Prisons chief opposes transfer plan

Wednesday, Feb. 21, 2001 | 11:29 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- State Prisons Director Jackie Crawford says she wants to keep female inmates in the privately run prison in North Las Vegas, rather than transferring them to a refurbished Southern Nevada Correctional Center at Jean.

Gov. Kenny Guinn earlier this year proposed that the Jean prison be refurbished and that it serve as a prison for the rising number of female inmates. He proposed using the North Las Vegas facility for an intake center for male prisoners.

Crawford told a Senate-Assembly budget subcommittee Tuesday she wants to find a way to reduce the number of women in prison, rather than moving them out of the North Las Vegas prison operated by the Corrections Corporation of America.

Crawford plans to look for federal grants and matching state money for re-entry and community based programs for female prisoners who have been unable to stay out of prison because of parole violations. She said about 40 percent of the women freed are sent back to prison for failing drug tests.

"We need to look more at some community-based programs rather than reverting all of them back to a hard bed," she said.

Her staff is working on a plan for handling the female population. But if the community programs don't work, she said she may have to return to ask for the $2 million to renovate the Jean prison.

Guinn had proposed housing all female inmates at Jean, which was mothballed about 18 months ago.

Guinn's budget contains nearly $3.8 million to rehabilitate Jean.

Corrections Corporation of America runs the private 480-inmate women's prison in North Las Vegas. The state pays the company a certain amount for handling each prisoner.

In his State of the State message two years ago, Guinn praised then-prison director Bob Bayer for his plan to speed up the completion of the new prison near Indian Springs and then try to lease the Southern Nevada Correctional Center in Jean to other states.

Guinn said, "This idea not only saves money, it also helps turn a liability into an asset," referring to the Jean prison.

But Crawford said in January that the prison encountered "logistical problems" in trying to lease out the prison. It was on BLM land, and there were questions if the state could lease the facility.