Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, March 5, 1994 TAG: 9403060037
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV2 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: PAUL DELLINGER STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RADFORD LENGTH: Medium
Carroll County Administrator Bill Mitchell, who also is chairman of a regional jail committee, said Friday that the site is close to utilities and transportation outlets but is well isolated from homes.
The tentative site near Virginia 100 and Beaver Dam Road near Hillsville would not even be visible from the two roads, he said.
The localities represented on the committee, which met Friday in Radford, include Pulaski, Giles, Floyd, Carroll and Grayson counties and Radford.
They funded a detailed study required by the state for 50-50 funding of regional jail projects. The study was submitted to the state Department of Corrections in time for this month's deadline.
The goal now is to have the local governments create a regional jail authority by June that can proceed with construction. Radford City Council gave its approval Monday night.
Some employees at existing local jails have expressed concern for their jobs. But Dave Rundgren, executive director of the New River Valley Planning District Commission, which drew up the plan, said he could pinpoint only 48 local jail employees in the participating localities, and the regional jail would require nearly 90 positions.
Radford Assistant City Manager Bob Lloyd said the jail committee's intent was to offer local jail employees a chance to qualify for a position at the regional jail. He said existing jails do not have all the positions they need for the numbers of prisoners they handle.
Lloyd said there have been inquiries about the jail project from at least two additional jurisdictions, although neither has expressed interest in joining the project at this time.
Localities are finding it more difficult and costly to meet increasing state requirements for jail operations. Rundgren said localities generally had done a good job of maintaining their jails but often were limited by the ages of their buildings and other factors.
The county jail was built in Carroll in 1936; Grayson, 1943; Giles, 1948; Pulaski, 1951; and Floyd, 1952. Wythe County, which helped fund an earlier regional jail study but dropped out in November, has a jail that dates back to 1928.
The regional jail plan calls for some detention interventions to keep its prison population from becoming too large.
Local jails would be maintained to hold prisoners charged with alcohol-related offenses who would be released after they sobered up.
Rundgren said about 40 percent of arrests are alcohol-related, and the local jails would avoid unnecessary transportation of those prisoners to and from the regional jail.
A planned electronic communications system also would make it unnecessary to transport prisoners to the jail to appear before a magistrate. The state code allows "personal appearance by two-way electronic video and audio communication."
by CNB