NC Postpones Development of New Youth Center
State officials say it will be a while before the Swannanoa Valley Youth Development Center sees a new facility. “We thought about building a new facility, and then the economy went south, and we lost all our funding,” William Lassiter, spokesperson for the N.C. Department of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, said. Reported in the Black Mountain News.
The center still needs to be either replaced or upgraded to bring it up to modern standards, but Lassiter doesn’t see that happening “for at least two or three years.” The most recent state budget has the facility remaining in its current home for this fiscal year, which ends June 30, 2011.
When a move or upgrade does finally happen, Lassiter said the department would prefer to keep the site in Buncombe County. The department needs a facility in Western North Carolina to keep inmates close to their families, and the county is seen as the hub of the region, he said.
It’s also possible a new facility could be in the Swannanoa Valley.
“It might be right there on campus, or it might be a couple miles down the road,” he said.
Either way, he said, the department will work with current employees to find them employment at a new youth center or elsewhere.
Some employees of the youth center could potentially move to the Swannanoa Correctional Center for Women, which opened at the youth center campus in July 2008. When construction finishes in September, the women’s prison will house 356 inmates.
That’s a substantial increase from the 90 inmates housed at the old women’s prison off North Fork Road.
The old women’s prison was converted into the Black Mountain Women’s Susbtance Abuse Treatment Center, which opened in April this year and celebrated a grand opening last month.
In an interview at the grand opening, Jennie Patterson, the chief deputy secretary of North Carolina’s Department of Corrections said workers at the Swannanoa Valley Youth Development Center would be given priority employment rights for openings at the Swannanoa Correctional Center for Women.
State laws require state employees be given priority for open state employment positions, and also requires departments to help employees when a branch or facility is closed, she said.
“I really think there’s no reason to be worried about jobs,” Patterson said.
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