After an inmate in Columbia County ran off from a work site he was on, it raises the question of who is allowed to work outside the jail.

     Today we visited Fort Clarke Middle School, where inmates from the Alachua County Jail were painting the gym.

     Lt. Mike Donovan says there is a very careful selection process to choose who gets to work outside the jail at school sites during the summer when children are absent.

     No one with any violent crimes or felonies qualify, or anyone with a misdemeanor or history of sexual crime.    

     Donovan says that absconding from the group would cost these inmates...big time.  

     "They are only doing this for 5 and 6 months so it is not worth it for them to abscond at this level because that would cost them 5 or 6 years.

     Donovan says in the five years the county has had the program, no inmate has run away.