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

DATE: SATURDAY, August 5, 1995                   TAG: 9508070025
SECTION: CURRENT                    PAGE: NRV5   EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY 
SOURCE: NEW RIVER VALLEY BUREAU
DATELINE: RADFORD                                 LENGTH: Medium

AUTHORITY FEELS EXPANDABLE JAIL BEST PLAN TO HANDLE RISE IN FEMALE INMATES

The number of male prisoners is going down and the number of female prisoners is going up in the localities to be served by a regional jail. But jail authority members still feel safe with their expandable 240-bed plan.

Dave Rundgren, executive director of the New River Valley Planning District Commission, told the authority Friday that 1994 data showed misdemeanor arrests have gone down more than any other category.

But the number of women in jail is the real issue. "Male [prisoner] population is going down, according to arrests and all these things. Female is going up .. It's going to get at 25 percent."

For that reason, Rundgren used several different ways of calculating what the prisoner population for the city of Radford and counties of Pulaski, Giles and Grayson will be when the jail is built in a few years. Most of them still hit near the 240-prisoner figure.

Virginia jails now hold about a third of the state prisoners serving more than two years for felony convictions. The state is supposed to take all those prisoners, which would also affect the population for the regional jail, but it is unknown how soon the state will have facilities for them.

Rundgren said he would be more comfortable with 300 beds for the regional jail, but Authority Chairman Bob Lloyd said the 240 figure works best. The jail is being planned so that it can be expanded by 48 beds at a time up to 600.

Lloyd noted that the state's projections of future prisoner populations are higher than the region's estimates. If the authority had based its jail proposal on Department of Corrections figures, he said, "we would be talking about a 600-bed facility, no argument."

by CNB