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| State department wants facility for worst sex offenders |
| By Associated Press |
| Published: 01/19/2004 |
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The Virginia Department of Mental Health, Mental Retardation and Substance Abuse Services will seek the legislature's approval of $31.8 million to build a facility for the state's most dangerous sexual offenders. The facility is proposed for the grounds of the state's Piedmont Geriatric Hospital in Nottoway County and would house 150 offenders, department spokeswoman Martha Mead said. It would replace the controversial facility opened last year on the campus of Southside Virginia Training Center, a unit for the mentally retarded in Dinwiddie County near Petersburg. "The estimates are 25 people a year will be committed to this program," Mead said. "Within three years, we will be at capacity at the Dinwiddie County facility. There really is a pressing need for a solution that is permanent." The Nottoway facility would be self-contained, and residents would not use services in buildings where Piedmont Geriatric patients go, Mead said. "I'm not going to comment," said Ronald Roark, Nottoway's county administrator. "It's a state site and a state hospital, and I just don't have a comment." Dr. James Reinhard, commissioner of mental health, mental retardation and substance-abuse services, picked the Piedmont Geriatric site after a 2002 study looking at six potential locations, Mead said. He chose Piedmont because nearby Nottoway Correctional Center could provide backup help with security, while the geriatric hospital's staff could offer support services, Mead said. In addition, the site is close enough to the Dinwiddie site that workers there could easily shift to the new facility. The Dinwiddie facility had sparked strong opposition from nearby residents, and Gov. Mark R. Warner promised that the state would not put a permanent facility for sexual predators there. |
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