Editorial: A chance for jailed youths

Monday, March 7, 2005 | 8:59 a.m.

Jackie Crawford had 32 years of experience in prison administration and criminal justice positions when she was appointed in May 2000 by Gov. Kenny Guinn as Nevada's director of prisons. The award-winning administrator had goals from Day One. Primary among them was to establish rehabilitation as the No. 1 theme for the state's inmates. She has accomplished that goal by stressing academic and vocational education, victim awareness classes, drug treatment and work programs and transitional centers for soon-to-be released inmates. In an interview with the Sun upon her appointment, Crawford said, "Work, education, discipline, respect and accountability will be the driving theme for all offenders."

Five years after her appointment Crawford is still working on ways to ensure that inmates do not become repeat offenders upon their release. One of her latest ideas involves giving youthful prison inmates a chance to start over in a new environment, one that would remove them from regular prisons more suitable for older, more hard-core prisoners. She is proposing to reopen the Southern Nevada Correctional Center in Jean, 30 miles southwest of Las Vegas. Opened in 1978, the prison was closed five years ago to save the state money. She sees the facility as perfect for housing up to 575 offenders under the age of 23 who have been sentenced to no more than 10 years.

"If we just lock them up then send them out, we will have a high recidivism rate," Crawford told Sun reporter David Kihara. "This will be a learning environment."

Crawford envisions the prison at Jean providing academic classes, so that the youthful offenders could once again try going to school in an environment of their peers. She sees the prison offering vocational training so the youths will have job skills upon release. Counseling and drug treatment programs would also be available. To make the classes and training as realistic as possible, the prison would team with the Clark County School District and the Community College of Southern Nevada. Similar programs are offered in the regular prisons, but because of the competition for enrollment, many of the younger offenders cannot access them, Crawford said.

Gov. Kenny Guinn's 2005-2006 budget proposes $20 million to reopen the Jean prison, and we believe Crawford's proposal, which she estimates would cost about $8 million a year, is the best use for it. The state already operates the Summit View Youth Correctional Center in Southern Nevada. But with more than 1,000 inmates between the ages of 14 and 22, the state prison system has a pressing need for another youth facility here.

If Crawford's proposal is approved by the Legislature and the governor, it could be in place by October 2006. We urge the Legislature to vote yes on this. We're confident that it would be another in her string of improvements to the prison system.