THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1997, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, January 17, 1997 TAG: 9701180339
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B7 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SUSIE STOUGHTON, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SUFFOLK LENGTH: 51 lines
Before recent expansion at the Tidewater Detention Center, juveniles sometimes had to sleep in the lobby, the gymnasium or on a mattress in front of a toilet.
And with the juvenile crime rate rising, city officials fear such overcrowding could happen again. They're trying to make sure there's adequate space for 12- to 18-year-olds arrested here.
On Thursday, Brunswick County said that it had agreed to join Suffolk and four other localities considering a regional juvenile detention center.
Earlier, the cities of Franklin and Greensville, and Isle of Wight and Southampton counties had opted to participate.
The facility, which could be built here, would likely be modeled after the 4-year-old regional jail that serves Suffolk, Franklin and Isle of Wight County, said Cynthia Rohlf, assistant to the city manager.
``We are going to have the larger percentage of the population,'' she said.
Regional cooperation has worked well at the Western Tidewater Regional Jail in the Elephant's Fork area of the city.
But size, location and type of facility would be determined in a study to be done by MMM Design Group of Norfolk. The consultants will also examine the possibility of partial funding from the state.
``The state is real interested in helping localities build juvenile detention centers,'' Rohlf said. ``They know the need is there, and it is going to increase.''
Brunswick and Greensville counties now send juveniles who are arrested to Crater Detention Center in Prince George County. The other localities send theirs to Tidewater Detention Center in Chesapeake, which doubled its number of beds to 100 last fall.
Brunswick County Administrator Jeffrey D. Johnson said the drive across U.S. Route 58 from Lawrenceville, the county seat, would not take much longer than driving to Crater.
The assessment, which will be done in phases over several months, will cost $41,100 to determine projected needs for bed space over the next 15 years. Each locality will contribute $6,850.
The localities have committed only to the study, not actual construction. But Suffolk has included $3.7 million for such a facility in its proposed capital improvements budget.
Tidewater Detention Center, which has been in operation for about 35 years, serves all Southside cities except Norfolk, which is building an 80-bed facility to augment its 44-bed center.
Other cities are trying to prepare for the burgeoning juvenile offender population. Virginia Beach has bought land for a 45-bed center it hopes to complete by mid-1999. And on the Peninsula, York County is planning a multi-jurisdictional center.