ABBI helps inmates pay their debt to society

After a security checkpoint the gravel road winds up the hill past several prisons until visitors come upon a sign that reads Dangerous Animals: Do Not Approach.

The location is a brand new bucking bull training facility being used by the ABBI for its Back Seat Buckers program and it's housed on property owned by the Colorado Department of Corrections. The bull pen is located in the same complex as seven prisons--CSB 1, CSB 2, Centennial, Arrowhead, Four Mile, Skyline and Freemont--along with a dairy farm and 500 acres of crops, which is mostly corn.

According to Jim Heaston, the Agriculture Business Manager for the Colorado Corrections Industries, they do not receive any general funds to operate the various businesses that are manned by minimum and minimum restricted inmates.

"We're not costing the taxpayers any money," Heaston said. "We actually save the taxpayers money because we generate money.

"Whatever's left at the end of the year goes into the general fund. When we've got the inmates out working they don't have to hire an officer or a staff member to be able to watch him inside the facility, so that cuts down on the personal services that the Department of Corrections needs due to the fact that we're working them, teaching them a trade and keeping them busy throughout the day."

The inmates working with the ABBI are the same inmates who would work to build fences, work the dairy cows, work in the heavy equipment program or work as firefighters. "They're there paying their debt to society," Heaston said.

Each morning they're transported from their respective prison to the pens.

"We're not costing the taxpayers any money," Heaston said. "We actually save the taxpayers money because we generate money.

The idea behind the work programs is as much about teaching them a life skill as it is generating funds for the state-run prison facility.

"That's our goal," Heaston said. "To teach them a trade, life skills. Get them used to working. We bring them out every day and put them to work. That in turn teaches them a skill."

According to Heaston, the program has to pay for all its own raw materials and equipment along with any other expenses related to the program.

Back Seat Buckers is described as a "perfect fit" for the prison.

Heaston said the ABBI provides the product--everything from the raw materials to build the pens to the 100 two-year old futurity bulls being used--and in return the CCI provides the manpower to oversee it.

"All the guys who work there, they love it," Heaston said. "We have them lined up. It's one of the programs that they would all come and work for us--as many of them as we wanted."

Right now they're only using four inmates to build the bull pen and the chutes, but as each "rolls out" or is released, a new inmate is brought over to work on the project. Some of them are known as "short timers" and have a mandatory release date within 28 days, while Heaston said he prefers to involve inmates who have three or four years remaining when it comes to long term projects like the Back Seat Buckers.

Hundreds of other low-risk inmates milk 900 cows three times a day, 1,100 goats twice a day and 81 newly acquired water buffalos, which Heaston said are used to make "the best mozzarella cheese you can make." The dairy facility is operated by 68 inmates working in three shifts that continuously work 24 hours a day.

And that's not all.

They have a joint venture with a wild horse program and currently have 2,300 mustangs with a capacity for 3,000 wild horses. They also farm 500 acres of crops right at the Canon City complex. According to Heaston, they raise about 12,000 tons of corn a year and then in the fall use 125 acres to raise triticeae.

The corn and the triticeae is chopped up for silage and used to feed the dairy cows.

The bucking bull facility is located near the dairy facility, which is where all the feed is kept, so the inmates are in charge of feeding the bulls every day and check on them. Joe Baumgartner, Kent Cox and Dean Wilson rotate spending time in Colorado actually working with the bulls and chute training them.

At this point, the inmates do not work directly with the bucking bulls, but some have expressed an interest in learning.

"They will pay really close attention to anything (those) guys do," Heaston said. "They always listen and they want to learn about (those) animals. … They want to learn because when they get out, who knows, they might want to get into it."

If any issues arise they contact Kaycee Simpson, who is the Vice-President of the ABBI.

This week the bulls were hauled to Oklahoma, where they'll be housed for roughly a month. They will be competing in Tulsa and again in Thackerville before being hauled to Springfield, Mo., for the fourth and final regular-season event and then out to Las Vegas for the Finals.

Heaston said he others from the prison system, including his supervisor Steve Smith, had visited with Simpson beforehand and had a good idea of not only what to expect, but what was expected of them.

"It's gone according to plan pretty well," Heaston said, "very well. I mean, they're a great bunch of people to work with. They're willing to do anything we need and we're willing to do anything for them."

The ABBI is already selling auction spots for next year's Back Seat Buckers. Ross Coleman will be at a booth located on the concourse of the BFTS events beginning in Tulsa.

The bulls will again be housed at the prison.

"Any project we go into like this," Heaston said, "we go into it long term and, I think, this is going to be a good one. They seem to be satisfied and we're very satisfied."

NOTES

According to Heaston, anything classified over a Minimum R will be surrounded by two fences. CSB 1 and the recently completed CSB 2 are maximum security prisons. However, the much-talked about Supermax facility, which houses the Unabomber and other well-known inmates, is a federal prison that is located five miles away on the other side of Florence.

Heaston agreed that by the time the inmates are working with CCI they're on the path to eventually being released and want to make the right decisions in their life, but some need guidance and Heaston is willing "to sit and visit about it. You just have to steer them down the right road and they get to finding out they can do the right thing. If they get to hanging with the wrong crowd it's just like anything else, you're going to do the wrong thing."

For more information regarding the Back Seat Buckers program and to buy an auction spot for next year's futurity bulls, log onto www.backseatbuckers.com or call (719) 242-2747.

 Follow Keith Ryan Cartwright on Twitter @PBR_KRC.