Records show Ohio’s prisons agency made nearly $1.3 million after selling about 1,400 dairy cattle as part of a larger effort to raise money for new rehabilitation and job-training programs for inmates.
The Columbus Dispatch reports the one-time money will go to the state Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. It’s about half of the yearly cost to buy milk for the state’s 50,000 prison inmates.
Four recent dairy cattle auctions netted $1.56 million, but the agency had to pay auctioneer fees and the state Department of Administrative Services, which handled the sale.
The prisons agency decided in April to leave the farm industry.
Prisons Director Gary Mohr says preparing inmates for farm jobs is outdated and that farmlands are often used to smuggle contraband into prisons.
