Site chosen for state prison pre-release center

Tuesday, May 11, 2004 | 10:13 a.m.

CARSON CITY -- A site west of McCarran International Airport, about two to three miles from the Las Vegas Strip, has been selected for construction of a pre-release center for state prison inmates who have been approved for parole.

Jackie Crawford, director of the state Department of Corrections, told a legislative committee Monday that Casa Grande, the name of the center, would be constructed on Quail Avenue and Russell Road with the cross street at Wynn Road.

If all goes according to schedule, the facility would open in June 2005 for the first group of an initial population of 200 inmates. By 2006 there would be 400 prisoners.

The Molasky Group of Companies has secured the land and the state will enter into a lease purchase with the company for construction, Crawford said.

The property is surrounded by a light industrial area with warehouse, manufacturing and service businesses, about 1,000 companies where inmates might be hired, she said.

Inmates who have been granted parole and are trying to line up jobs and get assimilated back into society will be housed at Casa Grande for four to six months.

They'll go to jobs and return to Casa Grande at night. They also will participate in a variety of programs designed to ease the transition from inmate to citizen. They will pay room and board of $14 to $15 per day to the state.

Crawford said the Clark County Commission was happy with the project, but acknowledged some people had concerns. But, she said, correction officials met with the concerned citizens and they were satisfied when they learned that the state, not a private company, would operate Casa Grande.

No violent inmates or sex offenders will reside at the center, she said.

Crawford told the Legislative Committee on the Criminal Justice System in Rural Nevada and Transitional Housing for Released Offenders that she would have "been run out of town" if she had planned to place sex offenders at the center.

Crawford must get approval for the project from the state Board of Examiners at its June 8 meeting and from the Legislative Interim Finance Committee at its June 16 meeting.

Figures supplied to the criminal justice committee indicated the estimated annual cost for 200 inmates would be $2.6 million of which $730,002 would come from room and board charged to the inmates.

The corrections department estimates that the cost to the state for the first year will be $5,214 per inmate but that does not include the lease-purchase payment. When the lease-purchase amount is computed, the cost per inmate to be paid by the state will be $9,477 the first year, a number that drops to $6,748 the second year when there are 400 inmates housed at the center.

At the High Desert State Prison in Clark County, the annual cost per inmate is $11,720.

Rehabilitation programs make fiscal sense and they work, she said.

At the restitution center in Reno where inmates work during the day, the recidivism rate is 18 percent for the last three years, compared with a general repeat rate of about 64 percent throughout the prison system.

Crawford also told committee that renovation of the state prison at Jean is nearing completion, pending a planned June open house. She recommends that the prison be used for youthful offenders,but wants to get the views of judges and others on how to use the facility located east of Interstate 15.

She said there are about 607 Nevada prison inmates who are under 22 years old. The number between 14 and 18 years old is 180. The young offenders are currently at High Desert prison in single cells with lots of rehabilitation programs available, she said.

Assemblyman Bernie Anderson, D-Sparks, said it's wiser to try to rehabilitate the youthful offender to turn them around so they don't commit further crimes.