Lubbock County Sheriff Sonny Keesee runs an auto repair shop with a twist. Most of its customers are sheriff's deputies. The mechanics are jail-detainees hand-picked for their mechanical skills.

Andy Gentry, a Lubbock county sheriff's deputy, got the engine of his 1989 Toyota replaced for $250 in labor costs. Daniel Summers had the carburetor of his 1986 Suburban rebuilt for $18.

According to Chilton's Labor Manual, a standard reference used by mechanics to estimate labor charges, Gentry saved about $128 on his carburetor repair, and Sommers saved about $93 by using jail prisoners to replace his engine at the county garage.

According to documents obtained by a Lubbock newspaper, at least 14 jail prisoners have performed skilled and semi- skilled jobs through Sheriff Keesee's "Piddler Program." Keesee said that the labor program's services were open to anyone and that his deputies did nothing wrong by "keeping them [prisoners] busy."

But the "Piddler Program" came under scrutiny late in 1996 and was finally canceled after the county's state district judges ordered Keesee to return 14 prisoners he had brought back from prison on bench warrants. Those prisoners had been selected for their job skills.

The judges said that bench warrants should be used to bring state prisoners back for court proceedings, not to recruit talented workers for the jail.

--From the Austin American Statesman, quoted in the June 1997 Prison Legal News.