Editorial: Approve halfway house

Tuesday, June 15, 2004 | 8:51 a.m.

Every year more than 4,000 inmates are released from Nevada's prisons, with about two-thirds of them coming to live in Southern Nevada. In most cases the inmates are given nothing more than $21 in cash and a bus ticket as they leave prison. The system doesn't offer much in the way of helping them successfully make the transition back into society, a situation that results in many returning to crime because they don't have the skills or contacts to get a job. The Corrections Department hopes to stop this revolving door by building a halfway facility in Southern Nevada, located on Russell Road between Valley View and Decatur boulevards. The halfway house, which would house up to 400 inmates who have been approved for parole and are serving sentences for nonviolent crimes, would be a place to stay for four months while they work for local businesses. The faci lity isn't too close to residential areas, yet it is close enough to businesses and public transportation so the transition! al program has a chance to succeed.

The Legislature's Interim Finance Committee must give its approval on Wednesday before the Corrections Department can go forward with construction. There are good reasons why this program should be approved. For starters, it saves the state money. The price of warehousing an inmate in a prison is $16,000 a year, nearly double that of a halfway house, whose expenses will be defrayed by part of the parolees' salaries. More importantly, the program promotes public safety, turning former inmates into law-abiding, productive individuals. A similar program in Reno had a recidivism rate of just 18 percent over three years. In contrast, 64 percent of inmates throughout the Nevada prison system return to crime once they're released.

The halfway house is just the kind of program -- using taxpayer dollars wisely with maximum benefit -- that we'd like to see more of in Nevada.