$100 million prison to open Sept. 8

Birusk Tugan

Tuesday, June 13, 2000 | 11:06 a.m.

Leading a tour of the new High Desert State Prison at Cold Springs on Monday, Jackie Crawford, the new director of the Nevada Department of Prisons, recalled how her career almost got derailed at the beginning.

A warden in the Arizona prison system in 1978, she had to move 400 women prisoners to a motel in Phoenix while construction on a new prison was being completed. The townspeople were concerned about escapes, but she assured them there would be no trouble.

Watching TV at home after a long day, she was shocked to hear a TV news flash: "Two dangerous inmates" from the Arizona Center for Women escaped.

Crawford, then 27, said she remembered thinking: "This is the end of my career."

The two inmates, however, returned after 40 minutes, having stopped at a bar for a couple of drinks.

Those 40 minutes, Crawford said, were the worst of her career.

"I will never say there will never be escapes after that," she said.

Crawford did not exempt even this newest and largest prison in Nevada, situated 35 miles northwest of Las Vegas just southeast of Indian Springs off of U.S. 95 on the Cold Creek road.

Looking out of a small, $2,000 window -- designed to be resistant against bullets and escapes -- in the conference room at the new prison, Crawford said, "I will be saddened if it does happen."

The $100 million, 576,000-square-foot High Desert State Prison will open Sept. 8 to inmates from seven other overcrowded state correctional centers that house about 9,500 prisoners.

About 1,000 prisoners, 600 of them from the Jean prison that will be closed, will arrive in the first phase. The second phase of arrivals, in December, will increase the population to 2,000.

When the third phase is completed, date pending, the prison will house 3,000 prisoners and cover just short of 1 million square feet.

Monday's tour was to show reporters the layout of the high-medium security prison, explain its mission, and to get the word out about job opportunities there.

Inmates will be confined two to a cell measuring 7 by 12 feet. Interior and exterior locks will be operated by a centrally controlled security system, which also will be capable of controlling water and electricity in each cell.

Six dining rooms, sharing a 77,000-square-foot kitchen, are capable of feeding all 3,000 prisoners in an hour and a half, prison officials said. Five cooks will prepare three meals "from scratch" with 150-200 paid inmates to help. The food budget per inmate is $2.82 per day.

The prison also has an education building with two libraries -- one of them a law library. Eight classrooms will be staffed by teachers from the Clark County School District.

A chapel will have four prayer rooms and a chaplain. A medical building will be staffed by two doctors, two part-time dentists and several nurses.

Electrified fences measuring 13 feet high -- guarding the interior rim of the prison -- will jolt inmates with 5,000 volts if they try to escape. If they try again the charge jumps to 20,000 volts. Because this is a lethal dose, inmates may want to comprehend a sign at a prison exercise yard: "You are in prison. Get over it," Crawford said.

Dan Dailey of state public works board called the fence a "lethal electric fence." It electrocutes anybody who touches it.

The cost of the fence is $1.9 million, and it is fashioned after California prisons, which have eight or nine of the fence systems, Daily said, noting that the prison used the fence system at the direction of the Legislature.

The fences save the state from erecting guard towers, which cost $250,000 to $300,000 a year to staff.

There are three fences at the prison. There's a 14-foot chain link fence that the inmate would first have to scale. Then about 10 feet from that sits the 12 foot electric fence, and after that, there's another chain link fence on the outside.

The third fence is to keep the public away from electric fence, which will also have signs on it about the danger.

Crawford is contemplating the possibility of making High Desert the first smoke-free prison in Nevada. The ban would include all prisoners and the prison's 431 employees, 340 of whom will be guards.

"We are on a hunt for good people," said Crawford, speaking about the career opportunities in this "growing industry." Nevada has the seventh-highest rate of inmates in the country -- 546 per 100,000 people.

The prison population in Nevada is now growing by 750 people a year, said Howard Skolnik, assistant director of prisons.

This increase, coupled with the booming economy, concerns prison officials, who are looking for ways of competing with the big casinos for employees. Starting salaries for security guards at large casinos are $5 and more an hour higher than the pay for starting prison guards, Crawford said.

Crawford has come up with what she calls an employee-family friendly schedule, in which "peace officers" alternately will work 12 hours a day, four days in one week, and 12 hours, three days the next week.

An entry-level guard earns $12.50 an hour, or $27,000 a year. The salary will rise to $14 an hour after the first year.

The Department of Prisons is now advertising in Nevada, Arizona, Wyoming and California, trying to fill 206 positions.