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| Crowded prisons force new thinking |
| By dailymail.com - Jared Hunt |
| Published: 05/23/2011 |
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CHARLESTON, W.Va.--West Virginia's jails and prisons are so full that some inmates are sleeping on the floor, and the state's inmate population is expected to grow substantially through the end of the decade. Officials don't believe building more prisons will solve the problem. Instead, they want a new approach to corrections and rehabilitation. "We're at a crisis, we're at a critical stage. We can't understate that," said state Military Affairs and Public Safety Secretary Joe Thornton. "We have no vacancy." And that means some inmates at the state's 10 regional jails are sleeping on the floor. "There are still a handful of inmates that don't have a bunk," Deputy Secretary Joe DeLong said. DeLong said an additional 400 bunks have been ordered and they'll be placed where there's room. "After those 400 bunks are installed, that literally will be it," he said. "We're literally out of space." The state's regional jails are designed to hold the populations of those awaiting trial or serving a sentence of less than one year. They also hold inmates who have been sentenced for felonies, but are waiting for a bed to open up in one of the state's 14 Division of Corrections facilities. "We really don't have an overpopulation issue with the (regional) jails per se, is the ability to meet the population of the Division of Corrections inmates," DeLong said. According to Division of Corrections Commissioner Jim Rubenstein, there are currently 6,849 inmates in the custody of the corrections division. Of those, about 5,100 have beds at either a correctional facility or work release program; around 1,700 are still lodged in regional jails waiting for a permanent space to open. Read More. |
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