NEWS

November 15, 2007
Legislators endorse upgrades of prisons

A committee of the Iowa Legislature has proposed nearly $240 million in prison construction, including a new maximum-security facility at Fort Madison and expansions of the Mitchellville and Newton prisons.

The State Prison System Study Committee voted 7-2 Wednesday to send the recommendations to the full Iowa Legislature, which convenes in January. Lawmakers said they would finance the projects by issuing bonds that would be repaid over a period of years.

Sen. Eugene Fraise, a Fort Madison Democrat who is co-chairman of the panel, said lawmakers have no choice but to approve the construction because of prison overcrowding and projections for future growth of Iowa's inmate population.

On Wednesday, Iowa's nine prisons held 8,870 inmates, 20 percent more than their designed capacity. If lawmakers don't address overcrowding, federal courts will likely intervene, forcing state officials to pay for even more for costly improvements, Fraise said.
"We don't want that to happen," he added.

The push for new prison construction began in November 2005 after two dangerous inmates escaped from the Fort Madison prison's aging maximum-security unit, parts of which were constructed before the Civil War.

The plan recommended Wednesday by the joint House-Senate committee was based on a study by the Durrant Group, a consulting firm with Des Moines offices. The recommendations include:

Constructing a new maximum-security prison at a cost of $121.2 million on land north of Fort Madison along U.S. Highway 61 that is now used as a prison farm. Newer prison buildings at the Iowa State Penitentiary complex would remain in use, and the committee recommended that prison officials consider possible future uses for existing cell houses that would be vacated if the new prison is built.

Consolidating all of Iowa's female inmates at the Mitchellville prison in a project costing $51.4 million. Older facilities would be demolished or modernized, and housing would be built to accommodate more inmates. The Mitchellville prison now holds 593 inmates, and women are entering Iowa's prisons at a faster rate than men.

Adding a new cell house for 400 inmates a price of $25.3 million at the Newton Correctional Facility, which now holds 1,167 prisoners.

Constructing housing at a cost of $41.5 million to accommodate at least 207 more offenders at community corrections facilities in Des Moines, Ottumwa, Sioux City and Waterloo.

The committee also urged the Iowa Legislature to attempt to limit the need for additional prison beds by increased use of community corrections programs, diversion programs such as drug courts, substance abuse and mental health treatment, and education and training programs, and through additional research on corrections programs.
The two negative votes were cast by Republicans - Reps. David Tjepkes of Gowrie and Steven Lukan of New Vienna.

Tjepkes said more discussion is needed on why so many Iowans are being imprisoned and how they can be rehabilitated. In addition, spending $239.4 million to finance the projects would be a major budget issue. He wanted assurances the matter will be debated as a separate bill, and not tucked into a broader package of legislation.

Lukan said he welcomed further study of prison issues. "We are going to seriously have to look at whether this is affordable," he said.
This was the first time Iowa legislators have recommended approval of such a major package of prison projects. The Iowa Board of Corrections endorsed the improvements in September.

State Rep. Todd Taylor, a Cedar Rapids Democrat who is the study panel's co-chairman, said the projects recommended Wednesday aren't aiming at spurring economic development in rural Iowa, although that was a factor behind Iowa prison construction in the 1990s.

Taylor also said he would welcome consideration of proposals to develop the Knoxville Veterans Affairs Medical Center and the Independence Mental Health Institute as state prison treatment centers or as community corrections facilities.

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