Halfway house finds a new home

Molly Ball

Monday, Aug. 2, 2004 | 10:53 a.m.

Convicts preparing to leave the nation's prison system will soon be neighbors of the Stardust and Circus Circus, when a halfway house for federal inmates moves to a site behind the Strip in the next few months.

Cornell Companies Inc., a Houston-based correctional facilities operator, announced last week that it got the contract from the federal Bureau of Prisons to open the Las Vegas Community Corrections Center by Dec. 1.

The center, to be located at 2901 Industrial Road, will replace the Clark Center on South First Street downtown. Cornell is renovating a two-story, 17,000-square-foot building on the Industrial Road site.

The new center will not relieve the overcrowding that plagues the state -- and national -- prison systems, as it is merely replacing an existing home of the same size.

The center will house inmates in federal prisons who are three months or less from getting out -- "minimum-risk clients who are coming out of federal institutions who are being released anyway," said Mark Thompson, Cornell's Western region vice president.

Many of the prisoners will be from the Las Vegas area because the government tries to send prisoners to halfway houses near their homes so that they can reconnect with their communities, said Traci Billingsley, spokeswoman for the federal bureau in Washington.

The residents of the halfway house must find jobs and obey curfews. They can leave only for specific, approved appointments but may get weekend passes to see their families.

To be eligible to stay in a halfway house, prisoners are screened for the type of crime they committed, their behavior while in prison and other factors meant to ensure they won't be a risk to the community, Billingsley said.

The Las Vegas home is the only such federal institution in Southern Nevada, although there is one like it in Reno. The state prison system has its own halfway houses, such as the planned $21 million Casa Grande that is set to open near McCarran Airport next year.

Through such facilities, prisoners "can reintegrate with the community, find gainful employment and re-establish ties with their families," Billingsley said. "Without these type of facilities, offenders are released with no assistance."

Representatives of the nearby casinos did not return phone calls seeking comment on their new neighbor last week.

If the casinos objected, they probably would have said something at the zoning board meeting last year that approved the halfway house, said County Commissioner Myrna Williams, whose district includes the new location. "They usually keep a pretty good eye out for that stuff," she said.

Williams said she saw nothing wrong with the location, as "that's certainly not a residential area."

Laura Hall, regional division director for Cornell, said the company had received a letter from Circus Circus, but she said she did not know what the letter said.

Many federal prisoners are white-collar criminals. Others have been convicted of drug trafficking or have committed crimes on public lands or across state lines.

The center's contract is for 65 beds, to hold 90 percent males and 10 percent females. Cornell's contract with the government is for $2.65 million over two years, with three one-year renewal options.

But a statement from the company noted that the center will actually have 100 beds so that it can handle an increase in demand from the federal government if necessary. Alternately, the center could take prisoners from other sources.

Hall said the company usually sets up community relations boards for its halfway houses, consisting of representatives of the neighborhood, the police, the fire department, wardens and local Bureau of Prisons staff. She said such a board was planned for Las Vegas but had not yet started.

Cornell operates 71 correctional facilities in 17 states, housing more than 17,000 prisoners nationwide. Its closest facility to Las Vegas is a minimum-security state prison in Baker, Calif.