North Dakota senators have approved a construction and renovation project at the state prison in Bismarck. Reported by KXMC.com.
The construction project now has a $64 million price tag. Earlier it was $67 million. It would replace the prison’s east cell house, build a new medical clinic for inmates and add new facilities for isolating troublesome prisoners and receiving new ones. It will add about 130 beds to the prison’s capacity.
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Employee compensation, building and infrastructure improvements and providing adequate staffing are the three key initiatives for the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, according to Leeann Bertsch, department director. This report from the Minot Daily News.
Bertsch discussed those initiatives in her presentation of Senate Bill 2015, the department’s budget bill before the House Appropriations Committee on Wednesday. “A major barrier in recruiting and retaining staff are the salaries we are able to pay,” she said. The executive budget recommendation included $3.8 million for an equity package to help raise salaries for all staff members … Over the past biennium, the issue of aging buildings was studied by the Correctional Facility Review Committee. Its $67 million recommendation [is] to renovate parts of the state penitentiary … Dave Krabbenhoft, the department’s administration director, said the project should add a total of 251 beds to the penitentiary …
Bertsch also gave a historical overview of the department, detailing some of the changes that occurred as it reorganized in the spring of 2007. Instead of a separate Prisons Division and Field Services Division, there is now one Division of Adult Services with nine work units. “The DCOR believe this structure is a much better fit for the re-entry model and inmate management plans used by the department,” Bertsch said. “The new structure strengthens the department’s ability to return offenders back to their home communities in a manner that both protects and serves the public.” The nine work units include transitional planning, transitional facilities, maximum secure facilities, medium secure facilities, women’s services, industries and education, administrative services, parole and probation and treatment and programs.
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Two years ago, a plan for major renovations at North Dakota’s state penitentiary was one of the Legislature’s most-discussed proposals. On Thursday, the $67 million construction project passed the state Senate with little debate, according to the Dickinson Press.
The Senate voted 45-1 to endorse the plan, which was the subject of an intensive study by a specially picked interim legislative committee that explored whether to renovate the existing prison or build a new one … The legislative panel settled on the demolition of the prison’s east cell house, which was built in 1910, and construction of a new cell block. The project also calls for a new prison medical clinic, new segregation cells for obstreperous prisoners, and an expanded orientation center for new inmates. It would increase the prison’s capacity from 562 beds to more than 800 …
The Senate’s lone dissenter, Tim Mathern … argued the money would be better spent keeping more inmates in county jails, and exploring alternatives to incarceration.
vericatrajkova North Dakota, Prison and Jail Construction
A North Dakota prison official testified before lawmakers on Monday, pushing a bill that would provide $67 million for the state penitentiary expansion project.
The Senate Appropriations Committee heard testimony on the bill that would use $25 million from the general fund plus the $42 million already in the penitentiary land fund to start construction on the prison’s expansion project. The project includes a new medical facility, more space to segregate and orientate prisoners and a new east cell house, said Dave Krabbenhoft, the director of administration for the Department of Corrections. “You don’t want to get to a point where you overbuild,” Krabbenhoft said, adding the new cell house will add 200 new beds. “This whole project from the department’s perspective has really been focused on needs and not wants” …
Krabbenhoft said the project should come in under budget, adding “the sooner we get this going the more money we’re going to save.” He added that the prison project also could benefit from federal stimulus dollars. “It would be nice to be out in front of that stimulus money,” he said.
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North Dakota’s corrections director says legislation intended to help a struggling Rugby jail draw out-of-state inmates could allow county facilities to import rapists, gang members or violent criminals.
“When you’re bringing someone that has a longer sentence to serve time in a facility that’s not meant for long-term things, you’re going to risk the riots, you’re going to risk assaults, you’re going to risk violence,” Leann Bertsch told the House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday. The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation could be renamed “the Department of Warehousing Lost Souls,” Bertsch said. “Because that is the direction we’ll be going.”
Bertsch’s remarks were directed at legislation, which the Judiciary Committee first reviewed Wednesday, that outlines the conditions under which a county jail may accept inmates from outside North Dakota. The full House will vote on the bill later. It is intended to help the North Central Correctional and Rehabilitation Center in Rugby, which has struggled financially since it opened more than two years ago. It has a jail and a treatment unit for drug and alcohol addiction … The jail’s administrator, Elaine Little, has been exploring agreements with other states, but the state corrections agency has disallowed some promising ones, Nelson said. Little herself is a former state corrections director.
The detailed story can be followed at the Grand Forks Herald.
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The Bureau of Justice Statistics has just released the 2005 Census of Federal and State Correctional Facilities. The document has a wealth of data across all States, including the numbers of privately-operated facilities.
The document can be accessed from the Basic Stats list at the top right sidebar.
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North Dakota’s corrections department is setting up an electronic mail system for inmates this fall, to provide what officials hope will be a cheaper and less troublesome option for keeping in touch.
Three companies are competing for a contract to establish an electronic mail network for North Dakota’s adult prison system, which includes facilities in Bismarck and Jamestown; a county-run women’s lockup in New England; and the Youth Correctional Center in Mandan, which houses juvenile offenders … Pat Branson, deputy warden at the main state penitentiary in Bismarck, said the company that is selected will offer accounts to friends and family members who want to send messages to inmates. Prisoners will be able to write only to people who are on an approved list. Electronic mail messages sent to inmates will be printed on paper and delivered to them, Branson said. The inmates then will use the paper to write or type a reply, which will be scanned and sent to the recipient. The system will not replace traditional mail and phone calls, and it will not give prisoners access to the Internet, Branson said. ”Inmates don’t have computers, nor will they be getting computers,” he said.
… Prison officials prefer electronic mail because the messages to inmates can be checked more easily for coded language or certain words that could indicate illegal activity, Branson said. The paper used to write regular letters also is sometimes permeated with cocaine, methamphetamine or other drugs. With electronic mail, ”we don’t have to open up envelopes, we don’t have to check the inside of envelopes for contraband,” Branson said. ”You don’t even want to know how contaminated the mail is that is going into correctional facilities.”
… One of the three companies competing for North Dakota’s business, Advanced Technologies Group Inc. of West Des Moines, Iowa, operates the e-mail system used by federal inmates. The other two are KiteMail.net Inc., of Van Nuys, Calif., and JPay Inc., of Miami.
More details from Minot Daily News.
vericatrajkova Inmate Mail, North Dakota
North Dakota’s Commission on Alternatives To Incarceration is focusing on vocational training for inmates.
Warren Emmer, director of the Division of Adult Services — a new division of the North Dakota Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation — said given the work force shortage in the state, now is an opportune time to focus on vocational education of inmates. “We want them (inmates) to help the economy grow rather than be a drag on the economy,” he said.
The plan is to train inmates — while they are still incarcerated — for skilled jobs that are going unfilled in the state. The program would use existing facilities — prisons and jails — rather than building new training facilities … Larry Anderson, coordinator with the Department of Commerce, said inmates will not be taking jobs away from other state residents. He said the state now has a work force of 350,000 and a shortage of workers that will only increase in the near future. “Up to as high as 49 percent of North Dakota’s labor force will be eligible to retire in three to four years,” he said. “This is a significant effort to increase that talent pool.”
There is a lot more operational information in the Jamestown Sun.
vericatrajkova North Dakota, Re-Entry