“It’s way better than doing other jobs, they have us working outside but this one is nice because we get to see a bunch of happy smiling faces around,” Rojas said. “We get to see all the livestock and animals which is cool.”
The inmates work with the sheriff’s office to meet their work requirement. Donahue said they could be sentenced to work 50 hours in a six-month time frame. He added the program provides labor to around 50 different groups around the county, so it’s not just limited to the fair.
“Not everyone needs to go to jail. They need to be held accountable, but they don’t need to go to jail,” he said.