Prisoner halfway house may be near approval

Monday, June 7, 2004 | 11:35 a.m.

Gov. Kenny Guinn, Secretary of State Dean Heller and Attorney General Brian Sandoval on Tuesday will consider a proposed halfway house for non-violent prisoners, bringing the proposal a step closer to fruition.

The project needs approval from the three-person Board of Examiners to proceed. It could eventually be home to 400 offenders in a transitional setting that offers an opportunity to get a job and, backers hope, avoid returning to jail. Developer Irwin Molasky is slated to build the $20 million center, dubbed "Casa Grande," which is Spanish for "Big House."

The half-way house is slated for a commercial area near Russell Road and Valley View Boulevard. The Clark County Commission in April granted the land-use approvals for the project, but the Nevada Department of Corrections still needs to win the support of Guinn's panel and the Legislature's Interim Finance Committee later this month.

The "custodial institution" would allow the inmates to attend school and drug-abuse counseling, as well as work off campus in a supervised environment before their release. The training would make it less likely that the inmates would return to crime, said Corrections Director Jackie Crawford.

Some nearby property owners had been concerned that inmates in the area could affect their businesses, but Crawford said most of those concerns have been alleviated.

Sean Higgins, general counsel for Terrible Herbst, which owns a service station and convenience store near the site, said his company initially was concerned that the proposal hadn't been fully discussed with the commercial neighbors.

"Once we all sat down and started discussing it, and gained some mutual understanding ... it alleviated some of our fears," Higgins said.

Molasky and Crawford argue that the project makes financial sense for the state. The cost of housing an inmate is about $12,000, compared to about $9,500 for an inmate at the proposed halfway house, they said.

But the real benefit comes from putting the inmates back to work in a stable, transitional setting, Crawford said. The recidivism rate for the general population leaving prison is above 60 percent. Similar efforts at a restitution center in Reno cut the recidivism rate below 20 percent, she said.

Crawford said procedures will be in place to monitor the offenders in the program, many of whom are drug offenders. She said it is unlikely that crime will spill from the program to the surrounding area.

"If it happens, that person will be caught, prosecuted and sent back to prison," she said.

Greg Bortolin, Guinn's spokesman, said the governor is in the process of reviewing the background material.