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On weekdays, Ronnie Strickland leaves his jail cell at the Frederick County Detention Center, boards a police van and heads to his job at the county's animal shelter.

Strickland, who is serving a year-long sentence for contempt of court, cleans and disinfects animal cages, walks dogs, washes the animal's bedding and feeds the cats.

"I enjoy pretty much everything I do," Strickland said. "I never used to like cats, but now I pretty much like them."

Strickland said he enjoys working with animals so much that when he is released from jail on Feb. 3, he plans to continue volunteering at the shelter.

Strickland is part of the Frederick County Sheriff's Office inmate labor program. The program gives certain inmates, depending on the severity of their crimes, the chance to volunteer in county government agencies, nonprofits, churches and fire departments.

"It's a great program," Frederick County Sheriff Chuck Jenkins (R) said. "It does so much for county government and the inmates."

Jenkins said he is so pleased with the program that he hopes to expand it to other agencies and organizations in the county.

Officials at the Frederick County Animal Shelter have seen great benefits to the program since the inmates started volunteering there in February.

"It has been a tremendously successful program" said Harold L. Domer Jr., director of the county's Division of Animal Control. "We've found they do a lot of the manual labor, such as moving the 4-pound bags of wood pellets and bags of food."

Domer said some of the work inmates do is equivalent to a "kennel technician," who gets paid $11.37 an hour.

The inmates volunteer 32 hours per week, saving the shelter almost $400 per week. Inmates are not permitted to handle animals with certain behavior problems. That work is left to the paid kennel technicians.

Kennel supervisor Kathy Higgins works daily with the inmates and said she has no problems asking them to do different jobs. "They're willing to do what ever they've been asked," she said.

As the inmates become more familiar with the animals, some have been allowed to show them to people looking to adopt, Domer said.

In February, Domer said he approached the sheriff's office about starting a foster program for older dogs at the detention center, which would allow inmates to interact with the animals and cut down on the euthanasia at the shelter.

Detention center officials rejected the idea and instead agreed to allow inmates with good behavior to work at the shelter, Domer said.

On Saturday mornings, at the C. Burr Artz Public Library in downtown Frederick, eight to 10 inmates vacuum and empty trash cans. From 8 to 9:30 a.m., they give a quick cleaning before the library opens to the public.

"An officer comes in with them, but they're pretty self-sufficient," said James Kelly, the branch administrator. "We're thankful for their help and they're happy to do it for us."

Darrell Batson, director of Frederick County Public Libraries, said he couldn't quantify the value of the inmates' help. The library would simply not be cleaned on Saturday mornings without them.

"By the time the crews get here on Monday morning it would be a mess," he said.

E-mail Sherry Greenfield at sgreenfield@gazette.net.