Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 29, 1995 TAG: 9503290058
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: Associated Press
DATELINE: LAWRENCEVILLE LENGTH: Medium
But Brunswick, which welcomed the center while many localities were rejecting prisons, may yet be the site of a private corrections project.
The 500-bed prison would have housed inmates nearing the end of their prison terms. Such a facility offers job training, education and counseling to help prisoners return to society.
Corrections Department officials said Monday they chose not to issue a contract to build the minimum-security prison in part because the rural county is too far away from the urban areas many of the prison's inmates would have come from.
``What you're trying to do is integrate this guy back in'' to his community, said Mike Leininger, assistant to the director of the Corrections Department.
Dominion Leasing Inc. of Edmond, Okla., was to build the prison. Corrections Partners Inc. of Kansas City was to run it.
Leininger said corrections officials ``still think the pre-release center would be good. The issue here is, where do you put these things in order to get the best use out of them?''
The state at first had stipulated the center be near an urban area so inmates could begin working in their community.
But corrections officials relaxed their stand on location after CPI ran into opposition in King William County, Chesapeake, Petersburg and other places near Richmond and Hampton Roads.
The private prison was to create about 80 jobs, and Brunswick County accepted it readily with little opposition from residents.
CPI and Dominion Leasing had been working on the project since 1993 but didn't have a contract with the state, said Andrew Molloy, special programs manager for the Department of Corrections.
``We felt it was best to back off,'' Molloy said. ``It was something that would be new and different for us, and it still holds a lot of promise.''
This year's General Assembly authorized the state to contract with private companies for several medium- and minimum-security prisons.
Peter Rich, a vice president at CPI, said the company plans to pursue other corrections projects in Virginia.
Leininger said CPI and Dominion Leasing ``are in position to enter in the race again. They have a site, they have a plan.
``We hope they'll stay involved and be in a position to offer a proposal that the department would think would operate better at the Brunswick site.''
by CNB