THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Tuesday, December 13, 1994 TAG: 9412130298
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY KAREN JOLLY DAVIS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: EASTVILLE LENGTH: Medium: 61 lines
While residents continue to protest the state's plan to build a 1,267-inmate maximum-security prison in Northampton County, a state official has responded in writing to questions about the facility.
John McCluskey, chief deputy director of the state Department of Corrections, sent a letter to the chairman of the Board of Supervisors, Tom Dixin, in response to questions at a public hearing last week.
Monday night, prison opponents continued their protest at a regular meeting of the supervisors at Northampton High School.
A three-story banner held aloft by a crane outside the building and illuminated by stoplights carried this message: ``Shorebirds yes. Jailbirds no.''
Residents are worried that the prison would pose a threat to public health and safety and would create a ``stigma'' for the community.
A copy of McCluskey's letter, dated Sunday, was obtained by The Virginian-Pilot and The Ledger-Star. Among the points it makes:
As of July, 1.8 percent of Virginia's prison population tested positive for the HIV virus or had contracted AIDS. None of the prisoners had tuberculosis or hepatitis, which Northampton residents believed to be a problem.
Inmates with AIDS complications are moved to regional corrections medical centers, such as Powhatan and Greensville, and do not receive long-term treatment in local hospitals.
Over an 11-month period at the maximum-security Buckingham Correctional Center, an average of seven emergency room visits were made per month to the local hospital. Costs were reimbursed by the Department of Corrections.
The cost for transportation to a prison in Northampton County will be half that of trips to other, more distant maximum-security facilities. New male inmates are processed through the department's Powhatan County Reception Centers. The department makes two trips a week from there to prisons in southwest Virginia, carrying an average of 25 inmates each trip.
Local residents also questioned how costly it would be to transport prisoners across the ChesapeakeBay Bridge-Tunnel.
McCluskey's letter gave this explanation:
For two officers to drive the 700-mile round trip from Powhatan to the Keen Mountain Correctional Center would take 12 hours and cost $414.44, an average of $16.62 per inmate. To transport the same prisoners from Powhatan to Northampton County would take five hours and cost $8.72 per inmate, including the bridge-tunnel toll.
Finally, residents wanted to know how many local jobs would be created.
McCluskey said the number of experienced correctional officers hired for facilities built since 1990 has varied widely.
In some cases, the Department of Corrections began recruiting in areas around the prisons for up to two years before the facility's opening.
McCluskey's seven-page letter describes prisons as a ``clean, unobtrusive'' industry with few effects on industrial development, tourism or property values. He said that the community will not suffer a stigma and that no community in Virginia is viewed as a ``prison community.''
KEYWORDS: CORRECTIONAL FACILITY PROPOSED PRISON by CNB