Transitional housing for inmates planned

Thursday, Oct. 30, 2003 | 11:05 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- A pilot program to set up transitional housing for 200 prison inmates in Clark County is moving ahead, state correctional officials said Wednesday.

Jackie Crawford, Department of Corrections director, called the housing the "wave of the future." It gives inmates an opportunity to find jobs and a home when they are released on parole.

Crawford said she would approach the Legislative Interim Finance Committee in January with details and a request to release money for staffing and operation. No location has been picked.

"We're looking at what's available and there's not much," she said.

The director said there are four or five potential locations, but refused to reveal them until more research is done. The department will have to go through a variety of local approvals before any site is selected, she said.

She noted neighbors may oppose any site.

She made a presentation on the program Wednesday to a legislative committee studying the criminal justice system in rural Nevada and transitional housing for released offenders.

Gov. Kenny Guinn and Crawford asked the 2003 Legislature for money for a 436-bed transitional housing unit. The plan called for joining with a nonprofit organization to develop and construct the facility with the nonprofit organization operating it.

The Legislature rejected that plan and scaled it back to 200 beds, with the Department of Corrections running the program.

The inmates would be near release from prison. Placing them in transitional housing would give them an opportunity to find employment, get housing and connect with community resources such as drug counseling and medical care.

Inmates housed in the transitional unit would be property and drug offenders. None convicted of violent or sex crimes would be allowed.

She said the "target population" would be 35 percent drug offenders, 60 percent property offenders and 5 percent from such things as prostitution and failing to register as an ex-felon.

"We would be taking the lightweight offenders out of the hard (prison) beds," Crawford said.

The cost at the transitional center, tentatively called Casa Grande, would be $3,986 compared with the $14,697 a year the state pays to keep an inmate at High Desert Correctional Center near Indian Springs.

Sen. Maurice Washington, R-Sparks, said Crawford was "on the right track" with this plan.

Statistics from the corrections department presented to the study committee showed that 10.9 percent of Clark County inmates in the prison system have no fixed address to return to when released or paroled.

The department said 44 percent have no established employment history, 20 percent were laborers and 12 percent were service workers. Forty-three percent did not finish the 12th grade, 26 percent were high school graduates, 15 percent had a GED and 12 percent had some college. Two percent of the inmates have bachelor's degrees and 2 percent have graduate degrees.

The transitional housing program will offer substance abuse treatment. The department said 59.6 percent of the men arrested in Las Vegas in 1999 used drugs and 71.5 percent of the women had been using drugs.

A breakdown showed 30.3 percent were on cocaine, 28 percent on marijuana, 19.8 percent on multiple drugs, 16.2 percent on methamphetamine, 4.6 percent on opiates and 2.5 percent on PCP.