ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Saturday, November 2, 1996 TAG: 9611040017
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
DATELINE: RADFORD
SOURCE: KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER
If a proposed boot camp for adolescent boys is approved for the Radford Army Ammunition Plant, Montgomery County would have little voice in it.
That's because the county has no jurisdiction over federal installations.
Earlier this week, the Radford City Council passed a resolution supporting the proposed boot camp that a Colorado company wants to operate in cooperation with the state and Alliant Techsystems, the Minnesota corporation that operates the arsenal under contract with the Army.
Rebound, a private, Denver-based firm, wants to renovate barracks on the property into a 50-bed facility that would house first-time, nonviolent adolescent offenders, Jane O'Shaughnessy, Rebound's chief executive officer, said earlier this week.
But first, Rebound will have to beat out several other applicants who responded to the state's request for proposals to build at least two and possibly three boot camps. Rebound was the only applicant to suggest a site at the arsenal.
In the next several weeks, the state will award a contract to one applicant to build the boot camps, said Cari Brunelle, a spokeswoman for the Department of Juvenile Justice.
Construction on the new boot camp is scheduled to begin in January, she said.
The boot camps provide an "intermediate sentencing option for juvenile court justices" used before committing a teen-ager into the state juvenile justice system, Brunelle said. It is a four-month program with six months of after care, she added.
Those who might qualify for the program aren't necessarily first-time offenders.
"Most of them are on probation. Not all of them are first-time offenders," she said, but involve nonviolent offenses.
The first of the two or three new camps will take teen-age offenders from all over the state. When the second, and possible third camp is built, the system would be regionalized so that the offenders could be assigned to the facility closest to their families.
Dave Ratcliff, Alliant's business manager for defense reconversion and development, said Alliant supports Rebound's proposal to locate on the arsenal property.
"They're trying to locate and we're offering a location, subject to Army approval," he said. "We think it's a good public service undertaking."
Rebound and Alliant were joined together when a Realtor in eastern Virginia contacted the New River Valley Economic Development Alliance on Rebound's behalf, Ratcliff said.
Ira Long, vice chairman of the Montgomery County Board of Supervisors whose district includes the arsenal, said he has not received any additional information or comments about the proposed boot camp, but "I don't have any objections to it."
The county administrator's office did receive some information about the proposal but Jeff Lunsford, assistant county administrator, said he didn't know whether the county would pass any resolution about the project. Joe Morgan, Pulaski County's administrator, said his office had not received any information about the proposal or a request for support.
The arsenal, once the New River Valley's largest employer, has shrunk significantly over the past several years, and has both land and buildings to spare.
Alliant has recently steered several other businesses to the site, including companies that manufacture fireworks and chemical explosives.
Virginia's first juvenile boot camp opened in Isle of Wight County in January and began accepting girls in September. Camp Washington and other boot camps are designed to offer classroom instruction and rigorous physical training and discipline.
In the after-care program, participants return to their communities but meet often with a counselor.
Juvenile boot camps were created as part of the sweeping juvenile crime reform laws that went into effect July 1. The major thrusts of the new laws included allowing juveniles accused of violent crimes to be tried as adults; opening juvenile courts to the public for certain felony trials; and creating boot camp programs for nonviolent teen offenders.
LENGTH: Medium: 79 linesby CNB