Prison changes approved

Friday, June 6, 1997 | 5:47 a.m.

Senate Bill 113, sent Wednesday to the Assembly, also prohibits inmates from possessing any sexually explicit materials and requires them to take various study courses.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Mark James, R-Las Vegas, said the bill is designed to remove from the prison environment anything that doesn't contribute to inmate rehabilitation.

"This has been portrayed as being harsh," said James. "Really, I think this is good. What it tried to do is create a positive environment instead of a negative environment."

SB 113 provides for random testing for alcohol and other controlled substances. Those who fail tests or who provide substances to other inmates forfeit all good time and other sentence credits, lose visitation rights and could face added sanctions.

The measure allows prison officials to restrict inmate access to television and other programming, limiting inmates to educational, religious and sports programming.

Any magazines, videos or even music must not contain sexually explicit or violent material or in any way glorify crime.

The bill requires convicts to participate in general education, vocational training or life skills training for at least 10 hours each week.

James told the Senate the bill is designed to help rehabilitate inmates instead of just warehousing them until they finish their sentence and return to a life of crime.

He repeated his analogy that what the prison system does now is "like taking a broken car, putting it in a garage for three years, then bringing it out and expecting it to be fixed having done nothing to it."