Cost issue raised in debate over youth prison

Kirsten Searer

Wednesday, March 16, 2005 | 9:50 a.m.

SUN CAPITAL BUREAU -- Lawmakers said Tuesday that a planned prison for youthful offenders in Jean is getting expensive.

The state plans to house more than 500 medium-security youths at the renovated Southern Nevada Correctional Center by fall 2006. When the state closed the center in 2000 in an attempt to cut costs, it was being used to house a general population of prisoners.

Director of Prisons Jackie Crawford said the system's youngest prisoners will be safer in a specialized facility, and the state will have a better chance of rehabilitating them there.

"I believe you're going to get the most bang for your buck,"' she said. "All of the research shows that if you do not reach this body of people, then you're going to see them time and time again back into your facilities."

But Sen. Bob Beers, R-Las Vegas, pointed out that the 236 staff members that the Department of Corrections requested for the new youth facility is one-third more people than the state employed at the prison before it was closed.

The cost of salaries for the staff members would total more than $11 million in the 2006-2007 fiscal year budget.

"The purpose of the corrections system -- is it to protect us or develop the offenders?" Beers asked.

"It's both," Crawford said. "I believe, and I think the taxpayers believe, that these people should not come out worse than they came in."

The facility needs additional staff members to service a difficult population, Crawford said. It will provide juveniles with substance abuse treatment, education, job training, and mental health services, she said.

The Corrections Department also wants another $2.4 million per biennium for education costs at the facility, money that was not included in Gov. Kenny Guinn's proposed budget.

Beers and Assemblywoman Kathy McClain, D-Las Vegas, said they wonder where the state will find the money, which hasn't been officially requested yet. Crawford said she will work with the Clark County School District, which operates prison education programs, on requesting the money.

She pointed out that most of the youths are now at High Desert State Prison, near Indian Springs, which also houses adults and is now the state's most crowded facility.

Studies have shown that youth in adult institutions are five times more likely than in juvenile facilities to be sexually assaulted, Crawford said. Juveniles are also eight times more likely to commit suicide in an adult facility than if they are in a juvenile facility, she said.

An estimated 78 percent of the youth in the prison system have some sort of substance abuse history, and about 68 percent dropped out of high school, administrators have found.

Crawford also pointed out that the average age of offenders has gone from about 37 years old in 2000 to about 34 years old now.

"It's starting to get younger and younger," she said. "We're trying to be proactive in addressing these issues."

Of the more than 11,000 inmates now in the state system, slightly more than 1,000 could be eligible for the youth facility, administrators said. Most are serving five years or less for offenses such as robbery and burglary.