Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, December 14, 1993                   TAG: 9312140112
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV-2   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: Kathy Loan
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

HERE'S GOOD NEWS FROM CAMP ONE

An inmate at the unit just outside Dublin was accused of attacking four guards - two guards were bitten, one lost two teeth from an elbow-blow to the mouth and a fourth was scratched on the hand and injured a knee and a wrist.

The guards later learned that the inmate was HIV-positive. The man was convicted earlier this year of malicious wounding and inflicting bodily harm and was sentenced to 62 years in prison.

It is December again, and once again there is news from Camp One. And once again, it is about the actions of inmates. Somehow, I think, it won't grab the headlines and broadcast coverage last year's story did.

I often hear from readers that it's rare they read any good news. Good news is hard to come by on the cops and courts beat, I reply.

Good news from my beat arrived last week, in the form of a press release from the folks at Camp One.

One-third of the inmates at Camp One are donating all or part of their $5 Christmas bonus to help needy families during the Christmas season.

Of the unit's 355 inmates, 118 decided to participate in the donation drive. Just over $300 will be sent to the Radford Church of God, which will direct the money where they see the most need.

Inmates receive the $5 Christmas bonus each year. It's paid from the correctional unit's commissary fund, built up from the profits of selling convenience-store items to the inmates.

Inmates have a choice: they can spend their bonus at the store, save it or send it home.

But this year, several inmates asked for approval from Superintendent David Smith to donate their bonus to needy families, according to a press release from the correctional unit.

The unit chose the Church of God to distribute the inmates' donation to needy families because members of the church provide volunteer ministry to the inmates.

James Jenkins, who initiated the donation drive, sees the donations as one way for the inmates to give something back to society.

"We may not have always been model citizens," he told Smith, "but we do still care about our fellow man."

Kathy Loan cover crime and courts from the New River Valley bureau of the Roanoke Times & World-News.