THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, January 20, 1997 TAG: 9701200069
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B5 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: ASSOCIATED PRESS
DATELINE: RICHMOND LENGTH: 51 lines
Some or all 590 Virginia inmates in a private prison in Texas could return to the state soon, now that local and regional officials want to house them in their jails.
Prison officials said the inmates should all be back by the end of this year, but Sen. Richard J. Holland, D-Isle of Wight, said Friday that he thinks they should be returned immediately.
Holland, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee's public safety subcommittee, was told Thursday that there are 900 federal inmates held in Virginia jails, nearly 30 percent of them from out of state.
The figures prompted Sen. R. Edward Houck, D-Spotsylvania, to argue that ``there is no earthly reason why we would send people to Texas if there's room in Virginia.''
``My concern is for the families. The felons, sure, they're doing their time. They did the wrong thing. But the families . . . those families I think have been given a terrible, terrible injustice,'' Houck said.
The administration's response, however, was more cautious.
David Botkins, a spokesman for the Department of Corrections, said the department ``is interested in doing what is most financially feasible and what's most accountable to the taxpayers.''
``Right now we have a good, cooperative arrangement with the Texas contract. If something appeared to be better . . . we would take a look at it, but to jump the gun on anything right now would be very premature,'' he said.
Mason Nottingham, chairman of Virginia Citizens United for the Rehabilitation of Inmates, said, ``We feel that the state should do anything that they can to bring these people back from Texas.''
Crowding in state prisons led Virginia to begin sending inmates to the Newton County (Texas) Detention Center in February 1995. There were as many as 720 Virginia prisoners there at one point.
Since then, however, a large number of prison projects have been initiated or completed, and $533 million worth of new jail construction has been completed, is under way or approved.
The corrections department hopes to have all the Virginia inmates back from Texas by the end of the year as new facilities open up, prison officials said.
On Thursday, representatives of local and regional jails, which house inmates awaiting trail and those serving relatively short sentences, told members of Holland's subcommittee that they were willing to take the Texas inmates and do it cheaper than Texas.
According to the Department of Corrections, it costs the state $43 a day for each inmate being held in Texas. Jail officials, however, said that when transportation, medical and other costs are figured in, the total is $105 a day.