Elko woman named to run rehabilitation program for prison

Friday, June 5, 1998 | 10:19 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- An Elko woman, long involved in the treatment of alcoholics and drug addicts, has been selected to run a new rehabilitation program to keep state prison inmates on the straight and narrow after they are released.

"This puts Nevada on the cutting edge on what is going on across the country in the cross-over between treatment and sanctions," said Dorothy North, director of the nonprofit Vitality Center for 21 years in Elko.

North, whose application was chosen by the prison system from several others, also served on the Governor's Anti-Drug Commission and headed it for several years.

A 1997 law, authored by Sen. Valerie Wiener, D-Las Vegas, set aside $250,000 a year to begin the program. It has been tried in California, resulting in a decline in criminal activities by those who completed the treatment.

Those accepted into the program will be segregated into a unit at the newly refurbished and expanded Warm Springs prison, which formerly housed female inmates. There will be group therapy, lectures, individual counseling and a "variety of things," to change the behavior of the inmates. Warden Robin Bates said the staff is now choosing the first participants from the 9,000 inmates in the system.

"The people who get into this are going to be the ones who truly have addictions which can benefit from treatment," Bates said.

North said she hopes to begin the program in August or September.

When completing the course, the inmate must continue to undergo treatment and that requirement can even carry over to when he is freed.

"We're not talking about a short-term quick fix like a broken leg," North said. "This is a major lifestyle change."

And there will be follow-up evaluations to see if the prison treatment program is working after an inmate is freed.

The expansion and refurbishing of the 366-bed Warm Springs prison was completed this week and inmates are starting to be moved into the units. There will be a 125-bed unit set aside for the drug and alcohol program.

Bates said after the initial evaluation is made on which inmates qualify, a second screening will be done. This will be a clinical evaluation on which inmates will benefit the most. Then North's Vitality Center will make the final selections.

A key goal is to cut the number of convicts who are released from prison but then end up behind bars for another offense. Drug and alcohol problems contribute substantially to this problem, North said.

"The goal is to protect the public health and safety and to put them (convicts) back on the street with the potential of staying out of prison," she said.