FROM SHIP CABINS TO JAIL CELLS: DEFENSE CUTS MADE IT POSSIBLE

                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, April 13, 1993                   TAG: 9304290512
SECTION: BUSINESS                    PAGE: B5   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: Staff report
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short
FROM SHIP CABINS TO JAIL CELLS: DEFENSE CUTS MADE IT POSSIBLE
AWH Corp., which has made steel products for the interiors of military ships, has found a growth market in prisons and jails in its attempt to tap a civilian use for its products.
The company's Hopemen Corrections Sytems division is making prefabricated cells at its Augusta County plants. The cells are made much the way the company for decades manufactured crew quarters, galley and ward rooms for ships.
"We've perfected the technologies needed for products that can stand up to the bucking, pitching and pounding they take on the open sea," said Charles Johnson, executive vice president of Hopeman in Waynesboro. "Now we are applying that expertise to the manufacture of modular steel cells for jails and prisons, where conditions can get pretty bad at times."
Heavy-guage sheet metal panels are made at Hopeman's plant in Lofton and assembled into finished jail cells at its factory in Waynesboro.
While the demand for its maritime products is expected to decline, AWH Corp. of Winston-Salem, N.C., said it sees demand growing for its new correctional systems division.
It cited projections by the Naitonal Council on Crime & Deliquency that state and federal prison populations will rise to 1 million by 1994, a 200 percent increase since 1980. Also, prison operations and construction are expected to cost states $20 billion this year, nearly double such spending five years ago, according to the American Correctional Associations.

by Bhavesh Jinadra by CNB