Non-violent prisoners giving back to McHenry County

The men in the orange uniforms you've seen doing the grunt work on the streets of McHenry County have logged roughly 4,600 hours collecting garbage, and other assorted tasks.

The county employs four prisoners at a time on the McHenry County Sheriff Department's Road Crew Program - this year, 14 men from the county prison went through the program.

"They are low risk, sentenced inmates and you can trust them not to make a run for it," said Chief of Corrections Daniel Sedlock, who also oversees the road crew program.

The inmates spread themselves all over McHenry County, doing all sorts of work in 16 townships and for five governmental agencies.

But their bread and butter remains picking up the papers and the trash.

Of the roughly 4,600 hours they accumulated for the program's duration between April 27 and Oct. 9, they devoted 3,050 hours to picking up garbage along local roads.

All told, they cleared 471 miles of roadway and filled 1,115 bags with trash.

Some of their other duties included painting, brush and tree removal, filling small potholes, washing inmates' laundry and miscellaneous work that involved washing fleet vehicles, moving picnic tables and installing arrows for the sheriff department's 90-mile Donut Run.

Their biggest project this season involved painting the sheriff's new substation in Algonquin - the program has been in place since 1997.

In exchange for all that work, they're paid in free haircuts, an extra day of visitation and $1 a day.

With this sort of labor, which is voluntary, they also benefit the community.

"It's a win-win program for everybody involved," Sedlock said. "It's been a very successful program for the sheriff's office."