THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, July 26, 1995 TAG: 9507260365
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B7 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JAN VERTEFEUILLE, LANDMARK NEWS SERVICE
DATELINE: LYNCHBURG LENGTH: Short : 41 lines
For a second time, a federal judge has rebuffed a group of Bland Correctional Center inmates who are trying to save a program they hope would keep them from raping, molesting and abusing again when released.
U.S. District Judge James Turk refused Tuesday to take immediate action to save a prison program for sex offenders, but he did allow the prisoners' case against the state to continue to a federal hearing.
The Allen administration cut funding for the first-of-its-kind state program last month, arguing that treatment for sex offenders has a low success rate and that the money would be better spent elsewhere.
Twenty-six of the 48 prisoners in the therapeutic treatment program at Bland have sued the state in federal court, asking that the program be resumed.
More immediately, they had hoped a judge would order the prison not to put them back into the general population, where they fear for their safety now that they are known to be sex offenders and child molesters. The judge declined to order any action by the prison.
The 48 men in the program had been housed together, living in double-wide trailers away from the other prisoners.
They were part of the state's first therapeutic program to try to control sex offenders' deviant behavior. The program required intense, daily therapy and educational programs.
The program had been working with inmates a little more than a year when the Allen administration cut its $220,000 annual funding.
The program ended June 30, the end of the fiscal year. It was begun in 1993 after a General Assembly study found that the state lacked such programs.
KEYWORDS: SES CRIME PRISON PROGRAM TREATMENT by CNB