Sympathy points for governor

COLUMBUS — Get past the politics of the ongoing drama over prison inmates working at the governor’s mansion for a moment.

Forget about that inspector general’s report — as hard as that may sound — and all of its allegations of lying among the higher-ups at the Ohio Department of Public Safety.

Don’t think about those confirmation hearings, where Senate Republicans made public safety officials and others involved look like Sgt. Schultz, Col. Klink and the rest of the cast of “Hogan’s Heroes” (that summation offered during the hearing by the always-poignant state Sen. Bill Seitz).

And try — just for a minute — to pretend the Ohio Senate didn’t reject unconfirmed DPS Director Cathy Collins-Taylor, sending her on to greener pastures on the state parole board.

Do all of that, and what you have left is Strickland and his desire to give inmates a chance to train for gainful employment after their release from prison.

You have to feel some sympathy for the guy — a former prison psychologist advocating on behalf of Ohioans stuck behind bars and boosting the number of inmates involved in a work program at the state-owned residence he and first lady Frances call home.

And how did those inmates repay his faith in their future rehabilitation? They smuggled tobacco, they broke the rules, and last week a couple of them got caught drinking.

That’s right, last week, just days after Collins-Taylor was forced out of her position following a scandal that stemmed from a quashed drug sting. This following weeks of outcry over lax security over inmates involved in the program.

“I have directed the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction to immediately suspend the program until a full and thorough external review of this program can be completed,” Strickland said in a terse statement released late one day last week.

The decision also came after weeks of Strickland’s defense of allowing inmates to work at the mansion.

“This is a program that has been in existence for decades,” he told Statehouse reporters earlier this month. “It is a program that is intended to aid in the rehabilitation of young men who are nearing the end of their prison sentences who ... very soon will be totally free out in society.”

He added, “I’ve said before that, when you work with an inmate population, the chances that you are going to be disappointed are relatively high. But that does not mean that the program should not be continued and that we should not continue to emphasize the rehabilitative aspects of the program.

“Many of these inmates very soon will be going out into society, seeking employment. Some of them will be seeking employment ... and we’re trying to make it possible for them to have the skills they need to compete for the jobs that they’re going to have to have.”

Strickland’s opponents are going to have a heydey with the Department of Public Safety debacle, which has already been mentioned in one advertisement in support of his Republican challenger, John Kasich.

There are plenty of judgment questions and critiques to be offered. But Strickland’s sincere desire to help rehabilitate soon-to-be-released prison inmates shouldn’t be ridiculed.

X Marc Kovac is The Vindicator’s Statehouse correspondent. E-mail him at mkovac@dixcom.com or on Twitter at OhioCapitalBlog.