D'Wayne Armstrong works as a shipping coordinator at HB&G Building Products in Troy. "Work release gives you some self-esteem, allows you to put on regular clothes and actually have a job that you get a paycheck for," he said. -- Mickey Welsh

Related Links Inmates help pay for work-release program

He started out at Troy's HB&G Building Products as a warehouse stock clerk, shelving dusty building materials, columns and entrance frames.

Now, he's the 750-employee manufacturing company's shipping coordinator, in charge of scheduling every delivery and every carrier pickup. Each day, he works with dozens who've never seen the inside of a jail cell as he once had.

Troy resident D'Wayne Armstrong is one of the state's former work-release inmates, one out of every seven who didn't turn back to crime after doing time.

He still works for the company that took him on a decade ago and credits the work-release program for helping shape his life and usher him back into the free world. He recalled the day he was entrusted with the keys to the company warehouse, handed to him by his shipping supervisor at the time.

"It made me feel self-assured," said Armstrong.

He later talked about the moment with Glenn Camp, human resources director for HB&G, and the man who gave Armstrong the job.

"I asked him why he would give that to someone who's a convicted thief," Armstrong recalled, "and he said, 'I didn't give you that, you earned it.' "

The program "gave me a chance ... to start over," said the 42-year-old, whose life as a free member of society stopped when he was convicted of theft of property in 1993.

A nonviolent offender, he was eligible for the state's work-release program. Promotions soon came his way. He went from stock clerk to freight shipper and later to administrative coordinator. Early last year, he made shipping coordinator.

"When you are maybe going down the wrong road extremely fast, something has to stop you and slap you back to reality," he said. "The prison sentence did that."

While in the program, he put in hard time working. It was honest work, he said, and it made him feel connected to the real world.

"Work release gives you some self-esteem, allows you to put on regular clothes and actually have a job that you get a paycheck for," he said.

Brian Corbett, spokesman for the Alabama Department of Corrections, described the program as a "reintegration tool."

"They're working, they're earning an income and they are able to transition back into society with employment," Corbett said. "That's part of what the program is designed to do."

DOC doesn't keep track of how many inmates keep work-release jobs after completing a prison sentence.

Alabama's work-release inmates don't get to keep all of the money they make, but see 40 percent of their paychecks go to the state.

HB&G began taking on work-release inmates about 10 years ago, Camp said. Armstrong was part of the second work-release group at the plant.

"We were looking for a nontraditional labor pool we could tap into," he said.

Work release offers a ready pool of oftentimes eager workers for low-paying jobs. Work-release inmates earned an average of $15,158 last year.

"It's an earned privilege," Camp said. "We found out they were a well-behaved, disciplined group."

Right now, about 15 percent of the manufacturing plant's labor pool is work release.

"When we have somebody, and they come in, there's a standing offer for them to stay on if they want to stay," Camp said.

Armstrong chose to stay. His sentence ended in 1997.

"I felt like I was proving myself," he said. "I'm not one to stay stagnant. I like to better myself. I guess I would have to say I owe all of it to work release. The people here trust me, like me and give credit to my work."

Beyond that, he's engaged and plans to marry Sherry Varnes this year.

"I think of him as a person," Varnes said. "I don't think of him as a criminal. If it hadn't been for what he went through, he wouldn't be the person he is today."

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